Just Your Average Joel
Join Joel and Jennifer, Husband and Wife, who share sobriety and and faith for over 30 years. They challenge AA organization and apply the 12 steps and their faith to help keep them living with purpose and void of the influence of drugs and alcohol.
Episodes
14 episodes
Stop Worshipping The Finger And Meet God
Most people can explain the Twelve Steps. Far fewer can point to the moment they actually changed on the inside. We go straight at that gap by walking through the Big Book language around Steps 5, 6, and 7 and asking a blunt question: if the sp...
Kumbaya Doesn’t Fix Psychosis
A lot of damage gets done by people who sound kind. We’re seeing it in the culture, in recovery rooms, and all over social media, where empathy gets weaponized into a free pass and the victims get treated like an inconvenience. That’s the heart...
Stop Saving Face And Start Saving Your Ass
The Fifth Step gets talked about like a dreaded confession, but what if it’s actually the moment the “essential psychic change” finally becomes real? We sit down with the Big Book open and ask the uncomfortable question: why do so many people c...
Why Step Three Must Change Everything
What if the reason sobriety feels flat isn’t a lack of meetings, but a lack of surrender? We pick up our walkthrough of the 12 Steps by recapping Step 3 and stepping into Step 4, and we don’t soften the point: Alcoholics Anonymous was built to ...
A Real Decision Creates A New Life
Step Three gets treated like a speed bump, but it’s the hinge that swings the whole door of recovery. We dig into why “we decided to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God” is not a vibe, a slogan, or a box to check. It’s a decisio...
Why Step Two Starts With Hopelessness And Ends With Hope
If you’ve ever wondered why some people stay stuck in recovery even after years sober, we go straight to the uncomfortable answer: they may have stopped drinking without ever finding the power that actually changes a life. We take on Step Two i...
Step One Or Nothing
If you’ve ever wondered why you can be totally convinced you “shouldn’t drink” and still pick up anyway, we go straight to the Big Book answer: Step One isn’t about shame, it’s about reality. We unpack what “powerless over alcohol” really means...
What If Powerlessness Is Freedom
If you have ever said, “I can stop drinking, I just can’t stop thinking,” this conversation goes right at the nerve. We talk about why the real fight is not only the bottle, but the mind that keeps trying to run the show, even when we are sober...
The Big Book Was Built For A Spiritual Awakening Not A Social Club
AA doesn’t fail because people don’t try hard enough. It fails when we replace surrender with strategy, swap a living relationship with God for a safe set of rituals, and then act shocked when the relapse rate stays brutal.We go straigh...
AA Without God Isn’t AA
What if the reason so many people stall in recovery is that we’ve quietly edited the solution out of the story? Joel and Jen take a hard look at how AA’s center of gravity shifted from a bold surrender to God toward a softer, more palatable mes...
Pink Clouds And God Blockers In Recovery
Something got edited out of recovery culture, and you can feel the difference the moment you walk into certain meetings. We talk about why so many people can recite the AA slogans yet still miss the one thing the Big Book points to again and ag...
AA Didn’t Fill My Hole; God Did, Sorry Not Sorry
What if a spiritual awakening doesn’t hand you wings, but hands you a mirror? We dive into the space between bright light moments and everyday mess, and why responsibility, not time, decides how close we are to God right now. Joel shares the ba...
The Goal Is God: How AA’s Steps Point Beyond Fellowship To A Personal Relationship
What if recovery isn’t about stacking more meetings, but about a radical shift inside you? We pull on the thread running through the Big Book—from the “essential psychic change” to being “reborn” by Step Three—and make the case that the 12 step...
An Ordinary Man’s Journey Through Addiction, Ego, And A Spiritual Awakening;
A tidy Long Island childhood can hide a storm. Joel grew up fearless on the outside and fractured on the inside, armed with religious facts but starved of spirit. One drink at eleven felt like magic—what he now calls a synthetic spiritual exper...
