We Know the Way In and the Way Out – AA Speaker – Peter M.
AA speaker Peter M. shares on Steps 10, 11, and 12—personal inventory, prayer and meditation, and carrying the message. A deep dive into spiritual practice in long-term sobriety.
Peter M., an AA speaker from Canada, walks through the heart of Steps 10, 11, and 12—the daily work that sustains sobriety and deepens spiritual connection. In this AA speaker tape, he challenges common misconceptions about meditation, reveals why written inventory matters, and explains how God permeates every corner of a recovered life, from the home to the 12-step call.
Peter M., an experienced AA speaker, discusses Steps 10, 11, and 12, emphasizing the importance of daily written inventory, consistent prayer and meditation practice, and actively carrying the message to others. He addresses how spiritual awakening isn’t a one-time event but an ongoing deepening of God consciousness through discipline and surrender. He shares concrete examples of how this spiritual practice transforms relationships, work life, and the ability to do 12-step calls with newcomers and active addicts.
Episode Summary
Peter M. opens this talk with a striking image: the sound of silence. Before birth and after death, we return to silence, yet in sobriety we often flee from it. This is the core tension he explores—Steps 10, 11, and 12 aren’t about noise or activity, but about returning to the stillness that connects us to God.
For many in recovery, silence feels unbearable. The mind screams. The ego demands distraction. But Step 11 isn’t just prayer; it’s meditation—a practice of sacred silence that Peter M. describes as the spiritual bedrock of lasting sobriety. He isn’t preaching theory. He shares how this practice has evolved over decades in the program, from a newcomer terrified of stillness to a man who wakes each day in conversation with his Higher Power.
Step 10 and Step 11, Peter M. explains, run into each other like a river. Step 10 is the day’s inventory—the spot-check work, the immediate amends, the continuous self-awareness. His sponsor taught him four words to carry through each day: *Turn, watch, aware, observe.* Turn back to God to go out into the world. Watch your speech, your actions, your ego. Are you quiet when you should be offering something? Are you talking when you should be silent? Most of us talk when we should be quiet, he notes, because our point feels important.
But Step 11—the spiritual core—requires showing up in silence. Peter M. doesn’t mince words: meditation isn’t a casual practice. It’s not something you do “once in a while.” If you meditated once in a while when you were using, you’d never have gotten clean. Why approach sobriety differently? He shares the story of his sponsor calling early in the morning, still and excited from meditation, asking Peter M. one simple question: “Did you feed your spirit today?” Not your body, not your appearance—your spirit.
The talk deepens when Peter M. addresses the modern tendency to attach to *methodology* rather than worship. He got caught reading 24-hour meditations, daily reflections, inspirational books—until he realized he’d become a prisoner to the practice, not a student of the presence. Now his mornings are different: he surrenders (“Father, I surrender to your will, not mine be done”), he meditates in silence for as long as his “heavenly father needs” him there—whether that’s ten minutes or forty-five—and he doesn’t reduce God’s will to a spreadsheet.
This surrender matters because God doesn’t always work on our timeline. Peter M. recalls confronting a man who’d slandered him, his first instinct to leave the room. But his sponsor’s voice pulled him back. Instead of fighting, Peter M. built a bridge. He went to the man and offered genuine blessing: “Hi, how are you? Thank you for your service. God bless you.” He didn’t demand the man cross the bridge. That’s the man’s work. But Peter M. did his part. This is Step 10 in action—not obsessing over resentments, but moving them through promptly, practically, spiritually.
Step 12 is the overflow. Peter M. emphasizes that this isn’t just about sharing your story at meetings. It’s about how you live—in your home, at your job, in your relationships. Do your insides match your outsides? It’s about the 12-step call, that nearly lost art of walking into a crack house or a drunk’s apartment and bringing someone to safety. He shares his first 12-step call: terrified, soiled himself in the back seat of the car, yet the old-timer beside him stayed calm, teaching by example.
Peter M. pushes back against contemporary AA ideas that people in recovery can’t be around drugs or alcohol because they’ll be triggered. If you’re spiritually awake and spiritually protected, he argues, you can do this work. “We know the way in and we know the way out. We speak each other’s language.” You can’t call a psychiatrist for this. Only someone in recovery can do it.
The talk is both theoretical and deeply practical. Peter M. walks through what his morning looks like—third step prayer, seventh step prayer, sometimes the Lord’s Prayer. He meditates. Then he goes into his day, carrying a vision of God’s will, serving as an “aqueduct” through which God’s power flows. When he makes mistakes, he doesn’t hide them. He confesses them to his sponsor, gets direction, takes corrective action. At night, he reviews his day—resentments, fears, where he fell short, what he’ll do about it.
What emerges is a picture of Steps 10, 11, and 12 not as advanced steps for old-timers, but as the daily practice that keeps recovery alive. Without written inventory, without real meditation, without actively serving others, the disease goes underground. It resurfaces as resentment, fear, obsession about using. People stop writing. They stop praying. They meditate “once in a while.” They isolate. And before long, untreated alcoholism is back.
But when the work is done—truly done—God permeates everything. Peter M. talks about visiting his family, watching his father shift from “real men don’t need God” to “with the help of God.” He talks about doing 12-step calls on addicts and drunks, then months later visiting their homes and seeing them transformed—the house feels different, sounds different, smells different. “It’s a God house,” he says.
The closing is powerful. When a drunk calls, Peter M. tells them: Your God made this call. Your addiction would never call me. But your God blocked the path to the next fix and put you in touch with someone who knows the way out. God is working right now.
This is the message of Steps 10, 11, and 12: not perfection, not performance, but surrender, silence, and service. A daily return to the place we came from—stillness—and a willingness to carry that stillness into the messy, broken, beautiful work of helping others find their way home.
Notable Quotes
Other than the sound of our mother’s heartbeat, we come from silence when we come into this planet. We return to silence and we walk a journey as long as we’re here on this earth. We’re nothing but noise.
Turn, watch, aware, observe. Turn back to the power in order to go. How am I doing? How’s my speech? Am I silent when I should be offering you something? Am I talking when I should be quiet?
God’s offering me the universe and I said, ‘No, I’m good. Right here.’ We all wanted more when we were drinking. Why are we content with less when we’re sober?
We know the way in and we know the way out. We speak each other’s language. And God says, ‘One of my children is down the block. They’re dying. Go get them.’
God will permeate every single area of our life, including everyone we come in contact with. Do you ever go to a meeting and sit with someone and think, ‘I want to be around this person’? That’s God stuff.
Your God made this phone call. Your addiction would never call me. But your God blocked the path to the next fix and put you in touch with someone who knows the way.
Step 11 – Prayer & Meditation
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Spiritual Awakening
Long-Term Sobriety
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 10 – Daily Inventory
- Step 11 – Prayer & Meditation
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
- Spiritual Awakening
- Long-Term Sobriety
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-rise.com.
Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Um, so once again, um, I'd like you to please help me welcome to share his experience on steps 10, 11, and 12, Peter M.
>> >> How many of us are uncomfortable with the silence? How many people thought I forgot what to say? I want my money back.
I came here for this. Other than the sound of our mother's heartbeating, we come from silence when we come into this planet. I don't think the sound we hear and we return to silence and we walk a journey as long as we're here on this earth.
We're nothing but noise. And we come into Alcoholics Anonymous or whatever 12step fellowship and have this 11st step that talks about prayer meditation. Part of the meditation is not only the studying of the work, but we've we've we've grown to a point where we go into a meditation and and give our attention to God and practice the sacred silence.
And none of us do it because it's too quiet. There's nothing to do. I just I can't deal with the the voices in the head, the noise.
I need to do something. And so we do we I'm asked to talk about 10, 11, and 12. 12 should be a reflection of all my journey to give to someone else and take this into my home's occupations and affairs.
But there's a huge piece to 10 and 11 that is the silence we come from silence. And we enhance that experience. We enhance and grow and grow in in 11 with that the strict spiritual disciplines of that step.
And uh we get about 2 minutes here. I saw a few folks got it. They just closed their eyes and got still.
Few folks were just like, "What is he doing?" You know, we don't do that in Canada. You know, I mean, you know, what's this guy doing? So, how am I how am I doing with with the sacred silence?
Do I have a life of silence? And when I say science, I don't mean when mom, but we we go to a retreat and we we observe signs of literally not speaking other than when it's really maybe necessary. But even when we're really busy multitasking, I work in a treatment center industry.
Mike knows exactly what I'm talking about. You this you're always busy. I mean, you can't even have lunch with entertaining 55 problems at once, right?
It's constantly moving. But how do I come out? What do I come out of with that?
Right? How am I operating? Well, I can't really in experience that if I'm not getting my soul food, if not I'm not enriching what's been given to me by sitting still.
Am I experiencing the great fact on page 25? Right? We're pretty much have a shift of perceptions and conceptions about everything God's created, each other, God's universe, everything.
Or am I just giving lip service to it? One of one of the things you'll you won't hear a lot of dialogue with is when we talk about uh step 11 and it's specifically about let's the topic tonight is meditation. Well, God's talking, meditation's listening, and pass the basket, let's go home.
But how many of us experientially can talk about a life of stillness and silence, experientially can talk about step 11 and offer to each other what this looks like in very tangible terms. Although what we experience is not very tangible. It's hard to express what God has done for us adequately other than watch me look how my life looks.
But to express how that happened adequately, to express what God has done for me, my God experiences, we're going to fall short. We have to. It's God.
No words can express that adequately, right? Their pointers. So step 10 and 11, you know, for me, they've always run into each other.
And one is what I'm doing during the day. And one is about how I wrap up my day and how I start off my day with prayer, meditation, going to the day. I have my step 10 moving.
uh the spot check inventory, making amends promptly when I fall short promptly, discussing with things with someone immediately, not six months later. You know, my sponsor taught me words to work with throughout my day with turn, watch, aware, observe. Turn, watch, aware, observe.
Turn back to the power in order to go. Turn in in order to go out. Turn in in order to go out.
Watch, wear, and observe. Interchangeable words. How am I doing?
How's my speech? Am I silent when I should be offering you something? Am I talking when I should be quiet?
Which is what most of us do. Talk instead of being quiet. Cuz my point is so important.
You know, obs aware and observe. How am I doing? Where am I going?
What what do my actions show you? Right? Well, if I'm operating at a place of God consciousness and very still, things look different.
things sound different, right? Everything we work out of this divine order, if you will. Divine order.
Everything is as it should be. And we're okay with the isness of right now. And I don't need to change.
I want to change things. I want to change everything. I want to fit.
You should be there and you should be sitting there. And this, you know, it's how we operate. And if I had this, I'd be okay.
And if I didn't have that, I'd even be better. And we want to restructure God's divine order. And that's just the ego screaming, "Hey, I'm out of work.
let me do something. And the mind gets silenced and says, "Hey, what about me?" I was chilling with this gentleman. Sometimes the the the deeper we get with God, the vo the mind may even scream louder to pull us away.
Throw up something. You can't do this. I can't be out of work.
This really doesn't work. God doesn't work. Right?
But can I recognize the divine order? Can we recognize that even in the chaos or what appears to be chaos, it's God even creating what appears to be chaos to drive us back to him or her or it? Cuz it looks like this.
We go to someone say, "Hey, listen. I'm struggling. It looks like this in my life and things have kind of spinning out of control.
Can you take me through the steps again? Is it possible God allow that to bring you back to him? Because if we continue this way with God interrupting and getting our attention and he will get our attention.
It doesn't always feel good but in getting our attention I come to you. You sponsor me and I'm back with God again in a sense. When I say back with God it doesn't mean we're separated literally separated from God because we're physical extensions of that power which is non-physical.
We can't be separated. I can't be separated from my arm. But it feels like we're separated.
It feels like God is distant. And when I feel distant from God, my behavior will show that. My words will reflect that.
But even with all the chaos or what appears to be chaos and when we wake up, we send we tend to recognize some chaos, too. But even with all of that, underneath everything, there's a stillness. This is very real.
I'm okay. I walk with God. Now, to a newcomer, that might sound like very pretentious.
I walk with God. We walk with God. The man or woman drinking under a bridge somewhere right now is just as much God in them as I do standing here speaking with you.
The difference between me and that person or us and that person or maybe some of us in this room is the reintegration if you will with this power waking up to this power experience coming to the realization of the oneness with God. I was brought up in my religious background. God's out in the heavens somewhere and you're down here.
And if you're really lucky, I mean really lucky, you don't even think about sinning because if you think about sinning, you're in trouble. I was in trouble all the time. Maybe you'll get to the pearly gates.
They'll give you a once over and say, "I will give you a chance." That's an ugly way to live. There's no love in that. Now, there may be some pearly gates up there and there may be something in up there.
I'll find out when he calls me home. But right now, my big big book says the great reality is deep down within. And every spiritual teacher I've studied talks about the same thing that we got God in a sense DNA in us.
We walk with God even in our worst moments and in what appears to be our best moments that God is God. It's about getting integrated with it. What the work does is remove all the blocks of me getting integrated and experience oneness with God.
No more separateness, no more duality, but oneness with God. And some of us will spin out of control once. Some of us will entertain divoes from time to time.
Some of us will get resentful and I got a little fear going on. They put erases on pencils because we make mistakes. 10step says, "Okay, what are we going to do about it?" Get back up on a horse and keep riding.
Father, show me what to do. Make amends, keep moving. It's about growing and understanding and effect.
And not staying pats cuz I'm in father. We're going to make mistakes along the way. But we're no longer living on page 52 with beevilments.
Huh? I'm no longer living gripped by fear. I'm no longer living with nursing my resentments and grudges.
I know they're fatal. Hey, talk to me for 5 minutes. I have a resentment I need to discuss with you as step 10 says immediately.
Do you have time for me right now? Cuz I need a way out of this. Here's what how this materializes.
I was in a company of a couple of gentlemen uh not too long ago and out of the three of them, one in particular has said assassinated my character, if you will, has thrown me under the bus, spread rumors, not about me drinking, God forbid, but just me and my big that guy in his big book and you know, just that kind of stuff. Just said ugly things and they all came back to me and it was just ugly. got really really ugly.
And so I'm I'm in a room and there he is. And my first mind reaction was, "Well, I'm going to leave. I'm taking my big book and I'm going home cuz he doesn't play fair, right?" And then that thing in the gut paws went agitated or doubtful.
I knew I couldn't leave that room. So I went away. I left.
I left the room to come back. God, what do I do here? Made a quick phone call.
Went back into the room. God allows me to be a builder of bridges. Allows us to be builders of bridges.
Because when I saw that gentleman, I went up to him and we'll call him Joe. I says, "Hi Joe, how are you? How's everything going?
Thank you for your service and God bless you. I wish you well." And at that moment, I truly meant that. And I built a bridge.
Don't have to build a bridge, but God allowed me to build a bridge. Now it's up to him to walk over. He doesn't have to walk over either, but I built the bridge.
The next time he's in a room, I've done my part. I can say, "Hi, how are you? How's everything?
I've done my part. Now, if he wants to nurse his stuff, that's his deal, his grudge, his resentment." The night before I was sitting in a diner with some very, very close friends. And I says, "Can you tell me what I've done to harm him because when I've asked him, he says nothing.
But for some reason, he sees me and sees Satan. I don't I'm I'm I don't know my way around this." Okay. I can't figure it out.
So, what' I do? Just build the bridge. So, how often do we build a bridge?
And how often do we knock down the bridge that may exist or don't even get a pliers and a and a screwdriver out to start one because he has to come to me. I'm an AA and I'm a spiritual guru. Peacemakers will sometimes go where there's trouble, not only where there's peace.
That's easy to be around people who are walking this path. That's why we love it. It's for fun.
It's We're around each other. We're kicking God around talking about new ideas. We're out.
We're the little spiritual warriors going out there and getting the sick. And so that's fun. How am I doing when people say you and your big book are a fraud?
I don't like the steps. Your god's full of baloney. And we're around.
How do I behave? How do I practice these principles when others around me are not? Ah, there's work.
Let's see where we are now. There's the gut check. Give a talk from a podium where people don't even want to hear about the big book.
Don't even want to hear about the steps. Don't hear about God. I did a talk in Europe.
Uh, I'll never forget it. And I close the session. It was a workshop.
I closed the session with the Lord's prayer. I speak at uh shepherds. Come to me.
Peter, do me a favor. Please don't use the Lord's prayer here. I send get somebody else to finish the weekend and apologize for God.
How do how do we deal with that when they don't want to hear about God or the Lord's prayer in an AA meeting or whatever fellowship you belong to? Do you ever take a look at the serenity prayer? God grant me I'm God you give me.
It's a politically correct prayer in our fellowships now because we have bad information that it's a Christian prayer, the Lord's prayer, and it isn't. We Christians just adopted it. If anyone studies our grapevine, a Jewish fellow went to his rabbi and said, "I can't go to that fellowship because they say the Lord's prayer." And his rabbi examined the prayer, knew about a says, "You go back there and you say that prayer." But we got politically correct in our 12step fellowship.
We can't can't annoy anyone. They got pamphlets for atheists now. They're coming out.
You know what? We roll over and allow it. Yeah.
Okay. Get off my soap box. So, just read a couple of things here.
What does it mean when you have glasses and you still can't see? I mean, this is not good. It's called 53.
That's what this is. Okay. My big book tells me this thought brings us to step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any mistakes as we go along.
There's two parts to that. Continue to take inventory like an extension of four. What am I doing through my day?
Now, I was brought up with this deal where I write. I'll put pen to paper when I have time and I'll put down some things on where I was uh uh uh selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, frightened, who did I harm. I'll just put those things on paper.
Make amends quickly. Some of us just use it as a a wear and observe. How am I doing?
Make amends quickly. Discuss with someone quickly. And I'm not here to to to split the room down the middle.
But what the way I was brought up is as I'm going through my day, inventory is a written list. So on my lunch hour I'll review what went on today and everything okay. Maybe a little resentment happened at 9:00.
It's now noon and I'm having lunch and I'm still replaying that and I'm making prayer. But sometimes I need to put that on paper. That doesn't work for anyone.
If you're okay without doing it, that's fine. But an inventory is written list like step four, right? It says, I vigorously commence this way of living as I cleaned up the past.
In our book, especially in 10-11, they use words like vigorously, commenced, at once, next, now. These words imply do something. Not I got to 10 and 11 and I can coast.
The word maintenance in this step is taking a really bad wrap. Just maintain, stay as it is means don't grow. And if we don't grow, it means I'm going.
So, how can I just keep it as it is? By the way, if I'm just keeping it as it is, who's in charge of my sobriety? me.
God's offering me the universe and I said, "No, I'm good. Right here." Here's the thing about this before I read on. When we're out there and we're drinking or drugging, we all wanted more.
Am I right? We're all in agreement with that. More, right?
This is CA. So, don't bring me an eightball. Bring me a a 40ft trailer worth of stuff because it's going to be a long night.
I made a little lecture, right? Bring me as much as you can. Bring me as much liquor as you can.
More is the drink, right? More just IV me Jack Daniels and I'm just keep it coming. And then we come into recovery and we say too much God tonight.
I got to drive so kill it, right? Oh, that's too much God's too much recovery. There's always too much of something having to do with enriching ourselves or getting well.
We put a lid on stuff which is completely the opposite of way we live. Since when has more been not a bad word for us? Unless we're not done because if I had another terminal illness, I always looked at addiction as terminal cuz we're going to die from it sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
We're going to die from this and there is no way out. Step one says we use until we die. But if I had another terminal illness, God forbid, and they told me that down the block there was this remedy that you can eat, drink, inject, and you will be good.
In fact, the more you take, the healthier you would be. I would be taking as much as I can. I would have a daily regimen of this lifegiving substance.
Right? We come into Alcoholics Anonymous or Cocaine Anonymous or Narcotics or whatever AA is which is centered around God. And they say, "Listen, we have a lifegiving thing here.
It's called God. And we have a sure way for you to get to experience God. No matter what the head is telling, if you follow directions, you will come into the presence of God and you will live a full and abundant and clean and sober life.
In fact, the thinking about using will be removed, too. You won't have those days where you're twisted up, you got euphoric recall, you'll just chop wood and carry water. Do you want some?
And we go, I'll work on my 90 and 90 first and let you know. I'll get back to you. Right.
Right. This Cocaine Anonymous, if the drug dealer was down the block, we'd be the first one online at 4:00 in the morning. We'd beg B and Steal to get the money to get our stuff and get out of there.
We have big book meetings. I'm sure you got them up here. Big book meetings.
And we go to other places. Remember when you were using when you hear guys would overdose and die? Where'd you go cop your drugs?
Well, they overdosed and died cuz that's where the real good stuff is. Right. Right.
is the son. I mean, >> you guys are cocaine addicts, I hope. Jesus.
Okay. Right. He knows.
I mean, that's what we did. If you when I was in my heroin days, oh, they overdosed up in Harlem. Let's go.
That's where the stuff is. You didn't go to where you were using cuz it was kind of middle of the road stuff. So, now we have meetings armed with the facts, big book workshops, and where do we go?
We don't go there trying to avoid God. It makes no sense. >> >> It says my next function is to grow in understanding effectives.
Prior to that, it says I've entered the world at a spirit. I don't get free room and bore there. Experientially, can we talk about living in the world of a spirit?
What's that look like? What's that feel like? But it doesn't mean I hang out there and do nothing because it tells me I'm headed for trouble when I rest on my laurels, my accomplishments, getting my soul food.
My sponsor called me up one day and he would call me up really early in the morning and I realized he must have just come out of a meditation because he was still and excited at the same time he would call me money. He say money what's going on. And one day I said to him um hanging in there and he read me the ride act for like the next hour you know about saying hanging in there.
I never said I'm hanging in there anymore. But uh he said to me he asked me a question. He said did you eat today?
It was one of these questions, one of Mark H's questions. I says, "Well, yeah, I ate today." He says, "Why did you eat today? You ate yesterday." I says, "It's six o'clock in the morning.
Now, what are we going to get esoteric now?" I mean, where we going with this, right? He says, "What happen if you don't eat today?" I says, "I get hungry." And then what? Get hungry and then what?
I probably get sick and then what? You dies. Bingo.
What are you doing about the spirit? Did you feed the spirit today? Are you getting your soul food?
Where about the shirt and tie I'm going to wear? Worry about the hairs right? What if I worked out?
I counted the money in my pocket. Make sure I got enough of that. Put on a good pair of shoes before I get out the door and I leave without God.
Oh, I'll pray on the way to work. I'll pray in my car while I'm driving through traffic cursing people for cutting me off. What kind of attention am I giving to this God who's giving me another day?
Am I getting my soul food? And that requires me setting time aside. We can pray in the car.
We can pray in the shower. We can play with our playing ball. We can do pray to God all the time.
It's a dialogue with God. It's a conversation with God. But what kind of sacred silence and attention am I giving to this God all alone meeting God alone?
Oh, we'll say the Lord's prayer, the serenity prayer, whatever prayer to group we hold hands in the meeting. We let everyone here so we can show our brothers and sisters, look at me, I'm a prayer. What about when we're alone and we first wake up?
Two packs of cigarettes, four cups of coffee, quick check in with God, and go out the door. Here I come, world. Or they get up 15, 20 minutes earlier.
If my drug dealer was going to be out 15 or 20 minutes earlier, there'd be no debate. I'd go out without bathing. Now we're sober.
And the sponsor says, "Get up about a half hour earlier." Half hour earlier. What are you crazy? I got to sleep.
life, you know. See, it makes this it makes no sense. And we do stuff like this.
It says, "We cease fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. For by this time, sanity will have returned back." In step two, we're looking for sanity. He's delivered.
Sanity contract's been delivered. Wholeness of mind, truth, God, we got it. No longer running from booze, no or drugs, no longer running away from it.
When in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. My book tells me I react sely and normally. I find that this has happened automatically.
I don't have to think about it. This includes other areas of my life because we know the addiction will go underground and resurface in other addictive behaviors. They're called sprees.
Sex sprees and food sprees and money sprees. The thing we all have is the thinking sprees. I'll be brought to a position of neutrality, safe and protected from myself in all areas, right?
All those things are just manifestations of self. And is not God greater than that, including fear. I see how this will happen.
Uh uh uh my new attitude toward lick has been given to me without any thought effort on my part. Just comes. I'm not fighting nor am I avoiding temptation.
It says that this problem does not exist. uh what happened to it's normal to think about a drink because you're an alcoholic. You're always going to be thinking about a drink because you're an alcohol.
My book says it doesn't exist anymore. If something doesn't exist, it doesn't exist. It's been removed.
If the thoughts come, they occur. I don't lock into them. No.
Eric Holmes, thanks for sharing. Have a nice day. Chopboard, carry water.
Right. Or do I get the euphoric recall and I'm playing with it? Oh, I remember those days.
Oh, boy. Just wanted I got to run to a meeting to share about how I'm thinking about using when I'm sober 15 or 20 years. Well, why am I thirsty?
Why am I thirsty? Right? Is it possible I'm lacking a current experience with God?
So, my my my step 10 has obviously evolved since I got here. And when we get here, we start getting this work and we start to wake up spiritually, it may be the beginning stages of it. I mean, someone who's doing this work for 10 or 15 years, has been through the steps multiple times, will perhaps be at a deeper level spiritually, uh, evolved, uh, than someone who's going through the work for the first time.
perhaps because we can't really put that on a spreadsheet. But in general, the person coming to AA or CA for the first time goes through the big book, has the spiritual transformation and sounds different, looks different, their life is different, may still be at maybe first grade or second grade or third grade level perhaps compared to someone who's sober a long time, been at this and working with other inspirational books, but it has happened nonetheless. God is God.
And so what we need to do is continued on that path to grow and understanding effectiveness. So when I first come in, right, uh being an AA for a little while, I'm running to meetings. I'm missing something.
I'm looking for that spirit connecting the same way I look for a connection. I found it in the drink. Carl Young talks about this.
We find a drink and oh, I feel connected. I feel part of everything's right. That doesn't work anymore.
I'm sober. I'm raw. I need something to lock into.
Where do I lock? I don't know where I lock into it. I come here.
I said, "Okay, I got a band-aid on open wound. You guys are like me, but I'm still missing something." And I I don't know what that is. It's the God piece.
There's a yearning deep down within to get connected spiritually. Thank the good Lord, people said, "It's in here. I'll show you how to do this." And after a few months of being in AA, I was bottoming out trying to reach and the ropes were losing nuts.
I What do I do now? And they presented this information to me and I start and then I come back from Minnesota to Brooklyn. My sponsor starts taking me along this path and something happens in there.
Now I was nowhere near on a spiritual uh uh uh journey where my sponsor was at the time. In fact, even after I had been living this way of life, when I met Mark, my my my greatest teacher ever, when I started out with about 12 years, when I met him 13 years or so, sober and had been in the book for a while and sponsoring a bunch of men, I still was not where he was spiritually. That's why I like being a student anyway.
But I began another journey and I began the journey of reworking one through nine. re reworking 1-9, dismantling more self, grinding the ego into dust, getting more power to move greater greater places in 10 and 11. And that power moves me back through one through nine because the same way we go through the steps, we can forwards, we can go through the steps backwards.
One of the first disciplines that fall off, and this I've witnessed with my own eyes and have heard with my own ears, is the nightly review in step 11. You know how many folks I know who do these talks on 10-11 have not picked up a pen and paper in years and are given a 11step talk? Not 11step talks about writing inventory.
We constructively reviewed our day. Here's the thing. Some folks will challenge me and say, "Well, I laid in bed and thought about my day." If your joy is happy and free, I'm not going to here to change you.
But if you're not, how long are you going to lay in bed and review your day in the same mind with the same mind that has one mission to get you drunk? Why would I want to rely on this mind day in and day out? That becomes painful.
Where I could just put a couple of things on paper, answer the questions that they talk about. I like to do column inventory. Even with that, here's my inventory response.
This is what I came up with. Go into prayer and meditation. Close the book.
Day is done. when I retire at night. It's the first practice that has gone by the wayside with so many folks.
And when I speak to folks who've been in this deal a while and they're experiencing untreated alcoholism, by the way, when I do this, please, no right and wrong. If you don't write inventory, you don't pray and meditate. Okay, maybe you'll start.
I don't want to set up one side of room against the other. I don't care. I care more about you than, you know, I have a big book and I do inventory.
I don't care. This is about raising the level of awareness. It's the first practice that goes by the wayside.
And when I speak to folks, that's what they tell me. What's your inventory look like? Uh that means you don't do it right.
What's prayer and meditation look like? Well, you know, I I pray every day. They all give me that.
They all pray every day. How about meditation? I meditate once in a while.
Not good enough. Did you get high once in a while? I didn't drink once in a while.
So, okay. So, it's one of the things that go off to the wayside and then there's no t 10step and they haven't completed a mens and six and seven are rearing their ugly heads again and they're not being confessing anything with anyone else. They have a lot of sins of omission in the sense they've taken their will back.
They're running the show. Insane thoughts are returning and they're headed back to a drink. Right?
So, what do I do with this? On awakening, literally on awaken, this was given to me when I was brand new. I woke up one day, my eyes opened and I said, "Thank you, God, for this day." How did that happen?
I remember laying in bed saying, "God, please keep me clean and sober for the day." On awaken, I still do it on my eyes open just now. I wake up, everything hurts. You know, 53, your back hurts, your neck hurts.
It's like, you know, muscles you never knew existed. And after I and for a little while, it's, you know, thank you God for this day. And I have a little meditation place, small little thing that I have and I honor that place.
It's a little spot in my house in my little my bedroom. It's a sacred little place. I have pictures of my higher power and a couple of things that are important to me and my little incense and my candles.
Sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't. Been working basically for the longest time with just silence and breath and obviously posture. But on awakening, I work with the third step prayer, the sevenstep prayer, okay?
Lord's prayer. Couple other prayers I work with. I have a religious practice I work with during the day.
Um, these little beads I work with and I go into meditation during the day. I take disappear from work, close the door, whatever it is, 10 minutes it takes me. And then a 10-minute little meditation during the day to get going for the rest of the day cuz I'm moving all day long.
But on awakeness is what I do. Now, I got into for the longest time doing lots of reading, you know, 24 hours daily reflections, meditation for men, meditation if you're from Brooklyn, meditation from Staten Island. I mean, just all, you know, meditation if you're over 5'11.
I mean, it's just there's a million of these books out there, the upper word, the daily room, you know, it just goes on and on and on. And so, now I have books, 10 and 11 out of the big book. going to have to do all this reading before I start praying or you would leave the house and go, "Oh god, I forgot a page out of 24.
I'm making you return home cuz I got to be complete for you." And I became attached to methodology rather than worshiping the power. So I stopped all of that. I don't read in the morning.
I just don't I mean once in a while I'll pick up something just because I'm inspired to. I honor that can be moved to read something but my practice is I don't read in the morning but I sit I kneel and I I work with some prayers not petitioning God in fact it's about surrendering the father I surrender to your will your will not mine be done because there's lots of times we want to change God's will for us and we want to manipulate God operating on a level of the time and when when things click for us, we say God loves me. When things don't, we think God doesn't even exist.
God or God hates us. And we want to manipulate God, God to do certain things for us. You ever see these baseball players or these athletes, they scored a goal or they hit a home run and they go like this like God says, "Okay, home run cuz I put $300 on your team today.
Go." Right? Make I mean, since when's God's involved in that, right? Okay.
But we s I surrender to God's will and not try to manipulate God for and it's it's it's really I surrender to your will, your will, not mine be done and then I go into meditation. I got attached to the amount of time in meditation as well. I remember a bunch of years ago 20 minutes was the buzz word around AA.
If you did 20 minutes they're going to erect a monument for you outside your home group. That was a big hot number. I'm 20 minutes and we told everybody 20 minutes, right?
Then it became a minute representing each hour on a day. That's another practice 24 minutes. And then I was sitting in there for a while and it came to me one day in meditation through a story I heard.
Whether it's 10 minutes, which I should make a practice of at least, or 45 minutes, it's as long as my heavenly father needs me sitting in silence. Perhaps on one particular day he needs me to move quick. There's some chores to be done.
Maybe a spouse needs us. Whatever it might be, but it's there not for my ego cuz then who's meditating? Look at me how spiritual I am.
I'm just a guru. I did 20 minutes. I'll do another 10 so I can tell everyone.
Or is there no thought involved in my meditation? Consciousness without thought. I not no time.
Time is not a factor here. I'm just giving attention is power and I wait for the information and it's go 10 minutes 15 minutes 20 minutes 35 minutes whatever it might be right but at least 10 minutes and this is how I work I do like the one minute per each hour in the day that's it now off I go now because I pray and meditate it doesn't mean the day is going to snap that everyone outside of my life is going to adhere to everything I want done I may walk out the door after a 45minute meditation and someone's blocking me in or I got a ticket or it's pouring rain out, whatever it might be. I'm saying it's going to be one of those days.
Things happen out there. But how I operate and maneuver through it is completely different. No longer even attached to the thinking mind.
Very often we think I have a thought. I have thoughts. The thoughts really have us.
How many times am I attached to my anger and justify the anger because God is an extension of me and if I'm angry with you, God is really angry with you cuz God sides with me, right? The way your God sides with you, right? That's why we drop bombs on each other.
Watching we all drop bombs on each other cuz their god's telling drop a bomb on us and now my god tell drop a bomb. You know what I mean? This is how we operate.
The thoughts have us. Anger has us. Go back to breath when doubtful or agitated.
Back to breath. Pause. Pause.
My pause can be as long as it has to take. An hour, 10 minutes, two hours a day, whatever it is. Pause.
And sometimes I have to move. And sometimes I have to be still. One of the most difficult things for any of us to do is just to be still and wait.
Because the mind wants an answer now. I got a problem. Give me an answer.
Give me a problem. Give me an answer. And usually the answer is coming from an ego which is self-s serving anyway.
The most difficult thing for some of us to do is when a problem shows up, we have to wait. Joe, don't do anything. Sponsors, don't do anything.
Just be still. Don't call them. Don't write them a letter.
Just let this play out. You want it making the call or call up someone to make the call for you, right? It's like the old days when we're out there to find out what we did the night before.
So on awakening, think about the 24 hours a day. Consider my plans for today. What's this going to look like?
I surrender to God's will and off I go. Always carrying a vision of God's will into all my activities. Let me be mindful of that.
How can I serve you, God? I'm like an aqueduct. God gives me the power and I put it out there.
God gives me vision, I put it out there. God gives me inspiration, I give it to you. Right?
with the life of invitation. It's a pretty great way to live. And when I make mistakes, ego gets in the ways.
Don't tell anyone. But we sit. I have a sponsor and I sit and I give him my inventory.
Here's what the week looked like. Here I was a little resentful. Here I was a little fearful.
Always confessing to someone how we're doing. How am I doing? How am I doing?
Close up my dates as we retire at night. Well, what do I do? I used to wait for like 11th hour to do this night when we're reviewing prayer meditation.
You get real tired, especially those of us with working a lot hours, have kids and tending to kids. So if I'm in and it's 7 8:00, I'll go hide out. I'll go to wherever I can.
I'll go to my my little altar in in my bedroom. I'll do some quick inventory. Marian sees me writing in inventory all the time, you know, and I share this with my sponsor and I take direction.
We inquire what corrective measures should be taken. I do some prayer going into sacred science. Okay, let's move.
It says be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer and they talk about inspirational books. I've studied I've worked with many books along with the big book not instead of right and I've been able to experience abundance.
Abundance is a good word. It's a great word. Bliss is a good word.
Guru is a good word. Enlightened is a good word. All those things fit our fellowship because people walking around like that who experience that and experientially can talk to us about that.
A life of abundance, a life of enlightenment, a life of God, a life of bliss. And the mind, oh no, you're a doofine and a drunk. You can't.
Well, God don't care about that. He's given us this. And we keep pushing it away.
Well, my job after awakening is to give this to someone who cares to have it. And we get to working with others. And in our in our chapter, working with others, it's part of our 12step, but they don't talk about the spiritual awakening there because somewhere between 4 through9, certainly by the time we hit 10, we've had a spiritual transformation.
Here's what we do with it. Back to the home's occupations and affairs, we can be an AA angel and how's devil? How's this look when I'm home?
Do my insides match my outsides. Whether I'm working or playing, you shouldn't be able to tell the difference. It should all look the same to you because I get to.
I get to work with others. I get to go home. I get to have relationships.
I get to go to work. I get to write in. I get to go to the doctor.
I get to. And sometimes I stomp my feet like a little three-year-old, but I get to. And sometimes we have something and we make a little mess of it and God says, "Let me fix." And we say, "No." Like little kids, you give them a toy and it breaks and they say, "I hate you." And run to the next room and you say, "Give it to mom or dad." And they say, "No." They pull it away and they bottom out.
They come, "Dad, mom, can you fix my toy?" You put it in place and they're happy again. I'm just like that three-year-old. I got it, God.
Don't worry. I'm I'm on the job. Right?
Then I go, "Okay, God, please fix it." Right? But it talks about the importance of working with others in step 12 in our big book. It's vital.
Bill says it was to survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. We throw ourselves the harder into working with others. Who am I working with?
What's that message look like? In the third edition on the fly page, it says, "But the basic text pages 1 to 164 have remained unchanged. This is the AA message." I keep going AA.
I'm in CA. Please forgive me. Well, you guys use the big book, right?
Okay. This is the AA message. What message am I passing on?
What message am I getting from my teachers? What's that look like? Have I had a vital spiritual experience that I'm looking to pass on?
So, we must work with others. And we share our experience, strength, and hope with others. We pass the message on.
Sometimes I'll visit a home group, uh, an AA group and I hear a lot of stuff. I see some things that really kind of contradict Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm sure you see in your fellowship.
And people say, "Well, that group is crazy. Don't go there. That group is sick.
You'll need a meeting after that meeting." And um, you know who I look for? the sponsors who are running around in that group because your little prospects should be awakening if you're really in the book and there should be more of a solution more things that align with Alcoholics Anonymous or whatever fellowship you belong to then don't so if response is what are we letting our little prospects get away with right or they become militant with the big book Waring theologians in our fellowship. It's us against them.
That's just as dangerous as them against us. Don P used to always tell us attraction, not promotion. I will challenge.
I will challenge. I will challenge. I will challenge.
That's how God has allowed me to operate, makes me operate. But I will never assassinate your character because you don't believe in the big book. Because if one day you look for someone and I'm the only one available, you will not come to me because I'm a waring theologian.
And that's a poor example of God. Be a builder of a bridge rather knocking them down. Huh?
So when men come to me, if it's their first time through the work, I will give them what was given to me. Right? I'll keep a close eye on them, but they'll read the first portion of the book.
And in working with others, it says on the second visit that the person has read the first volume and prepared to go through the 12 steps. So they read the first volume, first portion I should say, which is the first 164 pages. And I ask them the same questions and then we begin.
We go through the steps. I start with the preface. I go through doctor's opinion.
I showed them the fly page in the third the third edition. We start little by slowly going through the work. Some are quicker than others.
That's okay. We move through the work. They'll do a fourth step and they'll sit with me in a fifth step.
If they've gone through the work more than once, they'll do the personal persons. We'll do multiple fifth steps. They need to be current on amends at some point.
And we have a life of 10 and 11 and then go pass it on to others. We'll do traditions homework and we'll talk about the history of our fellowship because they need to know where they come from. All is said and done.
How they doing at home? What's the home life look like? Right?
What's the job life look like? What sort of integrity am I my money life look like? What sort of integrity do I have in my sex life?
What sort of integrity do I have in my relationships? How am I doing? Am I best example this big book that someone will ever see or the worst example?
I need to know this stuff. And at some point, if they're really on this path like we are, we're up and running. shouting from the rooftops about God.
Just one more point and we'll wrap. Um the opportunity to do the 12step call seems to be a lost art nowadays. A lot of treatment centers out there who retaken that out of our lap.
We have the 12step call in a sense when they get here and they know nothing but their treatment centered up and they want to talk about feelings and all this other stuff and self-help stuff and clinical stuff which is nice doesn't belong. Um so that's in a sense become our 12step call to some degree. Hey, you're here for the first time.
Let me teach you about this spiritual path. But what about the wet drunk? What about the guy who's using I've done I've cleaned up addicts.
I've cleaned up drunks. thought about it. The very first time I did a 12step call, I was petrified.
The gentleman we did the 12step call on is dead as a direct result of addiction. But I went with an old-timer. We're driving in this this big car.
Um and and we picked this guy up and we'll call him Joe. And he's sitting in the back seat. I'm petrified and he's telling me, "Don't worry, kid.
Just learn, be still." And whatever he was telling me to calm me down more than the drunk cuz I was petrified. My first 12step call. I'm sober a short time.
And um this guy in the back seat was laughing, then he was crying, then he was laughing, then he was quiet, and then he soiled himself. And I said, "Oh my god, what did I get myself into?" I was so scared. And then we took him to this hospital in Brooklyn, place called Coney Allen Hospital in Brooklyn, and we dropped him off.
We gave the uh the woman at the registration desk some cigarettes for him. And we figured he'd be up detox in good 3 4 days. We'd pick him up, take him to an AA meeting and start.
The next morning, I went to work and who was on the corner buming money was the guy we did the 12step call on. And the first thing I did was I thought I did something wrong and I call up my sponsor. He says, "Did you take him?" "Yes." "Did you get drunk?" "No." "Were you going to work when they came out?" "Yes." "You did nothing wrong." And I went with someone else.
I asked a question one time to folks. And he says, "As a recovered person, recovered, not recovering, but recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, can you go into a crack househ or or into someone's living room and they got works out, they got all the stuff out, all the paraphernalia, or you go into a drunk's house, he's got booze all over. go into a bar with this stuff.
Okay. Can you go in, get rid of all that stuff, clean that up, clean up the drunk, get the drunk, get the addict, and take him to a hospital, a treatment center, detox, or a meeting, and be unaffected in a way of, "Oh my god, that looks good. I got to get out of here." Be unaffected by the substance or the drink.
And they, most of these folks said, "Oh, I can never do that." Why not? cuz I probably use I can't be around people, places, and things. That's treatment center nonsense.
That's contemporary AA. Because when we're on with the facts and we're spiritually wake, I've cleaned out and thrown out. You name it, I've done it with other drunks, with other addicts, and in a position of neutrality, safe and protected.
We can go in cuz we have a reason for being in there. Joe's on a crack run. Uh Mary's on a drunk.
We go in a few of the girls, go in a few of the guys, and we empty out all the stuff, throw it out, clean them up, and then take them to a hospital. I'm not going, "Wow, he's got Jack Daniels. I remember I used to drink that.
Oh my god." >> Right? Cuz now you're doing a 12step call on two of us. I swear I've gotten syringes very carefully and got rid of them.
I've gotten powder and gotten rid of it. I got crack pipes and got rid of them because I did 12step calls on you every walk of life. God bless my first sponsor says we got one cuz his he had a lot of NA friends and they would call him.
So there I was. I don't know what I was doing. Just Okay, let's go.
I said, "How come I didn't think about it's because you're in God's place. Don't worry. Chop wood, carry water." I did a ton of these things.
Cleaned up drunks. literally cleaned up drunks cuz we're not we're not we're not pretty when they come get us. And in taking them to either a fellowship or a detox or hospital, I was scared at the beginning.
I gotten good at them and it's an honor to do that because God has trusted us to do that work. You can't call up the high flutin psychiatrist and say, "Listen, we got a drunk in a crack house. Can you go get him?" You're not even going to He's on He's golfing right now.
Click. Who does that work? Us.
We know the way in and we know the way out. We speak each other's language and we got in spiritual wings and God says, "One of my children is down the block in that apartment. They're dying.
Go get them." And we go. Where did the carpenter go? To some of the most sorted spots.
He didn't show up in big fancy cathedrals. He went where the sick and suffering were. Guess what?
Whatever your God is, we've gotten spiritual wings to go where the sick and suffering is and go get them help. Right? And let's shout from the rooftops about God.
It's part of practicing these principles in all my affairs. You know, a lot of us get to a point where if I take a pencil off your desk and I walk away and I go, "Oh, geez, your pencil." And I bring it back to you, that rigorous honest, that cash register on, is great, but how am I doing else in the rest of my life? How am I doing with rigorous honesty when it comes to talking about God from the podium?
Oh, they don't want to hear about God, so I won't. I'm dishonest. I don't want to I don't want to anger a drunk cuz cuz they may not like me.
I'm dishonest. I'm denying God. I don't care.
I just shout it from the rooftops. You want what I got to offer? Follow me.
If not, we'll still be buddies. I'll build a bridge. Right.
Practice these principles on my fast. What has happened as an awakened spirit? With an awakened spirit, we get to heal people.
You do a 12step call on a drunk. The house looks drunk. The family looks drunk.
They're untreated. And you got the drunk. Then you get the drunk or the addict and you give them this and they start to wake up and they get their spiritual wings and they take that stuff home and you go visit that house.
It looks and feels and smells and sounds different. It's a God house. That's the power God gives us, right?
My family was completely level because of this and my brothers have sought out Allanon and therapy and have little by slowly found their way back. When I speak to my dad, when I would talk about God, he would think, "Well, that's God cuz you go to that place and you guys are weak and I I understand it. Real men don't need God." My My dad doesn't say that anymore.
His thing is he'll say, "With the help of God." I said, "What? Hold on. Time out.
Bulletin. CNN. My dad just said God." Right.
What a change. God will permeate every single area of our life, including everyone we come in contact with. Do you ever go to a meeting and sit with someone, whether you know them or not, and you're sitting here going, I want to get around this person or you hear them speak or you whatever it might be, you interact over coffee, you say, "This person is just like right.
There's something I I I want to be around them." You're excited to be around them. That's God stuff. Last thing, I swear I'll close.
I get the calls from the drunks who are drunk and I let them know, do I ask them, do you know who made this phone call? And they don't answer because they don't know what I'm talking about. Your God made this phone call.
There is no way your illness, your addiction would pick up the phone and call me cuz I'm going to try to get in the way of you and the next one. That's the illness. But your God said, "Can you come help me?
Can you come get me? I need help." That's God through the phone. Pick up the phone, dial a number, and call me or another AA or NA or CA.
I let them know God's there. God's working right now. He just put a block between you and the next one.
give me enough time to get there and get you some help. God all over it. I can't tell you how many of folks on the other end of that phone, you start to hear the voice break and they start to weep because if anything like me, I never thought God would even touch me or come near me because I screwed up so bad.
But he fixes the wounded. He heals the sick. The lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear.
That's what we do here, right? Give hope to those without. That's all I got.
Peace. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message.
Until next time, have a great day.