Jelly Roll Discloses AA Meeting Attendance On Unreleased Track ‘Winning Streak’

In a recent interview, country singer and rapper Jelly Roll opened up about attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings and their impact on his music and life.

The artist revealed that his upcoming album, Beautifully Broken, features a track titled Winning Streak, inspired by his reflections on AA meetings.

Jelly Roll, known for topping both the Mainstream Rock Airplay and Country Airplay charts, discussed to The New York Times how attending AA meetings has influenced his creative process.

Although he’s candid about not being “textbook sober”—he still enjoys occasional cocktails and is a regular weed smoker—he attends these meetings as a well-being check-up, acknowledging his past struggles with more harmful substances like cocaine and codeine. 

“I got away from the drugs that I knew were going to kill me. It was really hard for me to get away from those drugs,” he revealed.

“Something I do to maintenance my relationship with those drugs is I still attend the meetings but I never share. I just quietly sit and appreciate the message and the meaning.”

In his interview, which you can watch below, Jelly Roll explained that Winning Streak was inspired by an actual AA meeting he observed.

The track captures the crushingly real moment he witnessed an older, recovered member offer comfort to a young person feeling overwhelmed. It reminds them that most people attending AA meetings aren’t necessarily “on a winning streak” and are there to reflect on traumas. This experience resonated deeply with Jelly and became the emotional core of his song.

Winning Streak is one of the many songs on Jelly Roll’s upcoming album that deal with topics of trauma and adversity that hit very close to home for the singer.

Jelly, whose real name is Jason DeFord, had a turbulent first half of his life, shifting in and out of the courthouse from as young as 14 years old and witnessing the pain of addiction in himself and many loved ones. 

While finally experiencing the goodness life has to offer, Jelly reflected that adversity is part of the human condition.

“First of all, I hear these stories every night. I hear what the songs are doing for people. All of a sudden, what I thought was just my story becomes the story of tens of millions. It’s deeper than my story. This is my child’s mother’s story, who’s still actively in and out of jail and in her addiction. That’s how close this still is to my house, regardless of the size of my house.”

While unreleased, Winning Streak will follow Jelly Roll’s latest track, Get By (premiering later this week), and the already-released Liar.