God Interrupted My Death – AA Speaker – Peter M.
AA speaker Peter M. shares his bottom in the streets of Manhattan and how God interrupted his death. His recovery story spans treatment centers, sponsorship, and spiritual experience.
Peter M. grew up in Brooklyn, lost his mother to suicide at 14, and spent years as a drunk on the streets of New York before landing in his seventh treatment center. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through his spiritual awakening in the back of a hallway on June 23rd, 1988, the role of his father and sponsor in his recovery, and how working the steps transformed his understanding of what it means to be recovered rather than just sober.
Peter M. describes hitting bottom on the streets of Manhattan and his spiritual experience of surrendering to God in a hallway, leading to his seventh and final treatment center stay. The AA speaker shares how working the steps, sponsorship, and a spiritual practice grounded in prayer and meditation became the foundation of his recovery from both alcoholism and the “sprees” of untreated alcoholism that plagued his early sobriety. He emphasizes that recovery requires more than abstinence—it demands a spiritual transformation that removes attachments to self and allows God’s will to guide daily life.
Episode Summary
Peter M. takes the listener through what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now—the classic AA speaker structure—but with a specific focus on spiritual awakening and the difference between staying sober and becoming recovered.
He opens by emphasizing that he’s a “recovered alcoholic,” not a recovering one. This distinction matters to him because recovery, in his view, means freedom from the mental obsession and character defects that drove his drinking. He’s not white-knuckling sobriety; he’s experienced a spiritual shift.
His bottom story is intense. Peter grew up in Benson House, Brooklyn, after losing his mother at 14—she had untreatted alcoholism and took her own life. His first drink at 14, Cold 45 beer on a street corner, worked like a miracle. He felt present, alive, capable. For years, alcohol was the solution. But slowly, Saturday nights became Friday and Saturday and Sunday. He moved through five treatment centers in quick succession, each time getting drunk shortly after leaving. He lived on the streets, borrowed money he couldn’t repay, stole from employers, and eventually signed himself out of his sixth treatment center despite a counselor’s warning that he would die.
The spiritual turning point came in a hallway on the lower east side on June 23rd, 1988. Peter was at the absolute end—not wanting to die for the first time in years, but not knowing how to live either. He made a plea to God, not thinking about AA or treatment. Something shifted. He got an intuition to call his father, who was gambling in Atlantic City hours away. His father felt something was wrong and drove back to Brooklyn. He found Peter running through the streets in blood-stained pants, construction boots with holes, looking like a bum. When his father called his name with a gentle spirit, Peter collapsed in his arms. For the first time in his entire life, he felt safe.
His father got him to his seventh treatment center. Once there, Peter’s mind started its old tricks—telling him he wasn’t really an alcoholic, just had overdone it last time. But his sponsor in Minnesota, a man named Joe Tia, wouldn’t entertain that nonsense. When Peter showed up with drama—”It’s freezing, I can’t get a job, I’m full of fear”—Joe cut through it: “Where are you with God and the 12 steps?” When Peter asked when they’d start the steps, Joe told him flatly: “When you stop throwing up, you’re late.”
That’s the sponsor Peter credits with helping save his life. Joe and the people at the Three Legacies meeting in Minnesota showed Peter something different—people doing the work of recovery, walking through challenges sober and with dignity, never thinking about a drink. They weren’t putting on a show. They were living it.
Peter’s key message throughout the talk is this: the main problem of an alcoholic is not the body—it’s the mind. The obsession will always try to take you back to drinking. But more than that, for those of us with the disease, sobriety alone isn’t enough. He critiques the contemporary AA saying “all I have to do is not drink and I’m a winner” as arrogant and incomplete. If not drinking was the answer, he asks, why do families and coworkers still suffer? Why do amends matter? His sponsor asked him early on: if you sponsor someone and they don’t pick up a drink but they’re still selfish, inconsiderate, and damaging people—is that recovery?
He talks about what he calls “sprees”—money sprees, sex sprees, anger sprees, food sprees. These happen when untreated alcoholism goes underground and resurfaces in other areas. They’re all fueled by fear and the inability to be alone at peace. He walks through his own experience of nearly 13 years in the program when he “flatlined”—his ego resurfaced, he was visiting page 52 too often, and untreated alcoholism started to win. Circumstances made him willing again. A new sponsor showed up, and they began reworking the steps, over and over.
The spiritual work Peter emphasizes is about removing attachments to external conditions. For years he thought acquiring things—money, a better job, a relationship—would fill the hole in his soul. The spiritual revolution isn’t about addition; it’s about removal. It’s about the death of self before physical death. “The more self, the less God. The more God, the less self.”
Peter shares a profound meditation experience where he saw a vision of a saint holding an infant—himself. He was guided to return to the spot in Brooklyn where his mother had her nervous breakdown when he was three years old. Standing on that concrete, he made amends to that little boy, forgiving himself for something he couldn’t have stopped. His sponsor Joe H. was with him, and when Peter couldn’t bring himself to leave, Joe pointed out graffiti flowers on the wall—a symbol of growth—and then found something etched in the concrete: “To Peter and Johnny with love” and three X’s. Peter knew in that moment that his heavenly father knows him, hears his heart in pain and in joy.
This talk is about the spiritual dimensions of recovery—what happens when we surrender the mind and enter the heart and spirit. It’s about the difference between being dry and being recovered, between abstinence and transformation. Peter doesn’t shy away from criticizing casual AA attitudes or defending the Big Book approach with intensity. He’s direct, sometimes blunt, always grounded in his own experience.
Notable Quotes
My heavenly father interrupted my death June 23rd, 1988, and said, ‘Enough, and I have other work for you to do.’
I’m a recovered alcoholic. And I say recovered because that’s what God in his infinite mercy has done for me and will do for you.
The main problem for your outlook centers in the mind, not the body. All action is born in thought.
The more self, the less God. The more God, the less self. Drastic and revolutionary proposals.
What happened to all of us in those places is this and nothing less than this. We go from suffering to a place called surrender.
My greatest spiritual teachers have been members of Alcoholics Anonymous.
God gives us spiritual wings and say go work with others. We get power in Alcoholics Anonymous. Working with a drunk requires power.
Step 12 — Carrying the Message
Hitting Bottom
Sponsorship
Big Book Study
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Spiritual Awakening
- Step 12 — Carrying the Message
- Hitting Bottom
- Sponsorship
- Big Book Study
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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. >> My name is Peter.
I'm a recovered alcoholic. >> Grateful to be alive and sober and part of a sacred place called Alcoholics Anonymous. And uh you guys just uh knocked me on my butt with that.
Uh thank you. Thank you, Chris, Mike, uh Morris, and the committee and um for all of this. You didn't have to do that.
Um, I'm glad you did because maybe someone sitting here tonight counting days and can see what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous. Before we get going, uh, thank you for allowing me to be here with my friend Chris and share our experience, Strength, and Hope on what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now. Very grateful to be a member of a sacred place called Alcoholics Anonymous.
I'm a recovered alcoholic. And I say recovered because that's what God in his infinite mercy has done for me and will do for you. If I didn't say recovered, I'd be falsely humble.
I'm not a recovering alcoholic experiencing the sprees of alcoholism being untreated in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've been brought to a place called recovered from a not only a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, but the isms that accompany alcoholism. And for this, I'm very, very grateful.
Loving God separated me from alcohol June 23rd, 1988. And my separation from alcohol was an ugly separation. It was a violent separation.
It was in the back of a hallway on the lower east side of Manhattan, begging for something. Our book, our big book talks about uh uh experiencing the bitter rain. And for me, it came June 23rd in the back of a hallway.
My heavenly father, I made a plea to him to take me from this. And I was not thinking about Alcoholics Anonymous. I was not thinking about studying the big book.
I was not thinking about going to treatment. But in the back of a hallway, June 23rd, 1988, for the very first time in my life, and I reflected upon this in a I didn't want to die. Everything short of that, I was looking to take myself out of this.
And something changed. circumstances made me willing to do something different. But June 23rd, 1988, I didn't want to die.
And I remember making a plea to this God, if you're out there, take me from this. And my heavenly father interrupted my death June 23rd, 1988, and said, "Enough, and I have other work for you to do." My God didn't have to show up in some decorative palace or some fancy Park Avenue meeting to get one of his children, some fancy treatment center to go get one of his children. There was sincere sincere plea made to him and he showed up in the back of the filthiest hallway, probably the most sorted spot in my life and certainly this most sorted moment in my life and took me from that and placed me in my seventh and god willing last treatment center and uh I'm with you tonight with dignity and sober and recovered on my way into Alcoholics Anonymous.
my family were full-blown were suffering from full-blown alcoholism and they're not alcoholic because my book is really clear. Years of living with alcohol make any wife or child neurotic. The whole family is to some extent ill.
So by the time God separates me, June 23rd, 1988, my family suffering from alcoholism. They were experiencing the hideous four horsemen. They were driven by a hundred forms of fear.
They were walking on eggshells wondering when it was going to happen again. They were suffering from alcoholism. And by the glory of God and the great message I've been able to get in Alcoholics Anonymous and take this awakened spirit back there, little by slowly they have gotten to recover also.
See, I hope I'll never ever get to a podium and cop 2 contemporary AA where I get to a podium and say all I have to do today is not drink and I'm a winner. Because I will tell you that's arrogant and selfish and it contradicts alcoholic synonymous and it contradicts what the spirit has for me to do, the great work the spirit has for me to do. Because if not drinking was enough and that makes me a winner, let's go ask the families and friends and co-workers if that's enough.
How many times I've been a tornado going through the lives of others with selfish and inconsiderate habits leaving damage and debris and yet I wind up in alcoholic synonymous and someone says just don't drink and go to meetings kid and you're a winner and I raise my hand and tell somebody else that that's not alcoholic synonymous that's being untreated selfish and arrogant has nothing to do with being recovered or carrying a vision of God's will to all our activities I get into my seventh and God willing last treatment center. I never forget the day I left a place in Long Island, New York after detoxing for about 10 days and they were shipping me off to Minnesota and my family was taking me to the plane uh and it was pre 911 so they could walk you pretty far up to the gate and who was there was my dad and my kid brother and I remember as I was walking onto that little kind of hallway that you get onto the plane with something moved me to turn back and look at them full of fear, full of guilt, full of remor loss. And yet I turned and I saw my dad fighting back tears and my kid brother who couldn't fight back tears.
And he said something to me like, "Please get better." By the time I got from there to sitting on the plane and off to Minnesota, it was made abundantly clear to me the damage I did to them that they were suffering like I was suffering and perhaps worse because they weren't putting anything in them to cope for a moment. But we'll go to AA meetings and here we'll hear someone get to the podium and say all I have to do is not drink and I'm a winner and making amends to everyone is the fact that I'm not drinking. Do you see the arrogance in that?
You see how shortsighted that is? Let me take this glorious message back there and repair the damage I did. And if I think I can't, I'm doubting the power of God because God will do for me what I can never do for myself.
Where I've been brought to today is certainly different than the way I was living. Because where I've been brought to today on most days is very, very present to the disciplines of 10 and 11. very much awake, very much with the now, very much with breath, listening to the words you speak and experience presence.
There was a time when I was sitting in a meeting worried about what I was going to say while the speaker was still speaking. There was a time when I'd be sitting at a meeting worried about the traffic going home later on. There was a time when I would wake up at 7:00 and the voice would say, "You're late." And before I got to work, I would character assassinate half the place and I'd even show up yet.
Kill my boss 30 times on the way to work. I didn't even get there yet because the internal dialogue looked like that. That's no longer part of my life.
There was a time in this deal where I thought external conditions were a remedy for what els didn't hear called alcoholism. And I use that to get well. When I get hurt, when I get enough money and all my ducks in a row, when I have a smoke expensive cigars, when I have a new car, when I look good, that means I'll be a spiritual guru and truly relying upon external conditions to get well.
And then one of those things were removed from the equation. I was calling up my sponsor. It's on me again.
And what I have found out the hard way is that external conditions are not a remedy for what els me on the inside called alcoholism. what God is. That is the great fact.
And nothing less than that great fact. My meetings don't keep me sober. I came to get, I stay to give now.
My big book don't keep me sober. My 12 steps don't keep me sober. My fellowship don't keep me sober.
My sponsor don't keep me sober. All those things are vehicles to get me to the power which is keeping me sober all along. Because if meetings kept me sober and my meetings closed that night, does that mean I'm going to drink?
Well, maybe I need to get a new God if that's the case. Huh? Too often 90 meetings in 90 days has replaced God.
I hear 90 meetings in 90 days like it's the Ten Commandments. What I want to offer to is this. What about the person who can't make 90 meetings in 90 days?
Like the women who are single parents bringing up children and now get sober and need to spend time with their children and can't get to 90 meetings in 90 days. They only can get to 75 meetings or 60 meetings or perhaps 50. The message we're giving them is that they failed.
They're not doing a but perhaps maybe in 50 me 50 days and they made 50 meetings but they're going two to 12 steps and they couldn't get 90 and 90. Conversely, we get the guy in AA who makes 200 meetings in 90 days wants a monument made from outside his home group and hasn't done a thing except transmit more bad information. See, when this deal first started, it was impossible to make 90 meetings in 90 days cuz there wasn't even 90 meetings to make.
But what they did was, "You need to find God right now. Right now." So instead of telling a newcomer, "Hey, call me when you want to drink cuz if you're like me, I ain't calling you on a drink. I'll call you when I'm done.
Instead of telling a newcomer, make 90 meetings in 90 days. If they're here and they want help, I'll work with you tonight. We'll start right now.
Let's go get a big book and start working through the to 12 steps in a timely fashion. You'll wake up and in a month or two, you'll be sponsoring someone else. Now, you take that to your middle of the road meetings and I'll say a lunacy commission should be appointed for you.
You need to hear remote work with somebody. Nowhere in my big book does it tell me that. In fact, Debbie showed up to build in about two and a half months.
We passed this on. So, I live in all three sides of the triangle. Not one expecting the benefits of all three, but all three sides of the triangle that allows me to experience this power, oneness with this power with you.
Now, my life is one of invitation. My life is one of surrender and acceptance to what is a life of invitation that frees me up of motives. That frees me up of trying to get into your life.
That frees me up of trying to play God with you. My life is one of invitation. When you invite me in, then we talk.
Then I can work with you. When you invite me here to speak, I can speak freely. An acceptance of the moment whether you embrace what I have or not.
My home group, by the way, is called the Vision for You Group in Union, New Jersey. We meet Thursday nights uh at 7:30, and we're we just made a year uh about a week ago. We're a group uh that most people in my town don't like.
We're referred to as that group, those people, and that guy. Well, we're here all and we show them. Um, little by slowly they're coming in twos and threes and they're showing up and we had about 100 people at our group anniversary.
Our group membership, we have a core group membership of about eight or 10 people and we're averaging about 50 on a Thursday night. When we first started, there was about eight of us. And some of them are showing up with their big books.
And what's great is the sponsor has a sponsor who has a sponsor. We're seeing that stuff happen in the home group. So, I'm really grateful to be a member of Visual Community.
This past week, um, I've been in a place of a lot of reflection or that day in the back of a hallway, June 23rd, 1988. How what sort of condition I was in, how incredibly sick I was. If I live to be 100, I'll never be as old as the day I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous.
How much I hated God wanted no part of this power call God. I would more than bristle with antagonism when you talk to me about God. And I prayed to die.
Every time I would wake up the next morning, I would curse this power. If you're out there, forgive me another day. I want to know part of God.
And I've been reflecting upon this past week of what it was like for me and the experience I had going into treatment. It was truly divine intervention. I remember running through the streets June 23rd, 1988, and I remember thinking of the condition I was in.
I hadn't bathed for I don't know how long. I hadn't changed my clothes for probably longer. I was about 50 lbs less than I weigh now.
and I was dying from alcoholism. And I remember thinking, the only person who's going to come get me in this condition would be my dad. No one else.
The only person who's going to come get me would be my dad. And I remember running to the the pay phones. I had no money on me.
So I would go to call him, collect, and I have these crying jags and hang up the phone. I go to another phone, have a crying jag, and hang up the phone. And around the third or fourth phone call, I kept I thought to myself, if my dad saw me in this condition, it would truly break his heart this time.
I spoke to him a little while ago before I came out uh to speak tonight. And it was really neat to talk to him and I send him a card and give him thanks along with my kid brothers every year on the 23rd. If it wasn't for the courage, strength, and direction that God gave my dad, you have a different speaker here tonight.
So couldn't call him. My dad was in way down in South Jersey in Atlantic City with his wife gambling. And I was up in Brooklyn about 3 or four hours away.
And while he was down there, he had a feeling deep down in here that I was in trouble and he needed to come get me. I hadn't seen him for months. I've heard in Alcoholics Anonymous how God works through people.
It is not only people in Alcoholics Anonymous, it's people. The employer, the policeman, a counselor, whoever it may be. And for me it was my dad.
He listened to this gut and made a trip back to Brooklyn. He told his wife, "I think my son Peter is in trouble. I need to get back to Brooklyn." And he made the trek from Atlantic City, New Jersey up to Brooklyn, Banks and Hurst, Brooklyn.
And he found me running through the streets. And he got out of the car and his department shouted to me that he was someone who had a solution for me. His whole department shouted one of safety rather than I'm in trouble again like it was every time prior to this one day and he called my name and he walked across the street and I'll never forget this.
He called my name with a gentle spirit and I remember telling him, "Dad, I'm going to be okay. Don't worry about it." And I had these construction boots with holes in them and and blood stained pants. They were soiled and I looked a part of a bowy bum and I collapsed in his arms.
And this I remember clearly him holding on to me, patting me on the back, which was foreign to our relationship, and him telling me, "I'm not going to lose my son to this, that I was going to be okay." My heavenly father had the two of us come together. My heavenly father had my dad stand proud with courage in the most sorted moment in both our lives, God working through people. And it was the first time in my entire life, my entire life that I felt safe for a moment.
For a brief moment, I felt safe. And off I went to my Godwilling seventh and last treatment center. And while I was up in the seven treatment center, Bill talks about in his story that the uh uh um um the obsession while he was in the Mayflower Hotel, the insidious insanity of the first drink.
It was galloping back to me. My thinking mind, which is the main problem, was telling me, "Pete, you're not really an alcoholic. You just did a little too hard last time.
Let's get out of this treatment center and we'll control and regulate our drinking." Yeah. >> See, our big book says that the main problem for your outlook centers in the mind, not the body. All action is born in thought.
Main problem centers in the mind, not the body. How many of our meetings we go to, we tell some newcomer, just getting out of treatment, just getting out of jail, just walking in off the streets and tell them, "Hey, Joe, bring the body and the mind will follow. If you're anything like me, the last thing he or she wants showing up anywhere is a thinking mind." But we tell them, "Bring the body, the mind will follow." No, leave the mind out there, right?
Because my thinking mind will always take me back to that which is killing me. And here I am in my seven treatment center getting in there on the condition I was. And after about 10 days, my mind is saying, "Hey, Pete, wasn't too bad.
Your family will get their stuff together. Let's regulate and control." And truly, by the grace of God, I didn't get to do that. They sent me off to Minnesota and people out in Minnesota who I owe so much to.
There's a meeting out there called the Three Legacies meeting. It was twice this size. You'd walk in on a Friday night and people dressed at the podium dressed like they were going to represent Galco Anonymous, not like they were going to go out and commit a felony and they showed up to the podium with a big book and they shared their experience strength at home.
And those very same people invited me into their life outside of AA, into the diners, into their homes. And I saw them experiencing the challenges that most of us experience with family and children and work, all of that stuff. But they did it sober and with dignity.
This was not a game they were putting on. This wasn't a show they were living. My god, I wanted what they had to offer.
They walk through that stuff with peace and dignity and courage. Never thinking about a drink. Never with issues and triggers.
Oh, this is a a drinking trigger. I can't go there. I have issues with this person.
None of it. They just moved from moment to moment to moment. And those very same people knew of some of my story.
And they said, "Pete, you've tried everything to recover. You've tried herb. You tried the job.
You tried money. No money. this treatment center, that treatment center.
You've gone to religious community, they prayed over you, you still got drunk, you're suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience would conquer. That disturbed me on the question of alcoholism. What I wanted to hear was, "Go home and read page 449 and call me in the morning.
Let's talk about your dysfunctional family, Pete. Let's talk about your your feelings today." Because if I was you, I'd drink, too. They really didn't care about any of that.
In fact, one of my first teachers that I went up to, I was sober about 6 months to the day. It was December 22nd, 1988. I wanted to drink again because untreated alcoholism had me in its grip once more.
And I made it to the gentleman, his name was Joe Tia in Minneapolis. I says, "Joe, here's my drama. I'm living in Minnesota.
It's freezing out. I can't get a job. I'm full of fear.
She don't love me." It went on and on and on. He says, "Pete, where are you with God in the 12 steps?" I said, "Well, when do you start the steps?" He says, "When you stop throwing up, you're late." He disturbed me on the question of alcoholism. And those are the people who helped save my life.
And I was brought home from Minnesota after about 10 months and I found my first home group and I haven't looked back. And since then, I've been one of those people who continually reworked the first nine proposals over and over and over again because for so long I would sit in the back of a room and say, "You only have to live in 10, 11, and 12." And I had contemplative investigation. And after about 13 years of being in this deal, I flatlined in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I hit a wall. Reemergence of ego was showing up. I was visiting page 52 a little too often and untreated alcoholism was starting to win.
circumstances made me willing. My new appointed teacher showed up and we began working through the steps over and over and over again to get me where I am tonight. Truly without giving up lip service in a place of freedom.
To tell you in a general way what it was like, what happened, and what I'm trying to be like today, where my heavenly father has brought me today. I grew up in Benson House, Brooklyn. like you couldn't tell by the way I was talking, right?
Um, so far I've been called a Um, this was the welcoming committee by the way. Um, a few times. Um, somebody said, "Are you in the Sopranos?" Um, yeah.
Um, that was the good stuff. I traveled to Arkansas one time and he says, "Hey, we love your CDs. Great talk.
I love your talks about prayer, meditation. One other thing, have you ever been in the Sopranos?" I guess that's supposed to make me feel good. My first drink came when I was about 14 years old uh in Brooklyn.
And I remember my first drink like it was just a week ago. Uh I had lost my mom about 6 months prior to my first drunk. My mom suffered from alcoholism.
She was one of us and never got the solution. And when she suffered that that that bitter end over and over and over again, she got to a place where taking a life looked like the way to go. She was experiencing terrible bewildered frustration and despair.
And what Alisa wants to do is get get us to a place where taking our life looks like a good way to go. And that's exactly what happened to her. And I lost my mom when I was 14.
And my design for living was taken right out of my lap. I had no idea what to do. I was stuck with a guy called dad who was cunning, baffling, and powerful.
He was a street guy, a tough guy, and I had no idea how to work around him until this one summer night. My friends were passing around a port of Cold 45 beer, and they seemed to be joyous, happy, and free drinking beer. And I wanted what they had to offer.
There was one problem. My dad had given many, many stern warnings about not drinking on the corner. And I listened to him until this one night.
And I put my hand in there and I took a few pops off that court and it went down, hit my gut, and nothing happened. And I drank a little bit more. And I drank some more.
And I drank some more. And then something happened that was indescribably wonderful. I got to a place out there that was absolutely incredible.
Never experienced before. I was present to the moment. Everything was good in my life.
I got bigger, taller. I had hair on my chest. I had muscles.
Every girl wanted me. I went from loving Mickey Manel to Keith Richards in one summer. When Bill says in his story, I had arrived.
I arrived. Is that my time? I'm out.
Chris got an hour. I was talking about arriving and the bell goes off. Um, Lord have mercy.
Um, drinking cold 45 beer worked. Alcohol worked on my alcoholism for years. It was not a problem.
It was a solution to what ailed me. It was a panacea for my beds. It worked.
It was not a problem. I drank whole 45 beer and I got somewhere out there. And knowing this Saturday night was like this.
I can deal with the rest of the week now. I had a solution I can run to come Saturday night. And I was doing that for a while.
And then Saturday rolled into Friday and Saturday and Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Little by slowly, I was drinking a lot more and experiences the consequences of drinking, not knowing I had just stepped onto a road paved right to hell called alcoholism. knew nothing about this thing called a mental obsession that my mind is going to take me back to that which is killing me.
The main problem again centers in the mind not the body. Let me share this with you. Because we're sober and alcoholic synonymous does not mean that the problem has been removed from the mind.
Because we are lot a lot of our fellowship walking around with in a place of thinking about a drink over everything. And if they're not thinking about a drink, what the mind will do is take us out on sprees if we're not spiritually fit. It's called untreated alcoholism.
Cuz what this illness will do is go underground and resurface in other areas. They're called sprees or untreated alcoholism. They look like this.
Money sprees, sex sprees, food sprees, fear sprees, anger sprees, sprees. Because I'm so uncomfortable where I be right now. I need to seek comfort with her or him or spending or eating whatever I'm doing cuz I can't be alone at perfect peace and ease on my own couch.
I need to go somewhere. They're called sprees. They're all fueled by fear.
That is not living in the sunlight of the spirit. All actions born from thought. If I'm not spiritually awake, guess who's running my life?
My illness up here, my thinking mind. And that's a horrible way to live to come to AA meetings in that type of bondage. And because I'm sold for 15 or 20 years, I think I can't tell anyone about that because suddenly this path, this revolution has become linear instead of transformational.
And it is not that way. We have members in our fellowship sober 25 years and just as loony as a newcomer. And because they wear 25 years on their badge and it's a linear thing to them, they can't walk up to their ego will not allow them to walk up to someone with one year and say, "Can you sponsor me?" Because 25 years is in the way.
And yet that person weren't near can set that person for 25 years on fire in a real timely fashion. Couple of weeks and those of us that were doing that are dying in Alcoholics Anonymous. I have been able to get free enough where the guys I sponsor here my inventory.
There was a time where that would not happen. It wouldn't. My ego would not allow it.
Our illness will go underground and resurface in other areas of May problems in the mind, not the body. I could have strange mental blank spots in Alcoholics Anonymous. Come out of a spree, I'm never going to go do that again.
And a week later, we're back in again wondering how did this happen? And if anyone from AA ever sees me, I'll be banned from AA. And then we come back in, they say, "How you doing?" I'm fine.
I'm got my AA gang face. I'm doing okay. Everything's good.
Just came off a two week spree, but no one's going to find out about it. You look tired. I pretty much am because I've been trying to fix the entire planet for me.
Right. The reason, one of the main reason, and Chris touched on this, is that the minority is in this work and not the majority. First of all, a lot of our members aren't even alcoholics, but they're sponsoring the real alcoholic.
And for them, put the plug in a jug works. If you realize, well, that's a death sentence. But it's not very popular.
It's not very ego stroken. When we go through these 12 steps, it's drastic and revolutionary. When our book says in the 12 and 12, who cares to admit complete defeat?
That applies to when we're going through the 12 steps. Taking a look at self on paper, that is not a pleasant show up. And it's not supposed to be.
Waking up is not always pleasant. And what gets a lot of us to bail on this word is we think like I did. It's a matter of acquiring things to fill up that hole in the soul.
When we come in here, I feel empty. I'm void. There's something missing.
So, a relationship should work. I feel empty in here. So, I'll make more money.
I feel empty in here. So, I'm going to dress better. I'm going to acquire things.
And what the spiritual revolution is really about is the removal of everything to experience the death of self before the physical death. Death needs to self needs to go. Well, a lot of lot of us rubber hits the road on that.
Who wants to go through a forep and do that stuff? It's not by re by addition but removal that we get free. The more self, the less God.
The more God, the less self. Drastic and revolutionary proposals. You want to know something?
The people in Minnesota, I'm counting days. I'm getting three months and then I'm getting four months. And I show up to that gentleman's door with almost 6 months.
They weren't afraid to give me that information. They said, "You need to experience God now or you're going to get drunk." And if they ruffle my feathers, too bad. Because they were in the life-saving business, not necessarily in the fun making business.
And a lot of our fellowship are worried about coddling newcomer. And then they get drunk and say, "Well, they don't want it enough. If their butts are parked in an AA meeting, perhaps they want something and that do I stand ready to give it away?
The consequences of me drinking assume more serious proportions. As Bill says in his story, my family would start to look at me like what walked in the door. I have two kid brothers in there who always felt safe around me.
And now they start to become fearful of me when I would get loaded and walk in the door cuz very often I was an ugly and nasty drunk dump dumping lots of earthy ugly language on them about this guy called dad about this power out there called God who took mom and I wanted no part of growing up and they got all of it and little by they start to become very fearful of their older brother. They idolized me felt safe around me. Alcoholism was starting to make its way into my family once again and my kid brothers were becoming fearful of me.
They would tell my dad about it and my dad would read me to riot act the next day and I just wish he would shut up so I go back to my drinking again. Why would my alcohol illness Why would my alcoholism allow me to get for one moment the damage I'm doing to you? Why would my alcoholism allow me to see the consequences of my behavior?
It may be fleeting here and there, but basically is going to keep me immune from that kind of punishment of me seeing, hey, I'm harming you because if I get to see that, I may do something about it. So, I would look at my family like they should have a lunacy commission appointed for them. Leave me alone.
And off I went. I got into my first treatment center in a real short time. I was just out of the starting gate made my first treatment center.
And it was one of the 28 day things. And I went there, I did a lot of push-ups and sit-ups. I learned words like dysfunctional family, enablers, triggers, and issues.
I hated my family more on the way out of treatment and and on the way in. I had not conceded to my innermost self that I was a real alcoholic. In fact, my first few treatment centers, I went in to get the heat off cuz my dad was looking for me.
People on the street were looking for me. I was in trouble again. I'll go into treatment.
I'll lay low for 28 days and then I'll come out and figure out a way to drink safely. And I got out of my first treatment center. I remember calling up a girlfriend.
He says, "Come get me." And I treated her like I did like this long hard prison term. Um I was in this fancy uh uh um treatment center in Long Island, New York. She came to get me.
I says, "We have to make these meetings." But I told her, "Bring a judge. Practice seal." The liquor went down. Never got to a meeting.
My mind will take me back to that which is killing me. Obsession to alcohol. It'll pretty up a junk out to get me loaded.
And once I put a drink in me, the phenomenon called craving kicks in. The cravings always intensified. Never satisfied when I drink alcohol.
And I knew nothing back then about something called a spiritual malady. Now, if we watch CNN news at night, you can see half the planet has a spiritual malady, right? but doesn't make them alcoholic.
I have a spiritual malady, mental obsession phenomena called craving. I pick up a drink, I have no idea when I'm stopping. And the real deal about the powerlessness behind alcohol is not only when we pick up a drink that the craving takes in, but over and over and over, I would make sincere promises, have a powerful desire not to pick up.
I'm not picking up no matter what. And I pick up again because I lack power to stop the first drink. No power choice and controlling the mind before the drink and then the body afterwards.
So I would walk into an AA meeting. They would say just put the plug in the jug and I leave and get drunk. I'd say it doesn't work for me.
Made my second treatment center. Made my third treatment center. Made my fourth treatment center.
And uh my dad got me a job um on the waterfront. Anyone ever seen that movie on the waterfront? Marlon Brando?
That's where my first job was. Wasn't the training ground for spiritual growth, believe me. So there I am and little by slowly my illness shows up there and uh I started to act like a drunk on his job and sh exposing my dad to a lot of my behavior.
I start to borrow money from people who want a little bit back each week and I can never do that and they would come looking for me. I start to steal from my employer, not show up for work. I get paid on Wednesday and disappear till Monday.
And uh my dad start to experience this stuff and I got bounced off of this job. Remember going into my fifth treatment center and I spent nine weeks in my fifth treatment center, separated from alcohol, was out on Saturday and drunk on a Monday again. took two days for me to get loaded.
After nine weeks in treatment, my fifth treatment center. On the way into this treatment center, my dad got me this uh apartment, little studio apartment, maybe start a new life, maybe get my job back, get another job, do something, meet a nice woman. Something was going to happen.
It was all going to start off in this little apartment. And in a short time, I brought the lower side, the Barry, into this place before I got thrown out. It was filthy.
Blackberry brandy bottles all over, garbage all over. It looked a part of a drunk living there. And I got bounced out of there.
And I went to live on the streets. Now, some of us come from Park Avenue, wind up in Alcoholics Anonymous. Some of us, like me, come from the park bench and wind up in Alcoholics Anonymous.
We're not here to compare stories. Park Avenue, Park Bench, pain is pain. I wound up in my sixth treatment center and laid up there for a day and a half and signed myself out because it was that the obsession to drink was that powerful.
And the counselor said, "Don't leave. You're going to die." But I signed myself out and I went to live on the streets and um incredibly uh incredible things happened to me. Probably never survive them again.
But I got to a place of um being outside the Port Authority in Manhattan one day and I don't know what happened to me before or what happened to me afterwards, but we all get the flimsy wreath which proves to be the loving and powerful hand of God. I didn't recognize it as that at the time. I just knew I was struck sober for one moment at a moment of clarity.
And I had knew I known at that moment deep down in here what I had turned into was a drunk. I was a bum and I would pray to die and I would curse myself as build it for being a weakling because I couldn't live like other people. I saw many of my friends getting on with their life and I could not pull that off.
And in this moment of clarity, I remember looking up at the heavens and and cursing God because you did this to me. You took my mom. You took my dad.
You took my family. You turned me into this. And I wanted no part of God.
Our book is really mild when it says we bristle with antagonism. I more than bristle with antagonism. God got it all.
Every four-letter curse word I can come up with, God got it. And I don't know what happened to me afterwards. But here's what God did.
It was a short time later. I was in another hallway when I had this experience and there were no more reservations, no no lurking notion that someday I Peter Marino was going to be immune to booze. I knew one more drink was going to kill me.
And for the first time in my life, I didn't want to die. And I opened up this talk with this part of my story. For years, I thought in here is when the spiritual experience began.
I thought for years in here, sitting down with a sponsor was when the spiritual experience begins going through the big book. And for some of us, that's true. But not for all of us.
Circumstances made me willing. a mustard seed of willingness and the spiritual experience began. And for me, my spiritual experience began in the back of that hallway.
It was the first time I didn't want to die. And I made this plea to this God out there, come get me. Not thinking about any of this stuff.
And I got that intuitiveness to go make some phone calls. And my dad came to get me. And I got placed on my seven treatments with him.
In this moment on my best day, I couldn't put the dots to connect the dots like it happened for me. In this moment, I became incredibly teachable and awake in the most sorted moment of my life. What happens to us?
Whether we're coming into Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time, coming off a horrific drunk, or bottoming out in Alcoholics Anonymous, making meetings sober because it happens to us. We can bottom out in here based on our behavior. We can bottom out in Alcoholics Anonymous.
It's called untreated alcoholism. And we hit these walls. We bottom out.
What do I need to do? What happens to all of us in those places is this and nothing less than this. We go from suffering to a place called surrender.
And suffering is where the resistance is. Suffering is where resistance is. It's all in the mind.
And it looks like this. I'll do something different. I'll change.
I'll control. I'll regulate. I won't tell.
I'll tell just a few people. We are running the show. And it's resistance and more suffering and more suffering and more suffering.
And then we hit the wall where it's completely done. It's over. And we throw our hands up and I'm done.
I'll do anything. I'm done. That moment of surrender is almost a relief.
And we go from our thinking mind into here. And for that very brief moment, we're actually one with this power because we are no longer in in charge of our life. In that very moment, we can be as sick as can be.
But yet is an enlightened moment. And we lose sight of that. We don't talk enough about that in Alcoholics Anonymous.
That moment where we get, "Oh my god, I need help." That's an awakening. We think we need 30 years to be like that and we can walk with that power through this journey. God doesn't make too hard terms for us.
But we think that because of the contemporary middle of the road nonsense that goes on in here. The person with three days can be just as awake as someone with 20 years. God doesn't look at linear stuff transfer.
I need to transform one of my children to have an experience me. I don't care how long you're sober. And so for the first time I went out of my mind into my heart into my spirit.
My sponsor says we have to be out of our mind to find God. It's true. I think of how many times when I was new in alcohol synonymous how many times I've heard it from other members especially new members.
They describe their behavior at a meeting. Thank you. I'm behaving this way.
I can't take it anymore. I I did this yesterday. I'm doing that.
I'm out of my mind. I can't take it anymore. And my challenge to them is if you were out of your mind, you'd be doing great.
It's that you're too much in your mind. That's where the problem is. I sounded just like that on my first day in AA.
What do you mean I can't drink? How often are we sitting on our couch sober? 25 years.
Got my life together. We sit on our couch and we have to turn on the TV, have to make a call, smoke a cigarette, go for a walk, clean, vacuum, do something because we can't be alone at perfect peace and ease. Because the mind is running the show, the main problem centers in the mind, not the body.
And what lies in the mind, not only ego and my illness, but all the attachments to external conditions, thinking that's who I be. Attachments to form, attach, attachments to material, that's who I be. That's who I am.
I am my job. I am my money. I am my car.
And we look to protect and defend that to give us a sense of belonging, a sense of self. And yet spirit doesn't care anything about that. In fact, going through this work and awakening the spirit contradicts everything the mind is going to give us.
The spirit is a direct contradiction to a thinking mind until we wake up and we get to use it. Because now we're along the line of God's will, not our will. And all I have to do is write four column inventory and see how much my mind was running the show that particular day.
Mind attaches to everything. And I need to cut those bonds of desire and get free of the pain and pleasure that invites that in all the time. Pleasure when I'm getting what I want and pain in the search of.
That's bondage. Being present with no attachments, my mind is no longer my God is freedom. There's a word for that.
We call it bliss. And what we ought to be in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, what we ought to be in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, a rep rally for the power of God and nothing less than that. And we can tell a newcomer, as Chris talked about, you never have to pick up a drink again.
It's over because we have a solution for you. It's called God and we're going to shout it from the rooftops and not apologize for it. We have a solution for you.
It's God and we're going to show you how to get there. That's what this whole deal about is experiencing the glory of God and nothing less than that great fact. And if you doubt me, we'll go right over to vision for you or Bill Dodson story.
I'll call it number three. Bill and Bob pay a visit on Bill Dodson. He's laying in the hospital bed detoxing.
They go up there. They don't say, "Bill, but talk about your childhood. you need to go to a different treatment center.
What they do is and Bill Dodson thought he was dying cuz he went from a ward to a private room which was not a good sign back then. He was in serious trouble. Bill and Bob show up armed with the facts.
They says we have a dying brother on our hands. It's just as important for him to get this message as it is to us to pass on truth with me. So what does he what do they do?
They talk first they antie up. They talk to him for about an hour. They antie up.
Identification one drunk person with another. Okay. He says, "Yeah, that's me.
That's me. They got him. It's open.
Okay. I'm with my type of people. The guy's detoxing in a hospital bed." Then they go on to talk about the mind.
They go on to talk about the body. And they go on to talk about the spiritual answer they found. And they tell him the directions to get it while the guy's laying in a hospital bed.
You know what happens to him? 3 days later he walks out of the hospital, never drank again. >> But I'd be a very rich man if I had a dollar for every time I heard get a sponsor with a year or more surviving.
Don't do the step You're not ready. Hey, stay away from the court. We'll get you drunk.
Don't do it. Stay away from people like Chris. Stay away from people like Peter.
Stay away from people like our sponsor Mark. Stay away from some of you guys who are walking around a big book on your own having an experience. They're dangerous.
Stay away from them. Chris was talking about Europe. I have some friends out there.
A bulletin went out from I'll call it like their intergroup office. Bulletin went out and it went something like this. This big book movement that's going on is in contradiction with Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it. And I've heard Chris say it a million times. How come we roll over and let it happen?
I'm a Catholic. It's like me walking into my religious community with the Bible under my arm. The priest shows up and says, "Are you a troublemaker?
Why you bringing that thing in here for?" I was brought home from Minnesota after about 10 months and um I had to find my way back and repair the damage. And my family walked on thin ice for a long time, but my actions spoke louder than any words I can come up with. And I found my first appointed teacher uh at my first home group called the Free Spirit Group in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
Uh where they changed how it works into How You Doing. But uh that's a whole another movie. Yeah, we had guys there thought The Godfather was an educational movie.
But um there was my first home group and my first appointed teacher showed up and it came through prayer. I didn't know who to ask. I'm new.
Okay. God, what do I do? They told me to get a sponsor.
Can you show someone? And this gentleman showed up. And I offer that to you.
If you don't have a sponsor, you're not sure to ask. If you need to switch sponsors because we can outgrow our sponsors if they're not growing understanding and effectiveness, turn to your heavenly father. Why would it deny you to take someone from you to him?
We need a teacher, someone to show us the vehicle to experience all of this power and get free and then pass that on to others. And that's what happened. this gentleman showed up and I worked with this guy for a long time going through the work and I I was told I was told about being a member of this fellowship and passing this message on in service and getting recovered through the 12 steps and then he stopped growing in understanding and effectiveness and I kept going and we can transmit something we haven't we have that we have and we sometimes we can't can transmit something that is damaging to others.
We can we can transmit an awakened spirit and we can transmit untreated alcoholism and we can outgrow our sponsors and I need to look for a new teacher. And once again, I hit my knees and I prayed and my sponsor was in New York to do a workshop and I approached him as I knew you were coming and I've been with this gentleman Mark for the last 5 years or so. My life has never been the same.
And I'll just I'll close with this. We need to ask ourselves, am I clear on my current amends? How's amends look?
How could I be present if I still have voices from the past screaming at me? How's my amends look? Am I clear on amends?
Have I can I really enter the world of the spirit if I still have all the truckload of amends that I need to go back and repair the damage done based on my lifelines on on self-will? And how does 10 and 11 look? What kind of spiritual principles do I live with?
What kind of disciplines do I have? My prayer life and meditator life has evolved, has grown in leaps and bounds. I work with a lot of books along with my big book, not instead of.
I've sought out religious people. I've sought out spiritual people. I've sought out people and asked questions.
How do I do this? And I will tell you this, my greatest spiritual teachers have been members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I've sought out many.
My greatest spiritual teachers have been members of Alcoholics Anonymous who taught me out of meditation. Incredible things have happened for me. When I was 3 years old, I watched my mom have a nervous breakdown in South Brooklyn.
Watch this woman collapse. People gathered around. We lived up above a a lunchonet diner kind of deal and the owner of that lunchonet came out and covered my eyes.
I was frozen in fear watching my mom punch a brick wall and collapse. He covered my eyes. Ambulance drove drove away with her.
Next moment I remember I'm in a hospital watching her get strapped down to a gurnie screaming and hollering in hysterics the door closing and me looking at my dad and my grandparents like I just died and I walk with that for many years. My mom was one of us. She was addicted to pills and booze.
And I would lie for her and I would hide the booze for her and do a lot of these things like a loyal son. And the first funeral I walk into happens to be hers. My world revolved around her.
The first funeral I walk into, I see her. My legs almost went out for money. I almost collapsed.
And the very first thing my thinking mind told me was this. You should have done something to save her. It's your fault.
That's the great dialogue a thinking mind gives us. And I had to at 14 tough it up. I'm okay.
I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to. But inside I was dying because I should have stopped this because my thinking mind told me it and it must be true.
That haunted me for years. I work with the religious practice. I sit three times a day prayer meditation.
One of them is a religious practice. In this religious practice, something comes to me out of a meditation. The importance of meditation.
how God can hear our hearts when they're full of joy and when they're full of sorrow. How God can hear our s our hearts and gets to know us and answer our prayers. And we get to see our book says sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but when God shows up, God shows up and it's profound.
It's life-changing. It's it's mood altering. We know when God shows up.
We can't understand it, but we certainly can experience it. And I'm in this meditation and I have this vision come to me. It looked like an old broken down kind of statue.
Didn't know what it was. I didn't think much about it. I go back into meditation and work with my prayer meditation as my big book talks about and work with my religious practice.
The second day, same thing happens. Don't think much about it. Third day go back into prayer and meditation as my big book says and I work my religious practice and suddenly the statue becomes lifelike like I can touch its flesh and the statue was a a a woman a saint and she was holding an infant and the infant was me and I was looking at me in this woman's arms very profound experience for me and the message I get is I need to go back to that spot where I saw my mom have this nervous breakdown you need to go back there.
You need to go see this little kid. About the fourth day with this experience I get and in my religious community, this is significant. I knew nothing about this, but my sponsor made me very much aware of it.
I says to him, Mark, I'm having this experience. I one other thing. I smell flowers.
I don't know if it means anything like perfume or roses. He says, don't talk this away. This is an experience.
be still with this. He was headed back to Texas. Joe H was in town for another week.
He says, "Go with Joe. Go down there." And I called Joe. We went down to this spot where this event happened.
And Joe Hawk and I went down there and we talked a whole lot about amends on the way there. Joe says, "You need to tell your mom anything." I said, "I don't know." And we talked about that. And I got out of the car and I walked around and I stood exactly where I was when I was 3 years old and watched my mom have this nervous breakdown.
And I could feel that. And what I got to tell this little guy, this little me, is that you did nothing wrong. You were free.
It's okay. And I walked over to the spot where I remember my mom punching the wall and I put my hand on that wall and I let my mom know how truly sorry I am that I could not stop what you were experiencing. I was three.
Forgive me for that. And I made prayer and I walked back. This is a sorted spot in Brooklyn and I'm on my knees on the concrete in the middle of the street and people looking out their window like uhoh, we got another lunatic in the neighborhood, right?
I went to get back in my car. Joe H was sitting in the car and I went to get back in and and this is where I really feel the significance of this whole thing showed up because it was as if something stopped me from getting in the car. See, my thinking mind needs to understand all of this.
Like, put God on a spreadsheet. Needs logic. Needs intellect.
God, okay, two and two is four. Okay, I understand God. And we can't do that.
Only experience. My thinking mind will talk this way in a heartbeat. And something stopped me from getting in the car.
And I leaned in. I says, "Joe, I can't get in the car. I don't know what's going on, but I can't leave this kid here.
Been here for 40 years like this." Joe got out of the car and says, "We need to pray. You need to talk to God about this." And he looked on the concrete wall and there was some flowers painted with graffiti drawing. And he says, "This is pretty interesting.
Flowers means growth." He saw a couple of things walked around and I'm praying, "Father, what do I do?" And Joe sees something etched out in the concrete 2 ft away from me. When this event was happening, my brother John was pretty much a newborn, maybe a year old. And what was written in the concrete was this to Peter and Johnny with love and three little X's underneath.
And I'm so glad Joe was with me to witness that. That could have been written from anyone in the town. Anyone in the neighborhood could have wrote that.
I know where that came from because my heavenly father knows me, Peter Marinelli. For the longest time, I would pray to this power, wondering, does he really know me? Does he hear my heart when it's in pain or joyful?
And over and over and over again, my heavenly father answers my prayers as he will do for all of us. And I got freer once again because of the greatness of God that we get in a place called Alcoholics Anonymous, a sacred place called Alcoholics Anonymous. If you haven't found out it is sacred, I hope you do because we see people get reborn and resurrected in this glorious fellowship.
But we want to and a lot of our contemporary AA say all we have to do is put the plug in the jug. Do you see what an injustice to God and Alcoholics Anonymous? That simple statement does how it contradicts this glorious fellowship that there's so much more to even a great event like this or vehicles to experience an abundance of this power.
Be present. Be free. God gives us spiritual wings and say go work with others.
Go. I heard Chris say it a million times from podium. We are not powers.
We get power in alcoholics. We get great power. We're just not the power.
We get power. Working with a drunk requires power. Going into a detox and pulling somebody out requires power.
Doing a 12step pull requires power. And if I am consumed with me and my alcoholism and I got drink signals, then what use to any drunk am I to go pay a 12step call? because when I kick the door open, they got a pint of vodka.
I'm going, "Well, that looks good. Forget about him." Or, "I need to leave because I want to drink." God gets us free of that, recovered. I haven't thought about drinking in many, many years.
And that is just truly the greatness of God. I hope to always be teachable and give this glorious message away with the same love and gratitude that you have given it to me with each and every time I show up for long. 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.