Al-Anon Through the Soul Recovery Lens - When the Bottom is the Beginning: Love, Surrender, and the Freedom to Let Go

This week, I’m sharing something special with the whole Recover Your Soul community — an episode that originally aired on the Bonus Podcast back in June. The Bonus Podcast is where we take a deeper dive into Soul Recovery, with spiritual book studies, guest conversations, and real-life reflections inspired by Al-Anon, metaphysics, and the healing journey within. If you’ve never tuned in, I wanted you to experience the richness of these episodes for yourself — and if you love it, you can join us as a free or paid member on Patreon, or as an Apple Podcast subscriber, where there are over 200 bonus episodes waiting for you.

In this episode, we explore “Love and Surrender” — a powerful Al-Anon reading that speaks to the moment we finally release the day-to-day pain and guilt of trying to fix someone else’s life. Through the lens of Soul Recovery, we talk about letting go of the illusion of control, setting healthy boundaries, and choosing our own healing over managing another person’s journey. Whether it’s with a child, spouse, or someone else you love, this is about opening our hearts to unconditional love — the kind that allows others to have their own experiences, while we stay grounded in our own spiritual connection and well-being.

This is the work of Soul Recovery: moving from enmeshment and exhaustion into compassion, clarity, and freedom. I hope you’ll listen, let it sink in, and f

The Soul Recovery FREE Zoom Support Group will meet on September 8th due to Labor Day, and there is still time to register for the upcoming in-person retreat in Asheville NC September 13-14th. Visit the website to learn more and register! 

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not allied or representative of any organizations or religions, but is based on the opinions and experience of Rev. Rachel Harrison or guests. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Chapters

• 0:00 Love and Surrender Through Soul Recovery
• 2:40 The Moment of Surrender
• 5:40 The Freedom in Giving Up Control
• 10:04 Choosing Your Own Healing First
• 15:24 Maintaining Boundaries with an Open Heart
• 23:24 Compassion Without Expectations

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:00

Today's episode is another one of our looking at Al-Anon through the lens of soul recovery, and this one is called Love and Surrender and it starts by saying I've replaced the day-to-day pain and guilt I experienced while my son drank himself into the world of alcohol by letting go in Al-Anon. And we can say that in the same with soul recovery, that we replace the day-to-day pain and suffering that we experience by learning that we are powerless over their choices. We're powerless over their addiction, and not powerless in a way that just throws it all away but really opens our heart. To give them the opportunity, permission, acceptance to have the experience that they're going to have and to choose ourselves and our own healing and to step into our connection with our higher self and our higher power and see things from a new, healthier perspective and not try to fix, control, change, manipulate or save them from what they need to learn and grow. This episode was originally aired on the Recovery Soul Bonus Podcast on June 20th 2025. I wanted to share with you the amazing episodes that we share on that bonus podcast that deal with Al-Anon, soul recovery, incredible inspirational interviews and the opportunity to take a deeper dive into your soul recovery. Enjoy the episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:26

Welcome to the Recovery Soul Bonus Podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. My name is Rev Rachel Harrison. I started Recover your Soul after having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency and control addiction. This bonus podcast offers a deeper dive into the soul recovery process With expanded teaching, spiritual book studies, interviews and reflections inspired by Al-Anon metaphysics and healing from within. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our inner change and healing. Positive results in our life will follow.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 2:08

Welcome to the Recovery Soul Bonus Podcast. It's Rev Rachel and I am excited to be together today Again. I just always sit here with my eyes closed and my heart open and just am filled with gratitude that we're on this journey together. I'm humbled and honored that you're on the soul recovery path with me. It has so transformed my life and I feel like I am an entirely different person. In the metaphysics world they say you actually are an entirely different person, which is amazing, and we're working on how to let go, how to not try to control the world when it feels really difficult or painful, or we're watching people that we love make difficult choices, and many of you came here because of Al-Anon and you're on this deeper dive in the bonus podcast because you want more of that, along with the metaphysics that goes with it, seeing it through this eyes of spirituality, seeing it through the eyes of soul recovery, seeing it through the eyes of love. And so we continue this journey where we're reading from In All of Our Affairs Making Crisis Work for you by Al-Anon Family Groups, and we're in the section part two on acceptance, particularly on surrender, and we're page 111, which is fabulous because that's my angel number, so anytime I see 111, I know that I'm exactly in the right place.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:34

And today we're continuing this book study that we're doing on individual sections and really looking at them from this new lens and taking that deeper look into the spiritual concepts that come from it. And this one's called Love and Surrender, and I thought this one was really powerful because, again, it's really having family members, especially our kids, who are in difficult situations. And I just have so many people that are coming and working with me who are in this situation where they have adult children who are no longer children they are now adults but we feel like there are children and it's incredibly painful to watch them go through whatever it is that their soul's here to go through and to have that experience. And you know that I get you because I've got Alex and Bodie, who are 28 and 25 years old, and that they're on their own journeys and thankfully they have found a way to be in the world right now that isn't in crisis. It's not like there's magic fairy dust that we sprinkle on the people around us that makes them be better, because that isn't our job to make them be better. But I do feel like it's important for us to take credit that when we truly step into our own healing, when we really recognize that this work that we're doing to heal ourselves is the number one priority, it will positively affect the people around us.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:07

So it'd be interesting to know if I hadn't got sober, if I hadn't done soul recovery, if I hadn't done this work, if we could have a crystal ball and look at what it would have looked like or go into some other potential dimension that shows that outcome. I have a feeling that they wouldn't be doing as well. I have a feeling that this work that I've done has created a ripple effect within their own lives to give them some resources, some strength, some place where they can be themselves and make changes, some place where they can be themselves and make changes. And yet, at the same time, I am not responsible for those changes and we shouldn't bring it back on ourselves saying if I had done this good enough, then they would be better. That's not the point either. So I know many of you are working very, very hard on your stuff and you still have kids who are in really difficult situations. So I think that it's important for us just to hold space for all of it without judgment, but to really come back to our own experience.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:12

So this particular reading I thought was really good. It's called Love and Surrender and it says I have replaced the day-to-day pain and guilt I experienced while my son sank into a world of alcohol, drugs, suicide attempts, crime and finally prison by letting go in Al-Anon. Looking back, it seems as if it all happened to someone else. When my son came home from prison, the atmosphere in our home had deteriorated into an ugly, black silence between his parents. An alcoholic daughter and her baby were back with us. My son could never stand her for very long. She cried a lot. He raged a lot. I cried a lot.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:50

One day, as they yelled at one another more and more savagely, I threw up my hands in despair and said I give up, I give up. I can't make anyone in my family love one another and I need help. It was the greatest moment of my life. It makes me cry, actually, because I think we've all been there. I resonate really deeply with that experience of just being in a place where it's so painful and so hard and you're watching the people around you screaming and yelling. That's how I felt with my husband and my son. They just would be so horrible to each other. And you get to this place where you've done everything you know you've tried. She says I give up. I give up, I can't make anyone in my family love one another and I need help. She says it was the greatest moment of my life and I went to my first Al-Anon meeting a couple of days later. It was never easy, but it was always better than that. My tools were willingness to listen and change, no matter how long it took, no matter how great the pain. I could get better, they said, and I did, hour by hour, day by day, in letting go, with love and with the help of the Al-Anon program, seeing to my own recovery. My son finally found recovery in AA, at least for today. Tomorrow, who knows? That's what's tomorrow, not mine All I have to do is keep my hands off and turn my heart on.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:32

There's so many beautiful things about this and I'm still really feeling a lot of emotion because I think, on some level, that part of us that never wants to experience that pain again. Or if you're in the midst of it. It's so intense and we many of us I know I was were in it for so long that it had been ramping up for such a long period of time, and many of us actually came from dysfunctional families or from alcoholic homes, and so it just felt so natural. And yet at some moment, this is a step one in soul recovery, ready for awakening. That says recognize suffering, become aware that your dissatisfaction and suffering is caused by your current perceptions, beliefs, patterns and stories, and that story may be. I have to fix this, it's my responsibility to take care of this. And that's the suffering that you continue to want something that isn't there, to try to make it be something different than what it actually is. And when you throw your hands up and you say I have to do something different, I have to save myself. That is literally one of the greatest gifts that comes, because it means you're ready to do the work and she says it. She says, no matter how long it took, no matter how great the pain, I could get better. They said, and I did, hour by hour, day by day.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:45

When we let go when we love and let go when we love unconditionally enough to let them be in, whatever their experience is, we shift and change the behaviors and the patterns that have been running for a long time around enmeshment and codependency and enabling and these things that we've done to try to save them from the experience they're in. And ultimately, what's fascinating is, we hit the wall, we hit our bottom and we're wondering when are they gonna hit bottom? Well, that doesn't matter, because the only thing that you can control is you. This is step two in soul recovery. When we recognize that our pain and suffering comes from our attachment to control and the illusion of power over others, we think that we can fix them, we think that we can change it. And this dark energy I love how she describes this as like this black silence I'm not entirely exactly sure an alcoholic daughter is that her daughter and baby? I'm not entirely sure what that meant, or whether that's the baby mama or what it is. It doesn't even matter. What matters is that we bring on a bunch of other people's stuff in hopes that we can hold space for them, we can love them enough, we can do for them enough.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:10

Are you ready to step into your soul recovery? Visit the website recoveryoursoulnet to learn more about the nine-step soul recovery process. I hope that you'll join us the first Monday of every month for the free soul recovery support group on zoom, where we learn more about soul recovery and connect with each other. If you'd like to work directly with me to move through the nine step soul recovery process, I'm here for you, but you can also choose to work the steps on your own, with individual modules intended to support you, to work at your own pace and on your own time. And if you want even more soul recovery, join us for the Recover your Soul bonus podcast for Patreon members and Apple podcast subscribers, where I interview amazing people sharing soul recovery tips for us and also do spiritual book studies. You can also find daily inspiration on Facebook and Instagram and join our private Facebook community. Visit the website for more information, links and registration for everything. Back to the episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:10

And I had that exact same moment, when the biggest last fight actually wasn't the biggest. It was one of many of the last fights that Rich and Alex had. It was right before Alex went to move to California and he had had other things in his life that were really falling apart, and he had come home. He had come home. He hadn't been home since he was 18 years old and here he was like 25 or something at the time, 24 at the time and he was feeling like he was getting the kind of support that he wanted and needed, was feeling like he was getting the kind of support that he wanted and needed, and he felt really good about that, and I felt really good about that. And then there they were in the street in front of a job, screaming and yelling each other and threatening each other and all the things that used to happen on such a regular basis. And when he called me and he said I can't do this anymore, that was such a beautiful moment because he, too, got to the breaking point where he said I have to do something different, and that's when he got an airplane ticket one way ticket to California has never come back the best thing that could have happened.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:21

So those moments that feel like the worst thing, that feel like the world is crashing down, sometimes it's just that incredible storm that needs to happen to actually force change, because we can handle and deal with pretty crappy, unpleasant, unhappy for a long time, which is really unfortunate. Isn't it interesting that we've dampened down our feelings for so long that when it doesn't feel good, when we know in the depths of our heart that there's something not right, when we know we've got to make change, we don't listen to those intuitions, those guidances. And so often there is a still small voice that's whispering in your ear what needs to happen next, but we have stopped listening. And so it takes some big something to get to the place where you are so fed up. Well, interestingly enough, that's also what happens when you're an addict.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:24

Is you have to get to a place where you are so fed up, and how that looks to somebody could be very different than what it looks like to somebody else, when we can be strong and in our own sovereignty about what it is that we're prepared to do, for ourselves first and foremost and that we are choosing our own sanity, our own healing, our own spiritual recovery over anybody else's. We're actually allowing them to do a couple things. First and foremost, we're handing them back their experience, their cause and effect, and we can't possibly know on a soul level what it is that they're here to learn and experience, and it might mean that they have a hard life. Not everything turns out with the roses at the end, and I love that. She says that my son found recovery for today. You've been on this journey with me, you know. You know my kids go in and out of sobriety and every time they're in full sobriety I get so excited and I hope they'll pick it. And not once, not once so far have they decided that that's what they want. Well, I didn't get sober till I was 48 either. So, literally, who am I to say that this is when they're supposed to do it? I hope they do it sooner than I did. I hope they don't have to go through as much dark night of the soul as I did.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:59

But it wasn't until I hit my own wall, and really that wall for me wasn't the decision to quit drinking, because Rich had decided that he wanted to quit drinking for athletic reasons and I knew I had to save my life. It was actually in a fight in the car with Rich and just hearing him be who was somebody that I didn't enjoy and thinking to myself the only way out of this situation is for me to get better. This is not going to work for me anymore. I threw my hands up and I thought to myself I don't know if my marriage is going to make it. I have no idea. But at this point that is not what I have my focus on. My focus is on I am going to save myself, I'm going to heal myself, I'm going to get clarity about who I am and how I can be in my life, and I'm going to stop dinking around and trying to control everybody else's stuff, because they're all nuts, they're all in dysfunction, they're all making their own choices.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:06

I was at that point. I was surrounded by addiction my husband and my two kids, massive addiction, and my heart hurt, and I know that your heart hurts too. But when we choose soul recovery, when we step into the place where we are actually choosing our spiritual journey, we actually can learn how to see it from a new perspective, our perception changes how we choose to see it and we start having compassion for everyone around us that, wow, this is what they're choosing. That must be hard. I'm not going to live in your choice anymore. And so the fact that the boys moved to California ended up being one of the greatest gifts, because it gave enough space for them to make their own choices Well, I was still in the same house with Rich for them to make their own choices.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:02

Well, I was still in the same house with Rich. It's been a journey. We just celebrated 31 years of marriage this week. It's still a journey, my friends. I know that many of you hold a light that Rich and I have made it and we have made it, but it is still a journey. It is not perfect and he still has a lot of days where he gets upset at the world or can be intense in a way that I wish could be different. But I've learned how to hold space for him, how to have clarity when there's something going on that I don't need to be the place where you put all of your frustration. I know that we are best friends now, but sometimes you got to vent to somebody else. I don't need or want to hear all of the venting, and that's new. That's me actually standing up for myself and letting go of control, which is the fact that I'm powerless over how he's feeling about all these things, but I'm not powerless over how I choose to be with it. I'm not powerless over how I respond to it and I'm really not powerless over how I let it into my body, even if sometimes it takes a little while for it to shake off. But luckily it shakes off in a couple hours versus a couple days or even weeks like it used to. And the truth is we are different people. She said that. She says I feel like that was an entirely different person. And I said before we even started I feel like I'm an entirely different person.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:39

And if you go way off into the spiritual woo-woo, what they say is not only do our cells regenerate and we are entirely cellular structure, an entirely different person every seven years. In the quantum. It talks about how we're constantly shifting realities. And that's that reality that if I hadn't gotten sober and done soul recovery somewhere in the reality, there has to be the other way that it went and I can't imagine that it's good. But we are here and it reminds me the power of choice that we have to choose the feelings, the thoughts. We've been talking about this on the main podcast.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:33

We've been talking about this on the main podcast each thought that you choose, each word that you choose to say has power and that allows you to move more into, on the total woo end of it, if there are other realities or other dimensions, and our vibration, our ability to be present with, moves us into those spaces. Don't you want to be there? I do. I want to be there so bad because it feels better to me, because I feel at ease there, I feel contented there, I feel myself there, I feel whole there, and so if that's the choice that I have, if that's the control that I have not about the out there, no control of the out there, but complete control of the inside of myself, my sovereign state then that's where I'm going to put my energy. And then in this day, you're looking at what is and you see it from your heart. She says at the end, with an open heart We've done so much protection and closed our heart, but you can be of an open heart that doesn't allow people to harm you, because you're in your spiritual protection, when you're in that space of wholeness, you can see that people are inflicting what feels like woundedness on you, but it's really them, right?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:59

So when Rich is in one of those states where he's upset and he's feeling aggravated or irritated at things, it's really his own experience of his pain and I don't need to take it personally, I don't need to make assumptions about what it is for him. I can just allow it to be and not try to fix it, change it, manage it, mother it, all those things. And then with the kids, I find that, because they are far away, so I feel for those of you that have your complicated children right in your world and I hear something like when Bodhi, who was supposedly sober, turns out that he actually wasn't, that he was drinking, I attend to the part of me that has the feeling. That is a valid feeling for me to have, because this is never about not feeling your feelings. This is about you actually attending to that feeling disappointment, sadness, fear and then you move into your higher self, which remembers that everyone's in their own experience. You release it. You do not need to control it, I don't need to fix it, I don't need to make it different for him. I need to see the light that he is. I need to remember that he's on his journey. I need to remember his wholeness. I need to ask questions that might be open questions, where he can actually share and bounce ideas with me, where he feels safe enough to actually really disclose what his choices are and why he's making the choices that he is.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:35

Ultimately, addiction is really a protection and a cover of our broken heart or it is the belief system that this is the only way I'll fit in or have fun, and for some people they get to have drinks and have fun. Some people can do party drugs every once in a while and it's great. Addiction is a whole other journey and addiction is really a loss of their spiritual self. It is a place where there's so much darkness. It is a place where there's so much darkness and if we can have some compassion for that darkness and infuse them with light and love, while letting go of outcomes, while letting go of control, while letting go of expectations and then holding those boundaries, I would assume that this woman no longer has any of these people living in her house. That would be my assumption. It definitely has real world implications of people in our lives that are complicated. But soul recovery is this opportunity for us to step into our spiritually grounded, resourced self, into our spiritually grounded, resourced self, into our higher self in the inner sanctuary of our heart, and to see everything from this step back, from a place of connectedness and boundaries at the same time, while we let go and surrender with love Until next time.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:10

Namaste, thank you for listening and I hope that that helps support your soul recovery process. Just a reminder that every Friday is the recover your soul bonus podcast. This podcast is for Patreon members and Apple podcast subscribers, and not only do you get an incredible interview or book study that comes with being part of that community, but your subscribing helps support this podcast and the Recover your Soul community. If you want to listen to those bonus episodes but can't subscribe right now, do know that you can be a free Patreon member and have access for limited time to new episodes. Visit the website RecoverYourSoulnet or check out the show links below for coupons and information for upcoming events. I thank you for sharing this podcast with your friends and family. I thank you for giving it five stars, and the reviews that are left bring tears to my eyes. I am honored to be part of your life. Together, we can do the work that will recover your soul.