Recovery spirituality for the God problem.
Father Bill W. is recovery spirituality taught through 12-step history, Episcopal faith, and the practice of Two-Way Prayer. Its center is the difficult, useful question of how people in recovery can approach God without pretending to understand God.
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Father Bill W. is a recovery spirituality show built around 12-step practice, Christian faith, and the unfinished work of prayer. Its recurring concern is not simply sobriety, but the spiritual life that can grow around it. Father Bill W. speaks as an Episcopal priest in Austin, Texas, and as someone in recovery since December 27, 1972. That long view matters. The show often returns to early AA, the Oxford Group, Bill Wilson, the Big Book, and the practices that shaped recovery before they became familiar formulas. It is especially useful for people who tense up around the word God. Recent episodes keep pressing on that problem from several directions, asking what recovery means when belief is uncertain, inherited ideas no longer fit, or a spiritual program feels out of reach. The phrase that best captures the mood is God as not understood. That does not make the show vague. It makes it patient. Father Bill W. works through books, prayer practices, historical sources, and personal experience with a style that is informal, self-aware, and willing to admit when the subject exceeds his comfort level. The theology can get ambitious. Caputo, radical theology, panentheism, Thomas Merton, Marcus Borg, Jung, and Bill Wilson all appear as reference points. Still, the episodes keep coming back to lived recovery: connection, correction, direction, quiet time, inventory, usefulness, stress, and the small disciplines that help a person stay spiritually available. Two-Way Prayer is a central thread, presented as practice rather than ornament. The show also makes room for guests and outside recordings, including conversations with Father James R. and teaching from Tom Lavin on stress. Its rhythm is pastoral but not soft-edged. There is humor, bluntness, and an old-school recovery directness beneath the theology. Father Bill W. suits listeners who want recovery talk with spiritual depth, historical memory, and enough intellectual honesty to sit with mystery instead of rushing past it.
Made for: For people in 12-step recovery, especially those wrestling with prayer, God language, AA history, or the spiritual roots of the program. It also suits Christian listeners interested in recovery practice rather than tidy devotional answers.
What sets it apart: The show combines lived long-term recovery, Episcopal theology, Two-Way Prayer, and close attention to early AA sources. It is unusually willing to bring radical theology and plain recovery talk into the same room.
I’m an Episcopal (Anglican) priest in recovery from alcoholism since 1972. I've spent my career in addiction treatment focused on 12-Step spirituality and exploring the pioneer history of AA. In discovering the lost 11th Step practice of Two Way Prayer, my program underwent a life-changing transformation. As Bill Wilson said, “ something was lost from AA when we stopped emphasizing the morning meditation." My mission now is helping people in 12-Step Fellowships explore a deeper understanding of spiritual practice and how it connects us to the "Great Reality" within. -Fr. Bill W.
Based on 4 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Father Bill W. connects theology, Oxford Group history and prayer with the lived demands of long-term 12-step recovery.
Father Bill W. brings an Episcopal priest's perspective and decades of personal recovery to the meeting point of theology and 12-step practice.
This is the show that sends your God concept to seminary, then brings it back to the meeting.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Two priests in recovery ask what prayer means when familiar images of God change.
Father Bill W. and Father James R., both Episcopal priests in recovery, ask what happens to prayer when someone's image of God changes. Drawing on John Caputo's radical theology, they consider how a person struggling with a God concept might stay open to a relationship with God.
Father Bill connects Psalm 40 to the Twelve Steps and encourages listeners to find readings that speak to them.
Father Bill W. reads Psalm 40 in Mitchell's rendering and hears, in its image of being lifted from a pit, an echo of his own recovery and the Twelve Steps. He presents that connection as his own, with room for listeners to hear the psalm differently.
Father Bill W. uses three words from an Oxford Group pamphlet to explain the Twelve Steps.
Father Bill W. explains the Twelve Steps through three words he found in an Oxford Group pamphlet: connection, correction and direction. In this bonus episode, he ties that simple outline to a change in his own practice.
Father Bill reads Life Changers through his recovery experience, tracing how trust and a desire for good can open the way to change.
Father Bill W. opens his series on Life Changers by following Harold Begbie to a house party. Guests get to know one another, work together and begin to speak more openly.
Two Bible translators unpack Scripture's hardest passages, from Revelation's 666 to the Witch of Endor.
Catholic arguments with pint-table warmth.
Daily headlines under Christian judgment.
Catholic homilies for the next faithful step.
Catholic teaching for ordinary discipleship.
Serious Bible questions, patiently reasoned.
Father Bill W discusses the final chapter of a book on the Oxford Group, focusing on the concept of guidance and its influence on Alcoholics Anonymous.
["Father Bill W., an Episcopal priest in Austin, Texas, and Father James R., an Episcopal priest in Central Florida, use John Caputo's \"What to Believe\" to connect radical theology with 12-step recovery.", "They define Caputo's pantheism as a \"depth dimension\" in ordinary things, not a claim that a broken lawnmower or \"boozy old Uncle Harry\" is God.", "The discussion links Caputo to Thomas Merton, Marcus Borg, Carl Jung, John Dominic Crossan, ritual, and two-way prayer, arguing that attention matters more than escape.", "The prayer section says honest prayer is not a vending machine request but a way of noticing what already has us, especially when the practice feels precarious."]
An Episcopal priest and a fellow recovering alcoholic discuss Jack Caputo's book on radical theology to explore the concept of God beyond understanding in 12-step recovery.
Father Bill W.’s “Let Go of God to Find God” examines changing ideas about God through 12-step recovery, Episcopal ministry, and John Caputo’s book What to Believe, 12 Brief Lessons in Radical Theology.
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Father Bill W.'s The Addicted Brain centers on Dr.
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Father Bill W., an Episcopal priest in Austin, Texas, opens a series on Harold Begbie's 1922 book Life Changers and the Oxford Group methods behind AA.