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I usually lead a very resentful free life till I got here this morning. packing my bag saying I'm going to Toronto in September. I should bring a heavy coat whenever Ernie invites me to 16 feet of snow outside.

So, uh anyway, my name is Peter. I'm a recovered alcoholic to be alive and sober and part of a sacred place called Alcoholics Anonymous. And uh thank uh all of you for having me here and um and Deborah and Jake uh for picking me up at the airport.

Um, I was looking for someone with a sign. Drunks here, uh, Peter M. And, uh, there were a lot of signs, but she found me and she said, "I was looking for Robert Dairo.

>> You're talking to me." Um, so I I don't know if that's if she gave me a compliment or insulted me. I don't know what we're trying to work on that. Um, I called home.

I says, "What if somebody called you Robert Dairo? Is that like a nice thing to say to me?" I don't. Um, but we found each other.

It's interesting when I get to airports what goes on. Uh, we were talking about this. Um, she's up in a rafters there.

How you can spot we can spot each other. You kind of know this. They look like a drunk, right?

So I'm in Heathro and to do a weekend there uh in London. First time there couple years ago uh three four years ago and uh I get there and uh no one's there to pick me up. Everyone has signs.

Mr. Brown, Mr. Jones, no Peter the AA guy.

And um so about 45 minutes goes by and I don't know who to call. I stuck in London. I hope they have good hotels because my committee is not here.

And out of nowhere, hundreds of people I see this guy running out of breakfast. That's got to be a drunk. It was.

And uh he didn't take my luggage and he he he couldn't remember where he parked his car. So another 45 minutes walking through the airport trying to find his car. And uh we finally get in the car.

This is like a 7 and 1 half hour flight. 45 minutes waiting for him. 45 minutes trying to get the car.

As soon as I get in the car, he starts sharing his deepest innermost secrets to me. of all the places I could have gone to. Anyway, I am grateful to be here to share my expansion and hope with you.

Um, I get these invitations a lot and I'm very grateful for that. My life is one of invitation. And so when they do come to me, um, I I I pray, I look at my calendar and God says, "Off you go." And I go and I suit up and show for fun and for free, as we heard so many times in the sacred rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I go as a recovered member because this talk this morning uh um is really just a reflection of what I do when I'm in the trenches between the last podium talk. So I come to you as a recovered member. And I say recovered because I am and anything less than that would be falsely humble.

But God in his infinite mercy took me from a place of June 23rd, 1988 when he separated me from alcohol for the last time to where I am this morning with you. And I've been given spiritual wings to go fly and take this message and shout it from the rooftops in my home occupations and affair wherever God may lead me. And I get here and uh on a life of invitation and the invitation's extended to me usually through a group conscience and we commence shoulderto-shoulder upon a common journey and we get to share in this glorious message in this place called Alcoholics Anonymous which is sacred and if we haven't found out that the rooms of AA are sacred I hope you stick around long enough to find out how sacred they are because me like many of You are supposed to be somewhere else on a hot Saturday morning in jail on a drunk in a bar dead and yet we suit up and show up and come to our AA meetings and we watch lives get reborn and resurrected in the sacred rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Right? Our book talks about recreating the uses of the word reborn because that's exactly what happens to people like us when we show up and we walk through the archway of an AA meeting. the great equalizer and people to hand us a big book the 12 steps and say we have a way out for you and so I'm grateful to be able to share a message like that my life along with imitation is one of being mindful and present to hear it allows me to be free one of the great things uh of the many great things I've been given in alcoholic synonymous through the 12 steps from a loving God has been all the fellowship all the service I get to do in one drunk work with another uh all the group level service I get to do because everything we get to do and getting recovered through the big book alcoholics anonymous has taken me to one spot and that is a place called stillness or silence no longer operating with a mind dominated life which many of us operate on no longer operating on the lines of human consciousness but being moved and living along the lines of God consciousness and that all comes from a place of stillness and sounds being unhooked or detached from this thinking mind which is constantly moving.

It's perpetual motion and permeates and infects and affects everything we come in contact with because it's all coming out of fear. Right? How many people drove over here alone this morning?

Handful. If you think about that ride, you didn't drive over here alone. Because if you think about it, how many people were you talking to on the way over here?

Why I go to that meeting for the guys from the northeast? I should go to another meeting. No, no, you better go there.

I heard his spirit. No, he isn't. I hate my job.

I hate her. In fact, you know, right? We do this stuff.

Then we replay stuff from about 20 years ago. We really get into 20-year-old resentment. We're really in it.

We're driving to an AM. We're really going at it. We're foaming.

Walk into Nam. How you doing, Joe? I'm great.

Everything's good. And those same 45 people are in a parking lot waiting to go home with you. Right?

I told you not to go to that meeting and then they tuck us in at night and you know how we wake up in the morning. How'd you sleep last night? I don't know.

I toss and turn because they were still talking to us. And as soon as you wake up in the morning, they're at it again. they follow you to work and and you know it's it's non-stop compulsive obsessive thinking.

Now that same thinking is the same the same thinking that takes me back to that which is killing me which is a drink. But what thinking will do is take go underground and resurface in other areas. They call the untreated alcoholic sprees that we get in alcoholics anonymous and we're living all over page 52.

And the only way to remedy that is on a uh we go on a more thinking spree. Another thinking spree. We go on a little food spree.

We're going a little sexree. We're going a little anger spree. We're going a little fear spree.

All coming from this thinking mind which is fear based and insecure. And I get to hear the world through a fear. I get to talk through fear.

I get to see through fear. Uh rather than when the conversion happens when I get to hear, see, and speak with God, mind dominated life. So the work has allowed me to get removed from all of that little by slowly brought me to a place of stillness.

And I would tell you I I have a very busy life. I'm in the treatment center business, which is 400 dramas an hour, right? Everyone has a drama.

I work with a lot of new folks. That's 800 dramas an hour, right? Uh I I do this.

I I I I'm packing into the stream life. I have very busy life. Uh but it comes from stillness.

And when we come from a place of stillness, we're that much more effective and effective. We're present to the moment. Got a task.

I have a lot of tests to do, but I'm here, then I move here, and then I move here, and I'm giving my attention to someone rather than waiting for you to get done so I can get get out of here. Or trying to think of what I'm going to say before you finish, right? Listening to the silence between the words someone speaks.

So, all this work has brought me to stillness and ain't that great? No longer uh being dominated by this thinking mind. For new people, anything the mind tells you until you've had the spiritual transformation, be rid of because none of it is good.

It'll pretty up a junkyard. It'll come in the form of a relationship. More money, less money, better job, no job, new car, no car, whatever it might be.

Popular sponsor, unpopular sponsor, whatever the thinking mind is telling you, dump because it's a lie. Right? The main problem for us centers in the mind, not the body.

So why am I going to entertain that and make Monday's solution to Tuesday's problem, right? The thinking mind is great predator and yet we return to it and look for a solution from it. And yet it contradicts the spirit.

It contradicts everything God gives us, which comes from the comes from deep down within. When there's no noise and there's no sound, and anyone's ever got that intuitive thought, you're not thinking. You're just moving.

I watch I watch uh uh little children with their moms, right? Moms don't think, they just tend to children. There's no thought involved.

They just give them a baby. They know what to do. There's no figuring out.

It's a great thing to watch. When you're on a 12step call and you're moving real quick, there's no thought involved. You're just moving as God would have you be.

It's a tremendous amount of freeding having consciousness without thought. When we start to think, that's when the problems start. Well, maybe I'll look bad.

I'll probably look really good if I do this. Maybe I shouldn't do this. Oh, yeah.

It goes on and on and on. I was sharing with someone earlier coming uh going through uh um what do they call it? Immigrations.

This is the first time I come through Canada, by the way, where I didn't get stopped. I usually get stopped and they take me in a back room and it's a it's a mess. But I'm I'm uh on my way into security and some woman was trying to make it up the elevator.

This the steps are broken and she had this big heavy luggage and no one was helping her. And I lay off from here to Vegas. People saying, "Oh no, I look like a fool if I help." Oh, I got other things to do.

Always thinking, always thinking, always thinking because what you guys gave me. I says, "Let me help. Do you need help?" She said, "Yes." I took her to the top of the steps and her old older fellow was her husband and he thanked me.

Million thank yous. That's what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know what they do out there.

You know, I had someone once tell me, "You meditate to escape realities." No, I go meditate to experience reality. You're in delusion out there. Have you watched CNN lately?

Let's drop bombs today. There's nothing else going on. Let's just drop some bombs and see what you know, it's bizarre.

And yet we come into AA and we walk softly and carry a big book. Ain't that great? So God separates me from alcohol for the last time June 23rd, 1988.

My separation from alcohol was not um uh a pleasant one. It was violent. It was ugly.

I wasn't looking to come to Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, on a day of separation from booze, um I wasn't even thinking about AA or doing any of these type of things or or anything to do in our glorious fellowship. In fact, I wasn't even thinking about getting into my seven treatment center.

That was the last thing on my mind. In fact, didn't even cross my mind. The only thing that entered me was this.

I don't want to die. And I knew I was going to die at the hands of booze on June 23rd, 1980. It's the first time I didn't want to die.

Prior to that, as Bill says in his story, I welcomed the idea. I tried getting out of this deal called life for years. And I reflected upon that in Alcoholics Anonymous uh growing up and when this spiritual transformation they talk about actually began.

And I reflected on my life from the time I was a little boy uh five, six, seven, I remember my mom having little birthday parties for me. It was the worst idea in the whole world. People were going to come and give me attention and I would literally hide under the table when they would sing happy birthday.

I run out. I I make out I got lost. I do just strange things just because I didn't want that attention.

And I would hear other kids talking about moms and dads throwing them a party or going to day camp in the summertime, summer camp, and and doing things like that. I played little league baseball and that was enough. The idea of growing up and doing grown-up things or teenage things, it sounded pretty good.

Getting a driver's license, dating, you know, going on vacation, making money. This sounds good. But you guys don't understand.

My name is Peter Marinelli. I I there's no way I'm going to be able to do this. I am going to screw this up royally.

So, let's get out. Now, when I was 14, I discovered booze and I didn't care anymore. So, it was awful.

I wanted out and twice on the journey to hell when I was in the grip of the grapes. I intentionally tried to die. I tried to uh take my life and God interrupted my death both times and he has me here today.

Uh that's why I do not question God's will for me anymore. I always question mine though. When I was growing up, I had a mom who was one of us.

Uh she was sick and suffering alcoholic and was also addicted to what they call back then mother's little helper, which was Valium. They were big back then in the 60s. And they gave my mom Valium not to drink and like a real aliy.

We do both. We really do. I'm not kidding.

I'm serious about this. I watched my mom suffer the humiliation, degradation that we go through. And for her, she must had to be a hundred times worse because she couldn't be a mom to me and my brothers.

A lot of shame and guilt attached to that. I'm sure she couldn't be a husband to my dad. She just couldn't be a woman with dignity.

And she was suffering at the hands of alcoholism. And what this woman tried to do a few times was take a life. And in between that, I was the oldest brother and the the oldest son and the first born.

So my job was to caretake and pick her up and clean her up before dad got home. And I would hide pills and I would hide the booze and lie for her because that's what you do because mom is mom, right? And dad would ask me, "Was mom drinking today?

Did mom take those little yellow pills or whatever she else she was doing?" And I would say no. You know what do you do? And then one morning on uh January 23rd about 197273 uh we all came to in terror and bewilderment frustration and despair and I was stricken with fear.

If anyone's ever been frozen that you can literally can't mo move cause of fear. That's what happened to me when we woke up and and mom finally succeeded in taking a life. So I walk with this.

The first time I went to a funeral was hers and I walked in the first thought this wonderful predator called the thinking mind said it's your fault. You should have told dad about the drinking and the pills. You should have stopped this and I couldn't.

So I walk with this awful feeling and then one summer spring summer day my friends are drinking cold 45 beer and I kept thinking if I drink with them all I wanted what they have to offer something bad was going to happen to me like me losing my voice. Some of you guys are happy I know don't worry. So I put my hand and I took a few pops of this quart of cold 45 beer and it went down and nothing happened.

And I drank a little bit more and I drank a little bit more. Then something happened as I continue to drink cold 45 beer. And the first thing I noticed was I start to feel a little bit happier.

I start to feel warm. I start to get a little swagger. And my shoulders got wider.

I got taller and better looking. I had hair on my chest by the end of the night. I wanted to be Aluccino by midnight.

Um, I was able to talk to the girls. Up until that point, that was not happening. I remember growing up with a little bit of a stutter.

You know, I used to change my name from Peter to Nick. I used to My parents should have done a better job. Peter, what's your name?

Peter. You know, Nick, I felt tough. When I drank cold 45 beer, I didn't care what you call me anything.

I was able to talk to the girls, rough house with the guys. I got taller. I had muscles.

I felt good. The beer muscles we get, the false courage we get. The other thing was I was present to the moment.

I wasn't thinking about that horrific pain of losing my mom. I wasn't afraid of this cunning, baffling, and powerful guy. I called him dad, right?

I wasn't afraid about anything. I wasn't fearful. I was present to the moment.

I like the effect produced by alcohol. Alcohol was not a problem. Alcohol was a solution to my bedments.

It was a panacea for what was killing me. Alcohol worked. I graduated from beer to liquor, but it still worked.

It was not a problem. I didn't know, as Bill says in this story, it was going to turn in his flight like a boomerang and cut me to ribbons. Who knew about this stuff?

Didn't know about obsession of the mind. This foreign language. I never heard of these words before.

Phenomenon called craving. I don't know what that means. Abnormal reaction.

I don't know what that means. And God knows what a spiritual malady is. I learned that in Alcoholic synonymous.

I just felt like I landed from another planet. You got it wrong. And I'm right.

Somebody please listen to me. Fear-based insecure. If I was hanging out with you and says, "Peter, you're a good guy.

I'd go home with you. I follow you all over just somebody thinks I'm not that bad because deep within, no matter what you told me, deep within, I walked around with shame and guilt just for breathing." And the only thing that's going to remedy that back then for a while was booze. I remember reading something in a magazine uh one of these uh uh uh magazines about what we suffer from and they were talking how the alcoholic and the heroin the opiate person has some similar brain things that go chemistry that goes on and only the power of alcohol would shut down this deep inner rage that we walk with.

only the power of of an opiate or alcohol would shut down this deep inner rage that we walk with. And I identified fear-based and insecure and I wanted to scream at everyone, right? But I wasn't worthy enough to scream.

So keep my mouth shut and keep moving, right? Alcohol removed all that. I love the effect produced by alcohol.

The first night I got loaded, by the way, uh I didn't break, you know, break out into a street fight. I didn't wind up in a prison. Um, I didn't have, you know, violence with anyone.

Um, I didn't have an argument with the wife or the girlfriend. I didn't black out. I loved the effect produced by alcohol.

It was great. And when I went home, I slept great. And I got up the next morning and felt great.

It was good. There were no hangovers. I wasn't vomiting.

It was a good deal. No black eyes. My teeth were still in my mouth.

Everything was pretty good. Go down to the park to play ball. And when I walked into the park, I felt really good about me.

I, like I said, I had a little bit of a swagger. My shoulders were that wide. I love the effect produced by alcohol.

And underneath that, I have this panacea for my illness. I can deal with the rest of the week right now because next Saturday I'm drinking. I'm going to capture that lucid feeling once more.

I'm going to love get there again. I'm going to love to get there one more time and I can deal with the rest of the week. So the following Saturday rolled around and I drank.

I didn't know I step stepped onto a road pave to hell. It was called alcoholism. I just knew when I drank, I wasn't thinking about dad, mom, or anything else.

It made me feel good. What I've learned in AA on this side of the arch where if it feels good doesn't mean it's good. And if it feels bad, it doesn't mean it's bad.

A lot of things that made me feel good were shortlived and almost kill me. I don't even worship my emotions anymore cuz some of us could do that. Alcoholics Anonymous, we start to worship our emotions.

I got to feel good. Got to feel good. You're affecting my serenity.

I have to feel good. I was in a meeting in Brooklyn, New York, and there there was a drunk right off the street. He wasn't pretty, didn't smell nice, and was was was ugly.

And a woman got up. She says, "He's affecting my serenity. I'm going to another meeting.

What? I'm sorry. This is aa, right?

Go drink more tea when you're ready to come back. Right? So, I don't worship my emotions cuz they always get us in trouble because th those are always going up and down.

And guess what? If you're living on page 52 and seeking recovery rather than getting recovered, you'll be worshiping your emotions every single day. And it's never right.

We're always reaching out there to feel good inside. Always looking for an external condition to be the remedy for internal condition called alcoholism. We worship our emotions.

We worship people, places, and things. They're going to do for me. They're going to give me a sense of okayess.

and togetherness inside and we live a world of impermanence and everything's changing rather than getting right with God and it's always still it's always right no matter what's going on we walk through a storm held head up high shoulder squared and recovered right that's why I don't seek to be a recovering drunk anymore don't want to live like that I start drinking on Saturdays and it start to become Friday and Saturday and then Friday Saturday and Sunday I start to drink Thursday and Well, let's let's just drink. And I was drinking all the times. And as Bill says in his story, my drinking assumed more serious proportions.

And there were many unhappy scenes in our home. We moved from Brooklyn, New York to a place called Staten Island, New York. And that's when the trapoor I found out had a trap door because I would come to in the morning, Bill says, when the terror and madness were upon him, I'm a young kid just out of the starving gate with this drinking thing.

drinking just a few years and I'm starting to experience some consequences of my drinking and so is my family. See, very often we'll hear in some of our contemporary AA meetings, just don't drink and go to meetings. My amends is that I'm not drinking.

I just have to put the plug in a jug and I'm a winner. I made a meeting and I'm a winner. No, no, you're not.

Maybe not. Let's knock on the door. Let's go ask mommy and daddy and wifey poo and a husband if just not drinking is enough.

Let's go ask your employees, your former employees, if just not drinking is enough. We owe we rip through the lives of others like tornadoes and leave damage and debris. So alcoholism was twist me up pretty good.

And guess what? My family was along for the ride and they didn't even ask for it. I'm in the treatment center business and I get these men come in and the wife or mom and dad call me like they've been run over.

They are so twisted up, these poor souls, and they don't know what to do. They think they've c they think they can cure it. They think they cause it.

they think they can control and I send them to another wonderful fellowship. And if any of you guys here this morning, I thank you for Allanon and all the great works you guys doing there. But I see what goes on with the families of alcoholics.

It's awful. Just don't drink go to meetings does not pay the bill. And we are aa so much more than that.

If it was just don't drink, go to meetings, the big book would have one page. Don't drink go to meetings. See you.

My big book tells me years of living with an alcoholic will make any wife or child neurotic. The whole family to some extent is ill. Right?

By the time God separated me in 1988 from alcoholism from alcohol, my family was suffering from full-blown alcoholism and none of them are drinkers. I mean they're a social drinker, right? So my drinking assumed more serious proportions and I would wake up in the morning needing money to go drink and what I did were like a good coward was I would steal from my family.

I would steal money from my kid brothers. I would steal money from my dad. And one morning I woke up and discovered my dad's checkbook.

And I had this great idea. I'll forge his name on the check. The last check in the checkbook so I won't notice the serial numbers.

Right. Had it all planned out. And I wrote out a check for 40 bucks or whatever it was.

Went down to the local store. They all knew my dad. How's your dad?

Tell them I said hello. Anything for Victor son? Sure.

Here it is. And I go to the back of store and get beer and they give me that look. What are you doing?

And they didn't ask question. Do I go to liquor store and get some liquor? And I did this for a little bit of time.

So I thought I hit the lottery. How great is this? But I was like a rebel without a clue cuz I didn't know anything about checking statements.

See that stuff. So my dad is a guy who makes Tony Soprano look like Tinkerbell. I mean, he when he came looking for me and the word was out, your dad's looking for you.

I was looking for a boat to China. I was out and so I didn't come home. And I was sitting in uh downtown Manhattan with this um this well, you know, she was a girlfriend.

I got drunk with her. She was my girlfriend. And uh when we're getting drunk, we swear she's Berek.

She's beautiful. Bo Derek. I met the girl in my dreams.

We wake up next to Bo Diddley. You want to hang out? Do it again.

So, uh, I'm in love, right? And I told the love of my life when my dad drove up and jumped out of the car and screamed my name, his department shouted. He was an angry man.

My dad's a man's man. He's a street guy. You know those tough guys you see on TV.

Nothing bothers him. and he's the only type of guy goes through a fight in new suede shoes and a pinky ring, right? That's how he goes through a fight.

So, he jumped out of the car and screamed my name and I told her, "That's my dad. You talk to him. I'm leaving." And uh and I ran away and then he caught me and I went to my first treatment center and I did 28 days in treatment.

Now, I don't know about up here, but down in the States back in the day, uh Blue Cross Blue Shield was a big insurance provider. I'll get on a soap box here. They would say 27 days, you can't go home.

You're not ready. 29 days is way too long. But on 28 day, you're good to go home.

And for 28 days, they gave me charts and graphs on on what alcoholism is and all these little By the time they got done telling me about charts and graphs, my dysfunctional family, my enablers, and my triggers, I needed a double. I'm really in trouble. Right?

And so off I went after 28 days. And I had that young lady meet me at the door. I says, "Honey, I'm coming home." I was at a real fancy place in uh a town in Long Island, New York, right?

And I treated like I was coming home from some federal prison. I honey, I'm coming home. Bring a jug.

They told me to go to AA meetings. I inquired about AA. Cracked the seal.

Booze went down. We got drunk. I got drunker cuz I was alcoholic and she wasn't.

I couldn't stop. The phenomenon called craving was just interrupted because I was going through detox and 28 days of treatment. The mental obsession never left.

The mental mental obsession will not leave unless we get some sort of spiritual transformation. And there's a difference with the spiritual experience. Watching a baby being born, that can be a spiritual experience.

Watching the sun rise or set, that can be a spiritual experience. Watching certain things happen in our lives. Oh my god.

Overwhelmed by God. That's a spiritual experience. Not what they're talking about in the big book, which is lifechanging, life transforming.

Because after the baby is born or after the sun rise and set, we go back to our business. We still go back to drink. I watched my kid get born this morning.

Oh my god, give me a drink. Right. The life transformation that they're talking about in the big book, the spiritual transformation, spiritual revolution, spiritual awakening is different.

And that requires the death of self, the removal of self before the actual physical death. And that is where rubber hits the road and many of us bail. But it's something that is absolutely required in order for people like us to get to the other side and pass through the archway free men and women at last.

And that's the message we ought to be offering in the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and not just put the plug in the jug. So I went right back to the same vicious cycle. There was no spiritual remedy.

I did 28 days in treatment. I went to gym class, physical fitness, and all the things they told me to do. didn't concede to my innermost self I was an alche.

I went away because my dad threatened my life. You're going away to treat me. I found out about what you're up against.

You're not going to turn out to be like, "Mom, he was trying to care for his older son. I hated my dad before I got sober." He was always on me. Leave me alone.

I realized what he was dealing with. Trying to save someone's life. He did the best he could with what he had.

Right? You're my best friend in the whole world today. So, I get out of treatment.

I'm right back to the same vicious cycle again. How can I deal with a solar solution? How can I be teachable if I still have a reservation or lurking notion?

When I was in this treatment center, it was a pretty funny deal. One day, they take us to a gym about this size. A basketball court on that side, a basketball court on this side, and we had the crackheads, we had the heroin guys, we had the drunks, we had the pill guys, and the women.

And we're all in the gym detoxing. Well, you know, vibrating sick, right? And they say, "We're going to play basketball." So, they had these little seats that fold down and was sitting there.

It was a sight. And the basketball rolled from one end of the gym to the other. And physical fitness, I swear, went just like this.

I'm not getting it. You get it. Right.

You want to have a smoke? Yeah. Let's go.

outside smoking cigarettes and that was physical fitness. So treatment didn't work. Um I'm in the treatment center business.

I I you know I have the the liberty to make fun of it. Um cuz there are some good things that go on but back then it was completely different. So I hit my second treatment center and then I hit my third treatment center and I got a job working with my dad.

Uh my whole family are long shaman. They're dock workers. Anyone seen ever seen the movie On the Water with Mal Brando?

You know, that's kind of the environment. Not that raw, but that's the environment. A lot of rough characters in that environment.

My dad had an impeccable reputation. I never saw my dad go to work in working boots. My dad work went to work dressed cuz he was a shop steward or some sort of foreman, right?

Had a nice little Well, nice with a waterfront, an office, you know, a lot of strange characters walking in and out of there. Some of the men, but he had about 500 men work for him. I looked at my dad as this like he was the general of an army.

Never got his hands dirty. And then he hired me. And my dad my dad always told me, "Keep your head up.

No matter what's going on, you keep your head up. Don't let anyone see what's going on." That's the the rules we learned. Never give up anything.

Even if you're scared to death, you look him in the eye. That's how my father operated. By the time God separated me in 1988 from booze, my dad looked like one of us when we first walked in here.

He was hunched over. He was looking out of shoes all the time. His wrinkles.

He was underweight. He was sick. And my two brothers who are big, strappy guys look the same.

My family walk like alcoholics because that's what owned them. That's why I don't come to meetings. I hope I never share from a podium like this or go share from our sacred AA especially to a newcomer.

All you have to do today is not drink and you're a winner cuz that's a lie. That's a lie. And it sure changes the power of alcohol synonymous and what God can do for people like us and them.

Because what we get in AA, if no one's told you this, let me be the first one. If a ruffles fed is tough, what we get to do in AA, we get great power. We're no longer powerless.

God removes the drink problem. Step 10 promises, talk about that. And if that you have contempt prior to investigation to go through work and experience it and come back and shout that from the rooftops as well.

The drink problems been removed, placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. God's taken care of that. And what's replaced with that is a tremendous amount of power.

We get power not only touch the lives of people in AA but and get them well but heal. We get the power to heal others in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now that sounds like some evangel evangelical thing on TV.

That's not what I'm talking about. But if you think about it, think of the condition of our families before we recovered. How many 12step calls have we gone on and gone into that family's house and the family is sick and suffering and you take that drum, you take him or her and wake them up via the 12 steps and they get right with God and they make restitution and they make amends and do all the things we're supposed to do by living in all three sides of the triangle.

Go back into that home. It's different. She's different.

He's different. The kids are different. The drunk is different.

Everything's different. Work is better. Maybe a new career.

and they've reconciled and together to shoulder by shoulderto-shoulder they're walking together again. I've seen it a million times. We get the power to heal.

Where did that come from? A meeting of AA and it could be some ugly church basement, some Park Avenue fancy meeting in New York. Doesn't make a difference.

God is God, right? But how come in mean meetings of AA we keep God under the table or we keep him in a back room? Oh, he's new.

Don't talk about God. Why? Why do we do that when we've got lot lot of us who are dying and it is only a newcomer.

It's those of us sitting around here with double digits wondering when the hell is this thing going to get better because I'm getting really thirsty and if anyone saw my private life I'd be mortified and you'd kick me out of AA. No need to do that anymore. So I watched my family starting with my pop just go down to tubes because of this thing called alcoholism.

and he isn't an alcoholic. Right around my fifth treatment center, uh my dad was really at his wits end. The D lunacy commission should be appointed for me.

I went from, you know, dating the nice girls to dating someone as sick as me or worse, the running parts and the the quality of my friendships deteriorated. And then there were no friendships. And my family is wondering, what's what are we going to do with this guy?

In my I'm come from an Italian-American family. I'm the first born. Great expectations here.

It was either pope or president. I made it to AA. We're at a Thanksgiving gathering one time.

My youngest brother is an actor and my middle brother is a big partner in some fancy European bank. Always a white collar kid, straight straight kid. And uh we're at this thing and my grandmother has all her friends over for Thanksgiving celebration and she says, "This is my youngest grandson.

He's a movie star." This is my uh other grandson. He owns a bank. And this is my firstborn uh grandson.

He talks to drug addicts. That's my introduction. Where was I?

I was getting drunk somewhere. Uh, so my dad decides at one point that what I need to fix this thing is a woman. A good woman.

You need a good woman back in your life. You need to get married. You need to have kids.

You need to get your job back. So I was working as a long showman. Impossible to get fired from.

My dad threw me out. So don't come back here anymore. I was borrowing money from people that I shouldn't even be in the same area code with.

They were looking for me. So, I got black ballalled from the waterfront. Do not come back.

And my dad said, "What I'm going to do is give you this apartment. I want you to look. I want you to meet a nice girl.

Get dressed nice." He bought me clothes, bought me new shoes, bought me a color TV, all the things you would need to kind of get going, get on your feet if you're not an alcoholic or an addict. And the first thing I thought, that's a nice color TV. I'll probably get about 50 bucks for it as soon as it leaves.

No human power could relieve me of my alcoholism. I didn't know that, nor did he. They were just banking on something.

Grab the brass ring, something to pull you out of this. And when my dad left, they took the color TV, the shoes and boxes, the clothes and garment bags, the whole place. Little by little, you still have to get sold out on the street along with not paying rent.

Almost burned the place down. He used to borrow money from the landlord to not pay him back. And what happened, as you would expect, I got thrown out and I was unemployable.

I had uh I have a nice little apartment now. I live across the street from the beach. Uh I live in South Florida.

I'm in love in South Florida. It's beautiful. But I lived like someone who's recovered one of us.

Back then I had a bed a mattress that was soiled in blood stain and there was no comforter. There were no sheets. There was a old pillow.

When I slept I would basically just you know you pass out and then you come too. I would get the little catnaps and uh they were Mr. Boston Blackberry brandy bottles now all over and some Jack Daniels bottles and there was some other things I got addicted to floating around and I wasn't bathing and laundry was all over it looked like it looked like looked like a hell hole all kind of strange characters screaming my name in the middle of the night like I was home and I got thrown out of this place and um I lived on the street for a short time panhandled and I really by God's grace I got into my sick treatment center and I signed myself out after a day and a half I had people pleading me these counselors Don't leave.

You're going to die. You're going to drink and die. But the obsession to drink alcohol, as you know, would pull me through a crack in a wall.

And they would talk to me about God's grace. God's grace. God's grace.

I would hear God's grace in a too. I still do. Which is a great thing.

It's like feeding our children, not expecting the kid to say thank you. My children are hungry. I feed them.

I'll give them my own food. I will go hungry for my children. God's grace.

Just to be one of his children, it's this gift we get. But there is a difference between God's grace and spiritual fitness. And sometimes in our meetings, we forget that there's there's some work.

Vision for use is patience, willingness, and labor. Labor. Last I checked, I had to get my hands in the mud, get a little dirty, and God will do the growing.

So, I signed myself out of my six treatment center and I'm homeless. And trap doors have trap doors. And I don't know where I was going, but I had to get out of treatment.

I had notoriously uh I was notorious for bad detoxes. I couldn't even fathom the idea that I'm going to go through this detox again and I'm going to be sick again and I'm, you know, rocking and rolling and the the insanity is coming back. You need another drink and all the remorse and guilt is screaming at me.

You know what we doing like that. I need a drink just to breathe right now. And they're telling me about uh well it'll get better to hang in there and you need to go to AA.

That's I need now. Now I need relief right now. And the only thing I know is going to give me instant relief and put me there is a Mr.

the Boston Blackberry brand cuz when it I wrote master it when it goes down it's going to hit my gut and I can breathe. Okay, what do we got? Dysfunctional family.

That's the topic I'll start you know not happening. So I signed myself out and I left uh uh this hospital Long Island panhandled all um uh thumb my ride all the way back from Long Island down to downtown Brooklyn panhandle in the streets. came up with enough money to run so let's go get a jug and I washed the night away in the back of a filthy hallway that's how I lived I'm the type of drunk folks suit and all if I was to god forbid drink this afternoon tonight or tomorrow morning you're pulling me out of a dumpster I blow up quick I don't have a gradual decline I'm grateful for the bottoms it was the gift of desperation that keeps me here 23 years later seeking this power desperation for drowning men and in that in that seeking this power and not trying to sp start the spiritual process with an answer as a lot of us do.

Just anything is better than what I had. It got me to go on a little bit of a journey with this power called God. Lot lots of different ideas about God.

A lot of conceptions about God. What God is, what God isn't, God is here, God is there. And I found out what our big book says, the great reality is deep down within which means the spirit of God is in you and in you, including the drunk drinking under the bridge right now.

The only thing is difference is I got a program. and they don't they may be my sponsor in tangy dates that there is only one power and I don't want to step on anyone's toes I'm not telling anyone how to believe but just a consideration sometimes I used to walk with this two powers this power called god who's going to go to fight with this other power this lower power this evil power or alcoholism my power is going to go fight this power guess what I'm always in fear aren't I because that power just might win I'm always living living a life of fear what if God doesn't work what if I agnostic. What if this power is a little stronger that day?

What if he had his wedies and he might win? Oh my god, I'm in fear. I'm always walking with fear.

The reality is there is only one power and there is not even duality in my life anymore. You're from Toronto. I'm from Brooklyn.

Big deal. We're children of God. We're connected.

No separateness. The same thing we are, we're connected with God. No separatist.

Is there a God in the heavens? I'll find out when he calls me home. But for now, I know the great reality is right here.

And that's where my work is. As a messenger of God, I come to serve, not to be served. And I can't let differences get in the way.

When I recognize and awaken to in the realization of that you have as much God in you as I do and we're connected, life gets easy. I wear the world like a loose garment. I don't care what you believe.

You walk up, you go up the the hill with a a polka dot dunkey. I go up with a striped donkey. She has a black one.

He's got a Who cares? We're going to the same place anyway. Let's not be waring theologians and Alcoholics Anonymous.

You don't read the big book. I do. Maybe I can help you.

Maybe you could help me. I will challenge you. You'll challenge me.

But let's not go to war over it. See, when I start to fight with you, I become guilty what I've accusing you of all along. So, I meet resistance with no resistance.

What would the father want me to do right now? You're coming at me. Me and my big book can go to hell.

Okay, great. That's fine. That's fine.

I'm still here. I'm still your friend. Maybe I can learn something from you.

Maybe you need to bop to your drop a little bit more and come back to me and say, "Hey, you know what? I may have had this wrong. Can you help me?

If I'm angry with you, how can I help you?" It's become a personal thing. That's not what God has for us. That's not spiritual living.

That's not getting a spiritual wings and going to do God's work and go in the trenches. I need to be working with someone who just spat on me, someone who just cursed me. And they come back, secure, sponsor me.

Let's go. I stand at that door. Great quote.

Forgive them for they know not what they do. Meet resistance with no resistance. I wind up outside the Midtown Manhattan Port Authority.

Anyone's been to Manhattan, Midtown Port Authority, 9inth Avenue of the Port Authority. Not a good place, especially back in the 80s. And uh there I am.

And I don't know how I got there. I don't know what happened to me afterwards, but I've shared this story from a million of these podiums because it was the mustard seed that began the flimsy reed our book talks about, I should say, that proves to be the loving and powerful hand of God. Bill talks about king alcohol uses the words bit of self-pity, right?

Quicksand stretched around him in all directions. I so identify with that because there I was in outside the port authority and I had this moment of clarity. We got struck sober.

No matter how blind drunk we are, no matter what we're doing, we all get to a place where, oh my god, what happened? What is going on here? And we could be in the middle of a fight with our spouse or the children, whatever it might be on the way licker, something is like, what the hell am I doing with my life?

What is this? How did this happen? Which is what happened to me.

And I thought of my whole life kind of flashed before me in a sense. My mom who died years prior, my dad and my kid brothers who were so close to me, I don't even know where they are anymore. They don't know where I am.

And my whole life it was a big mistake. And there I am standing on 9th Avenue of Port Authority filthy drinking myself literally to death. If I live to be as 100, I'll never be as old as the day I walked into AA in uh in 1988.

And what I did in this moment of clarity where God was saying, "Now hold on." I bit the hand that was about to feed me and I says, "It's your fault. I despise this power called God. I hated God.

You're a trickster. You're a jokester. playing some kind of game up there with my life and he or she or it got all of it.

But God meets me with no resistance. And I can curse God all I want. I can call God out.

I tell new people, call God out. God doesn't judge. In fact, we go to I go to God for forgiveness.

Like a student going to a teacher or a son going to his father, please forgive me for what I've done. I've made a mistake. Which is a wonderful thing, an act of humility.

God never got angry though. God doesn't have to waste time forgiving. If it makes you feel better, you're forgiven.

Go ahead. Go. Right.

All love. No opposite. My heavenly father never gets angry, but always wanting to assist, always wanting to push and sometimes grab us by the throat and say, "No, you got to go here." But all love and no opposite.

I wound up outside uh in the back of another hallway. It was June 23rd, 1988. It was hot like this.

I was walking around with a turtleneck. uh uh some dirty old jacket. I had a jug of Mr.

Boston and I had blood stained uh soil uh pants on and construction boots with holes in them. I looked like someone who's living in the hallway on a Bery one of these missions. It's really in sad shape.

And um I couldn't do it. I was done. And the same power that I had cursed just a short while before that, I don't know if it was a week, two weeks, I have no recollection of that time.

But that same power I cursed, I beg June 23rd, 1988, if you're out there, I call them out. Take me from this. I don't want to die.

And what God does is when the heart is pure like that and the intent is pure, the motives are have ceased, God will kick open the door and come get us because one of his children are in trouble. Any of us who have children, they can be challenging. We were talking about that earlier.

But if any of us have children or nieces or nephews, no matter how angry you are at them, and you hear them say, "Please come help me." We're there. We'll settle it later. We're there.

You can't explain that bond. So, I don't try to explain the bond of God. But you know what I'm talking about cuz none of us would be here if we didn't experience that great love.

And I said, "Please take me from this. There's a God I had cursed and spit at and everything. Blamed all the time.

I don't know. He was used to it cuz we've all done it. And the words I got were enough.

I have other work for you to do. As if someone whispered it in my ear and I thought I had completely lost my mind. And what I found out later on was I did lose my mind.

When I'm out of my mind, it's the only place I can experience God. When we're in our mind, that's the problem. You hear newcomers, oh my God, I can't believe I'm doing it.

I must be out of my mind. I tell him, "No, if you're out of your mind, you'll be hitting a home run. You're in your mind.

That's why you keep screwing up. Get out of your mind. Lose your mind to find God." And in that moment, I went from resistance, which is all in the mind to no resistance and true liberation, freedom, surrender, which is in the spirit.

I was out of my mind. There was no thinking, "If you're out there, please take me from this." No, no thought like, "If I get sober, she'll love me again. If I get sober, I might get my job back.

If I get sober, I'm going to get a big book and be a a guru. I don't want to die. That's it.

As raw and honest as I can be. And God connected the dots. He will connect the dots for us when we don't have the power to know how to do so.

There's the infinite power and mercy and love of a God that we find in Alcoholics Anonymous with no conditions. We put conditions on love. Honey, I love you unconditionally.

On the condition, you meet all my conditions. If not, I'm calling my lawyer. Right?

No conditions on this deal with God. God's got our back. There is no gravity in God's world.

Even when opportunity, what appear to be opportunities get removed, they're actually directions with me which way I'm supposed to go. Oh, there's opportunities removed. No, it wasn't.

God saying go here. My dad was south about 4 hours in Atlantic City. I'm in the back of this filthy hallway begging this power to save me, to take me from this, and the words I get were enough.

I have other work for you to do. Only recently, handful of years ago, I know what that means. My dad gets that intuitive thought, tells his wife, "My son's in trouble.

My kid Peter's in trouble. I need to go look for him." He dropped her off and went through the streets. 4 hours from Atlantic City, New Jersey up to Brooklyn.

Driving through the streets as God would have it. He finds me, gets out of the car, but he didn't scream my name like he did when I stole from him. He called my forget it.

And it was almost like this this voice, this this very fragile voice, but a strong voice. He hadn't seen his son. He was trying to find his son.

He finally found it. Call my name. Want to take care of me.

And he walked across the street. My dad has a way a whole department can be intimidating, but he wasn't intimidating that day. He had a gentle spirit with him, but not gentle to the point where I would run circles around it.

God had my dad meet me where I am. God works through people. It could be a policeman, an employer, a son, a daughter, whatever it might be.

But God uses certain people to say, "Go meet them. Go meet him. Go meet her." And will give us the right department, the right words, everything to meet that drunk the way we meet them when they come in here.

We know the drunk is full of shame and guilt and remorse and all of that. And we don't use that as a weapon. Well, I got 10 years and I No, we get right down there with them.

Welcome. What do we always say? Welcome.

This is Mary. This is John. This is Frank.

This is Sit. Sit with us. Welcome.

No matter what they look like, what they smell like. Welcome. Because we all have been there.

God gives us at least that much in here with without even the steps to say welcome. We know where you are. We get where they are.

This is the great thing about sacred AA. And God will give that to other people whether they may bark a little bit or be gentle. It's to get us where we are.

And my dad walked across the street called my name and I said, "Dad, I'm okay. Everything's good." And then I collapsed and my dad held me up. And this I always like to share this story because if it feels good doesn't mean it's good.

If it feels bad doesn't mean it bad. I'm always interpret the world through this mind. And here we are the two of us standing in the worst moment of our life.

My dad's oldest son is disintegrating in front of him. Doesn't even know if I'm going to live. Doesn't even know if this another treatment center is going to work.

This thing aa he went to failed. I'm about 130 pounds, right? I hadn't bathed I don't know how long.

My dad's holding me up, patting me on the back, saying, "I'm not going to lose my son to this. I'm not going to lose my son to this." Make this mantra. In the worst moment of our lives, our roots were grasping new soil already.

The spiritual awakening was beginning because God gave me in the back of that hallway, June 23rd, 1988, mustard seed of willingness. and on that we can move a mountain and connected the dots quickly. No time to hang around.

Let's connect the dots. Get dad, bring him to a hospital. Let's go and aa will take over.

Connect the dots. And I knew I was very much I very mindful that my dad is holding me. It took this for this to happen.

If I felt like a 10-year-old kid protected by his dad. I'm a grown I'm 28 years old. Yes.

27 28 getting sober. But for that moment, I was a little kid being protected by Vic, by my dad. I was fearless for a moment and dying at the same time.

And so off I went to my seven treatment center and uh 10 days in his place, same place, Long Island, the city of Cincinnati, the first drink, telling me to go drink. They sent me to Minnesota. I didn't drink.

And I was around people in Alcoholics Anonymous who got to the podium and talking about living in all three sides of the triangle. They talked about the 12 steps. They talked about a God.

They talked about service and this glorious fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous and they looked apart and they would invite me into their homes and they would invite me to the diner and they would invite me into their lives and a couple of them work with me and and gave me some AA tapes at the time. I wanted what you guys had to offer for the first time in my life. There was a meeting called the Three Legacies meeting.

Scared the hell out of me when I walked in. It was three times the size of this. Everyone was dressed and the speakers got to the podium dressed like I am now.

woman wore suits. It looked great. I came home from Minnesota and it was almost 11 months and my first appointed teacher showed up and we began a journey through the big book again and my life has never been the same.

Uh on this path we can outgrow our teachers, our sponsors if they're not growing and understanding effectiveness. My life is about growing in understanding effectiveness. And Mark H was my new sponsor and we started reworking the steps regularly, reworking the steps regularly, having a life of prayer meditation.

I sit in sacred silence three times a day. I have a sponsor as a sponsor. I sponsor a bunch of men.

I do nightly review. I'm accountable, responsible, and I'm consistent with all that I do. All coming from the father, not from me.

Because I still go to my heavenly father. And thank him. Thank you, Father, for the willingness to go to any lens today.

not let it come from me, but it's consistent when it comes through God. 22 years later, I'm still doing that. Thank the good Lord for that.

So, I stand at the door. I stand at the firing line. I don't have a life.

That sounds lame to some new folks, but I don't have a life. Ask some of the old times been through the book. They know what I'm talking about.

They'll tell you what I mean. I don't have a life that belongs to my heavenly father and this sacred place called Alcoholic Anonymous. I wouldn't have it any other way.

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.