A professional ballerina turned "run-of-the-mill alcoholic," Egan Carroll spent years believing she was constitutionally incapable of getting well until a chance conversation on a New Jersey beach brought her to The Magdalen House. She shares how a relapse, a hurricane, and a second chance led her to the spiritual solution, and why she now knows that as long as we are alive, there's still hope.
What You'll Hear
- What is the difference between sobriety and recovery? Why two and a half years without a drink was sobriety, not recovery.
- Is willpower enough to stop drinking? A former professional ballerina on why discipline could not solve her alcoholism.
- Free women's alcohol recovery programs? How a stranger on a New Jersey beach led her to The Magdalen House.
- What does life look like after recovery? Motherhood, a house fire faced without fear, and making amends.
What Is the Difference Between Sobriety and Recovery?
Egan entered Alcoholics Anonymous at 22, one week after college graduation, and stayed sober for two and a half years. Looking back, she calls it sober time rather than recovered time. She describes herself as "sober on fellowship," with meetings, bowling, and late-night diners filling the space alcohol had left. When COVID removed the fellowship, nothing spiritual remained underneath it, and she relapsed. That was when her real Step One began. She had never understood the Big Book's distinction between being able to stop drinking and being able to stay stopped.
Why Do Alcoholics Relapse After Treatment?
Over the next four years, Egan went to treatment at least seven times, including a 75-day inpatient trauma program. Each time, professionals told her that her drinking would end once her depression, trauma, or stress was resolved. She did that work and kept drinking. Her last drink proved the point. She was sober, wanted to stay sober, and had a flight booked back to Dallas, and she was drunk before she made it to the airport. Sponsors had asked her why she did not "play the tape." In her words: "I am drunk before I even remember that there is a tape to play." That experience brought the ego deflation the Big Book describes, and with it the willingness to accept a spiritual solution.
What Does Free Alcohol Recovery in Dallas Look Like?
Egan arrived at The Magdalen House after eight years in AA. She could recite "How It Works" without looking at the page, yet after so many treatment centers she distrusted AA, sponsors, and anyone who offered her direction. Her journal from that first stay asks why the women were doing chores. Within days she left for a sober living home in Florida, which Hurricane Milton destroyed on her third day there. What changed her mind was a simple question. When she repeated a familiar AA saying, her sponsor asked whether it was actually in the book. It was not. For the first time, Egan saw that every word of the Big Book holds meaning, including Step Three — a decision she had never actually made. The volunteers confirmed it: they worked unpaid 16-hour overnight shifts and returned to chair meetings, with no incentive to mislead her.
On her second stay, Egan took every suggestion. After graduating from Next Step, she volunteered enough hours to equal the cost of both of her stays. Next Step is a free, 12-week program for any stage of recovery. It continues the foundation First Step builds in Steps One through Three, with deeper work in the remaining Steps, spiritual principles, the Traditions, and relationships, along with service through the Community.
Today Egan is a mother and a partner, and she works at the house where she says her life started. Her message to anyone still struggling comes from her sponsor: so long as we are alive, there is still hope.
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