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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Hi everybody, I'm Pete. I'm a recovered alcoholic.

>> Grateful to be alive and sober and at a sacred place called Alcoholics Anonymous. And first things first, thank the group and Derek uh for this invitation to me to share uh tonight my experience, Strength, and Hope on uh steps one through seven. Um, I've learned many, many times by doing this.

Um, regardless of what I've done the day before, the week before, when invitations like this are extended to me, it simply shows that God has spoke through a good conscience and your spirit has extended an invitation to mine. And when that stuff happens, we commence shoulderto-shoulder upon a common journey. And when we follow a few simple rules laid out in the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, not contemporary AA, but alcoholics anonymous big book.

When we follow a few of those simple rules, we can get rocketed, catapulted to a place called the semi of the spirit or very simply a word called bliss. So I thank you for this invite uh for me to be here and share about steps 1 through 7. and I'll come at you experientially about 1 through7, not about what I think or feel or my opinion on it because that's useless to an alcoholic who needs a solution.

And it's useless to people want to talk about the solution. It's kind of like getting in a car and going to a meeting and talking about the ninestep, what you would do if I was in the ninestep. I don't want to know about that.

I want to hear from someone who's done the ninstep, who can teach me how it how to do it, what their experience was were like. We can be around here a while and acquire a lot of knowledge. If we work with this book with the sponsor, we'll we'll acquire knowledge.

I mean, how could you not sitting down doing assignments out of the big book? But I can't I can't say this enough to encourage you to bypass the knowledge and just seek experience. The knowledge you'll acquire, but we need to be really careful because the very things that take me to God can be the very things that block me from God.

And it's called worshiping intellect, worshiping the knowledge, worshiping the the methodology in the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. And it's a subtle shift that happens. And it boomerangs on us because we go from having all this information and having a little bit of an experience to get the experience.

I feel good and I know what I need to do. And we throw sound bites out in the back of the room and tell the newcomers, well, read page 24 or read page, you know, uh uh 44 or something like that. And we fall in love with our own intellect.

But when we go home and hit the pill pillow, we wonder why we're really living on page 52 and not experiencing what the promises talk about in steps 10 and 11. Now, contemporary a will tell you right up front, if as long as you put the plug in a jug and don't drink, go to means, as long as you're sober, you're a winner. And you I'll argue with that.

I'll challenge that with any real alcoholic because putting the drink down is just the beginning of this. I mean, I put the drink down because I was locked up in jail a few times. It had nothing to do with being a recovered alcoholic.

It had very little to do with being on this path. It just meant I was taking taken away from my medicine for a little while. So again, seek experience.

If you're new and you're just starting out on this path, you don't need to seek for belief. You don't need to seek for faith. Seek experience and you will take care of your faith and belief.

>> And if you're on this path a little while wondering why wherever I go, there I am. and it's unmanageable. I'm living on page 52 and I can't get away from it.

I'm hitting a wall. I'm flatlining an alcoholic synonymous. Try reworking the first nine proposals and seeking experience.

And you'll know if it's ego that's keeping you sick because soon as someone says, "Hey, I need to go through the first nine proposals. I'm not ready to do that." I'll stay here sick. I'll be restless, idle, and discontented.

put on my AA game face and the solutions offered to me revisit the first nine proposals and I say no I'm not ready to do that yet ego maybe pride no one should see me going through the work again and as my sponsor put out to me one time he said did you eat today and I said yeah he says why you ate yesterday and then he pressed me what would happen I said well I would get hungry and then what I'd probably get frail and sick and then eventually die. He says, "Right, so you eat regularly. Well, what about nourishment for the soul?

What about nurturing the spirit? What about growing in understanding and effectiveness? What about seeking this power?

We forgot that. So, I need to continually rework the steps. I get through the first nine proposals and the power I get in 101 will make me move, will allow me to move through the first nine again and again and again.

And I continually smash ego. continually uh uh kills self, all the manifestations of self. It's about growing up spiritually.

If we're new in here for the first time, you know, you're kind of being led around by the sponsor. What do I do now? Okay, third step.

Okay, fourth step. What do I do now? And then we have an experience.

But that's not the beginning and end of it all because alcoholism is not done with me. And the sharper I get, the more awake I get in here, my illness gets just as sharp and looks for a crack in the armor. Well, we can't get him or her on booze, but we can work on the relationship angle.

Where is he or she unmanageable? The financial angle, the sex, the food, whatever it may be. So, I continually go through the steps.

We ought to continually go through these steps and kill manifestations of self, successful living, daily dying. And we have to have God's help. And our book is being really mild and really gentle when they say we have to have God's help.

We need God period. I turn to God no longer for help. Because for me, for me, I hear I have it.

I just need a little push. But I must turn all things into the father of life besides over all. My book tells me that God is everything or nothing.

So I turn everything to God. Don't ask for his help. I beg him to show me.

and he always does and it's on his calendar. God separated me from uncle June 23rd, 1980. I'm a recovered alcoholic and I don't say that to boast because if I didn't say it, I'd be falsely humble.

If I didn't say I was a recovered alcoholic, I'd also be lying to another alcoholic. and the power I've been able to access in Alcoholics Anonymous by going through this work, by living in all three sides of the triangle, it has brought me to a place of being a recovered alcoholic, which is the first promise on the title page of the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I've had people walk out on me in AA meetings.

They didn't like the idea that I brought a big book into an AA meeting, which is like if you're if you belong to religious community and and bre like I'm a Catholic. If I brought the Bible into church, the priest would say, "What are you bringing that thing in here for?" But it happens in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. If you take some experience that you want to share out of the big book or bring the book in there, you know, pe 20 people walk out.

And I've had people walk out on me in the middle of a talk when I said I'm recovered cuz what they heard was cured. And if I can't love them, I bless them because they don't know what they're talking about. They're just simply uninformed.

And my job is to stand on the firing line and inform that I'm not cured, just recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, which is a long way from where I left off in 1988 in the back of a hallway June 23rd, where the obsession to drink alcohol was on me as long as I was awake. The phenomenon called craving was on me as long as I was drinking. And then it got to a place where I had to drink regardless of whether I wanted to or not because I would become violently ill.

and I don't give that lip service. I would get really ill if I didn't drink. Shaking was the easy part.

The other stuff was worse. And so I make a sincere plea to this God. If you're out there and I was one of those God guys who bristled with antagonism when you talked about God, I wasn't too thrilled about hearing about this power called God because I used my thinking mind to sum up what God should have done and he didn't.

So therefore, God was cruel and evil. But then we get to a place of incomprehensible demoralization and suddenly we turned to anything that would work. And I always have turned back to this power.

even in here sober when I was angry with him when I thought he this power wasn't following the script that I wrote when I was faced with unemployment in and in incredibly uh uh challenging financial times divorce losing a house argue bargain get angry with God try to make a deal with God I'm not praying to you anymore then I turn back please show me what to do. But I'm a recovered alcoholic and I'm very grateful for that. And if you knew me when I was drinking, you'd be grateful, too.

My home group was a vision for you group. Um, we meet in Union, New Jersey, which uh with traffic is about 2 hours from here. Um, Map Quest told me 26 minutes.

So, I'm going to call up the head Map Quest guy. Then I'll have to write inventory tonight. Um, we're in Union, New Jersey.

We meet tonight at 7:30 to 8:45 and we're a group that talks about the solution experientially from the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you want a solution, how to recover, you can visit our group. And somewhere within that hour, you'll have awful lot of information on what to go home with, what to do in order to recover, who to look for, sponsorship.

We have traditions meeting, a quarterly traditions meeting. And I will tell you, most people in Union, New Jersey don't like us. They hate us.

They have names for us. That group, those people don't go there. Then they hit a bottom and they trickle into a vision for you group looking for a solution.

And the members who are on this path do not say, "I've never heard it, nor have I ever seen it." Say, "Those are the non- Bigbook people. The heck with them." We stand at the door ready so we can show them a path to get free. Bill said something like, "Aa will destroy itself from within, not from without." You know what's happening in a lot of AA?

It's the big book dumpers against the non- bigbook people. Those people, it's us and them. And what's really sad is the people who was claiming this book with their lips who were doing it.

See, if someone's never walked through the big book and never had an experience with the work and never experienced the sunlight of the spirit, is not really free, but is an AA untreated, what do I expect if they look at the steps and say, "Stay away from that." If they see someone with a big book and say, "Stay away from them." What would I expect? Someone who may be untreated. Let me be a teacher.

But how sad is it when people who have this book and have had an experience and get back to worshiping intellect and their emotions and their thinking mind stand at the door and say, "Those are the non- big book people. Those are the don't drink go to meetings people. Stay away from them." Challenge that.

Challenge what they do in those groups. Challenge what they're putting out there. Challenge 90 meetings in 90 days.

Challenge put the plug in a jug. We ought to because it's bad information. but let me never ever character assassinate the person.

And that's what happens. And we become just as dangerous with this book as the person who's saying to the real alcoholic, just put the plug in the jug. Because if God showed up, he wouldn't want any of that stuff.

Those of us who had an experience, go stand at the door and wait for a new person. And that's what we try to do at the Vision for You Group. So when they bottom out, they come looking for us.

And when they're really even more desperate than that, some of them ask me to sponsor them. and then they find out what any lens looks like and they're not so sure anymore. My first home group was a uh was a group called the free spirit group over in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

Uh I was a member there for uh a good part of my sobriety and um we were up against it many times with this book and this information. uh a lot of contemporary don't even go to meetings in that area and there was another group they weren't too thrilled about hearing us coming in to give a talk but I learned great lessons there and I met great people giants and alcoholics anonymous great teachers and one particular gentleman who walked me through this book and then I found out a hard way in a very challenging way that if my teacher isn't growing in understanding effectiveness I can outgrow my teacher or my sponsor and that was a tough one for me to come to terms with like I felt disloyal ungrateful to go out and seek a new teacher. But I was brought to a crossroads and a new new gentleman was put my life.

I prayed father I need a new teacher. What do I do? And my current sponsor Mark H was put in my path and that's the last uh four years about with this gentleman and my life has been recreated many many times for revisiting this work and incorporating a lot of other material along with not instead of I've been quick to see where religious people are.

I make use of what they offer. I've gotten into many many inspirational books and sought experience with all of it but not being attached to although I was a few times not being attached to the outcome or what I think the journey ought to look like because what we'll simply do then is just reinvent ourselves we'll go right back to inquiring knowledge I think my spiritual experience should look this way or when I read some other inspirational books I think I should be this way just be with it and let the work take you let God take you rather than holding on to what I think the experience should look like. So before we get into uh this work, couple of considerations that we have to take a look at.

Is my recovery based in abstinence or is my recovery based in spirit? See, if my recovery based in abstinence, then I can simply be one of those people and this is fine. this this works for you if this gets you through tonight that I could not drink go to means put the plug in a jug may have may still have power choice and control and none of the work some of the many any lengths that we have to go through really applies my recovery is based in absence it's all I care about it's not it doesn't interest me to to uh uh examine what type of person I be in all my affairs I don't care about making amends it's their fault I just didn't pick up today and that's all I care And we have that because you'll hear some members say, "I'm not drinking.

That's amends for everybody. That's enough for men. That's amends to everybody.

I didn't pick up the drink today." Right? Or is my recovery based in spirit? Which this work is aimed at.

This work is aimed at spirit. Not the thinking mind where the main problem for me lies. It's aimed at spirit.

If my recovery is based in spirit, then I may be one of those people who's suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience would conquer. Which means I have to be one of those guys or some of our women who have to go to some of the many any lengths in order to get recovered. And some of the many any lens is the third step decision.

Well, am I willing to live on terms other than my own? And then going through a fourstep inventory, a thorough four-step inventory, looking at me for the first time and not holding up a mirror to you anymore. And some of the considerations our book gives us.

Is my recovery based in absence and spirit? Trust me, if it's based in absence, you can't wait till I am out of here. We're faced with, excuse me, spiritual life or spiritual death.

spiritual death for me. If I don't have the spiritual revolution, if I don't have the spiritual experience, if I'm not reintegrated with this power called God, it's spiritual death for me. And what that simply means is I will be blocked from the sunlight of the spirit, the old way of living, old way of thinking will be present again.

And little by slowly, I will find myself picking up a drink, no matter how hard, no matter how much I try to think the drink through because I have a mind that will take me back to that which is killing me. And it'll be booze. It'll show up in different sorts of sprees at first, but eventually it'll be booze.

And for us to drink is to die. It isn't only spiritual death for me. It's spiritual death for many.

It's spiritual death for the people that God had me lined up to work with. The people the teach the students that God had me to go teach will never get that. The family a book talks about taking us into our homes, occupations and affairs.

Homes first. The homes, the family members who I had was supposed to bring, if you will, this new spirit, this awakened spirit into their life is no longer there. And they experience that also.

And if you don't think that's true, take a look at family afterwards when it says years of living with an alcoholic will make any wife or child neurotic. The whole neurotic, not erotic, neurotic, make the whole family ill. The whole family is to some extent ill.

So it's spiritual death for many, spiritual life when we're in the sunlight of the spirit and spiritual life for many. Not only for me because I get free of alcoholism and thinking about a drink is removed from the equation. But the people, the students that God has ready for me, I can teach.

The places I'm supposed to go talk, I can go. Taking this principles into my home occupation affairs, I can. And the people who show up unexpectedly for me, but God had them ready.

you know, the co-workers who need help, the friend of a friend of a friend who's suffering from alcoholism and I'm recovered and I can go offer I can go offer spiritual life or spiritual death. The other consideration I got to work with, I had to sit with this and get it is that there's certain things we need to do in order to recover. But am I looking at this stuff, the inventory, the prayer, the meditation, the visiting relatives, the going to a doctor, the sitting with a new prospect?

Am I looking at it like I have to do this, I got to do this, I need to do this. Or do I work with I get to do this. I get to get a sponsor.

I get to do inventory. I get to visit my family. I get to take the kids to soccer.

I get to because we know what the alternative is. laying up in some detox on a good day. And for me, I was left in the back of a hallway June 23rd, 1988, literally dying of untreated alcoholism.

If I live to be 100, I'll never be as old as the day I walked into here in 1988. There were no more bargaining chips for me. And I didn't know I was going to wind up on this path.

I just knew for the first time in my life that I didn't want to die. And that's the beginning of my spiritual experience. It be it came in the back of a a a seedy dirty hallway in a lower east side of Manhattan.

And I made a plea to God, take me from this. I don't want to die. It's first time in my life.

And I reflected on that in here. I don't want to die. And my heavenly father didn't have to show up in some decorative palace or some, you know, high-end classy AA meeting where people look good.

He showed up in the back of some filthy hallway to get one of his children and then I got put on this path and I realized I I didn't want to die and I'll do anything not to and then I find myself in here get placed in Alcoholics Anonymous and I sought this with the desperation of a drowning man. 18 years later, thank the good Lord, I still am because I have revisited this work many times and do lots of work with 10 and 11 and work with lots of people and get lots and lots of phone calls and people I don't even sponsor, but I do my best to handle all those calls and work with those people cuz I know what it's like being on the other end when I call up. I'm currently working with a word called immediately in step 10.

Immediately, not hanging out with an with a resentment that I can't shake. Write the inventory. pray and it's still still there immediately discuss it with someone and I call up there's a few people I call up to read inventory and they graciously listen and embrace what I got.

So when the phone calls come in I do my best to to reciprocate that way cuz that's how God would want it. The power comes to me and out to me and out. When our book says we begin to uh sense the flow of his spirit into us what am I doing with that?

I got mine, you get yours. Or they say here, in abundance I give to you the way my father gives to me. After I got out of my fifth treatment center, I had conceded to my innermost self.

Our book talks about this being the first step. Conceded to my innermost self that I was an alcoholic. It didn't mean I was going to recover yet.

But when I conceded, when we get to that place of submitting under pressure, where we know it's over and we'll do anything to keep it stopped, that's a spiritual event. When that happens, we have most of us this moment of clarity where it stops. The train stops.

We get clear. I don't want this anymore. And there's no reservations, any kind, no lurking notion.

We're really clear on I'll do anything to stop this. And that's what happened to me. doesn't mean we're going to get recovered because I had two more treatment centers left in me.

But I had conceded, gone into my fifth treatment center for 9 weeks and got drunk 2 days later. Hit my sixth treatment center out in a day and a half. Seventh treatment center.

Thank good Lord something happened. But after 10 days of being at my uh seven treatment center, God willing, my last one, my mind still was telling me maybe a little bit different, but spirit kept moving me to people who had a solution. And I found myself in Minnesota.

My family thought a lunacy commission should be appointed for me like our book talks about. Five treatment centers, nine weeks in one of them, and you're still drunk. I thought I was hopeless.

I was one of those people who were really, really beyond ill, beyond help, beyond God. And I started to hate God because of that. What I didn't know, what I know now and come to experience is what step one tells me that if I'm a real alcoholic, I have no power, choice, and control to stop it.

and getting angry for with someone for relapsing. Maybe I'm not a real alcoholic because I can't identify with that. You relapsed again.

Yeah, they're probably the real alcoholic who needs a solution now, not in 90 days. Sit with them now. My sponsor sat with a guy uh one more arrest.

He was going to go to way away to jail for a very long time. Got out of jail. He was uh doing um um what do they call that?

Probation. and um he was he was looking to go drink again and he showed up to my sponsors. My sponsor was in Staten Island at the time.

He said, "I'm in a lot of trouble." He says, "I don't know what got me here, but here I am." Um and he was he was he was uh romancing drinking and some other substances. Well, here's what we did. My sponsor sat him down, walked him through the first three proposals.

We held hands at the third step together. He sat down, wrote inventory, came up with seven names. I figured nowhere near enough to do this work.

My sponsor said, "Good enough. Seven. We need power.

Lack of power is our dilemma. Let's get power." We sat down. The guy did his fifth step.

Gave instructions for six and seven. Bang out. Make an amends the next day.

That fast. So the person who's relapsing regularly in AA needs to get to this work if they care to have it now. Not next month.

Not make 90 meetings in 90 days. not here's a quart to call me. Now, that's overlooked in a lot of our AA meetings.

Lack of power, choice, and control. Step one tells me step one tells me that I suffer from a phenomenon called craving. That whenever I drink alcohol, the cravings intensified, never satisfied.

More was my drink. And I had no idea when that was going to stop. It stopped when it wanted to.

I have a mind that will take me back to that which is killing me. It's called the obsession of the mind. It'll pretty up a junkyard to get me back to a drink.

And if I'm around here a little while, it'll show up in different ways. The drink will disguise itself. If I'm untreated, they call sprees.

The sex spree, the food spree, the money spree, the anger spree, the fear spree spreeze. Because what I'm doing is trying to seek some sort of comfort somewhere. What I'm really doing is running away from the discomfort because it's on me again.

And eventually I'll have the strange mental blank spot. Order a double jack. Let's get going, right?

Or a beer, whatever your whatever your thing was. And we're wondering, how did this happen? And people wonder, hey, he was sober.

She was sober. This would happen. Real alcoholic.

When I see them relapsing like me, when I used to relapse, the real alcoholic, they need power. Step one tells me I am drinking. You know, you'll hear in contemporary AA, step one tells me I can't drink.

No. Step one tells us we are drinking. Not that we can't drink.

Step one tells us you are drinking. I am drinking. That's the lack of power, choice, and control in the mind before I even pick up a drink.

The unmanageability as a result of drinking. A blind man can see it. No rent is being paid.

The kids aren't taking care of the families is is neglected. Our lifestyle starts to resemble the drunk. Whether it's an internal condition or external condition or both, it starts to resemble a drunk, spiritual malady.

What CNN news, half the planet suffering from a spiritual malady, right? Yes, >> we have a lot of people in AA who suffer from a spiritual malady but don't have the obsession and compulsion to drink. Have a mind that will take me back to that which is killing me.

So the lack of power, choice control is in the mind before I pick up a drink, get out of treatment after 9 weeks. My mindset suddenly the thought crossed my mind that I can drink. It'll be different this time and I go with it.

My current my current insanity is always listen to a thinking mind. I'm delusional. Right.

So, step one tells me I'm drinking that. I don't know what that day is going to look like. I can't think the drink through.

I I ran over to page 24 because we'll hear in a lot of especially these beginners meetings where they tell a newcomer, think the drink through. Play the tape to the end. First of all, they forgot to tell that newcomer about something that we can experience as a real alcohol is called a strange mental blank spot, which means we're just drunk wondering how in God's name does this happen?

At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, we pass into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice and drink. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent.

We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into my mind to deter me. If these thoughts occur, they're hazy and readily supplanted.

Think to drink through. Bring the body, the mind will follow. The last thing I wanted was my mind showing up anywhere.

The main problem alcohol center is in the mind, not the body. And we tell a newcomer, don't drink, go to meetings, bring the body, the mind will follow. We just gave him a death sentence.

Unless we're informed and we've had an experience with this book, then we're not saying things like that. Then we're saying things, do you have a sponsor? Have you gone through the work?

Where are you an inventory? Have you made a decision yet? Are you a real alcoholic?

And we hopefully bait that drunk to get spiritual consent cuz I'm not one of these people. I didn't I wasn't brought up in saying I'm your sponsor. Ask me, give me spiritual consent, then I can go at you.

And you can't say don't ask me those questions. Life or death. Spiritual life.

Spiritual death. Step one tells me I'm drinking. I have a phenomenon called craving, mental obsession, spiritual malady.

If the sol if the problem is in the mind where my book tells the main problem for the alcohol center is in the mind not the body where's the solution I raised my hand said if the problems in the mind that's where the solution must be the solution is not in the mind the solution is an awakening of the spirit when the spiritual mal is overcome with sha mentally and physically my job is to seek this power I'm an alcoholic cannot cannot manage my own my own life no human power can relieve me of my alcoholism and that includes are. We hear it. I'm in this great relationship.

Terrific. Everyone likes to have a great relationship. I'm thinking deep and I'm feeling good.

I'm going to the gym. And we have that little euphoria. And then she says, "I don't like you anymore.

I'm going to drink. My recovery is based on an external condition. I'm in serious trouble." And she or he is an external condition.

Money is the external condition. Having page 52 in order, right? Looks good for a while, but if I depend strictly on that, I'm in trouble.

It's the internal remedy that works. It's called God. Step one paints me right into a corner.

No human power is going to relieve me of my alcoholism. Well, that just cuts off everyone. including the AA meeting.

AA means consisted of human powers. We come here. There's there's power in the unity of this fellowship.

We get we feel the camaraderie when we walk into a place like this. It's band-aid on open wounds when we get here. But that itself is insufficient.

We need to experience the power of God. We I mean we here in aa uh um it's a it's a we program. We admitted rock.

to we program. I thought it was a spiritual program. Doesn't we imply a human power?

Doesn't we imply self-reliance? Doesn't we imply me and I can't keep me sober? It's a spiritual program with spiritual principles, not spiritual part.

Spiritual program and I need to seek this. God could and would if he was sought. And we get to have an experience and it becomes God can, has, and continues to.

If I seek him, we get free. We get free. And if anyone's here tonight wondering when the obsession is going to be offered them, I can offer you this that you can get free.

And drinking is removed from the equation. Not like what we show up with step one with where it's on us constantly. But we can't get away from it.

We're no longer in that place of I'm drinking no matter what unless I seek God. I had many, many, many attempts to stop drinking. I had many, many powerful desires to stop drinking and still got drunk.

And in the back of a hallway in 1988, it was done. And there wasn't this much of a reservation. Nothing.

Everything. Everything was removed from me, which is what the work does, by the way. It's about removal.

In order to get free, it's subtraction, not addition. Back to the relationship stuff. We come in here like I did, right?

And we have what we talk about that hole in the soul, that void. I feel empty in here. Really what's happening?

We're just filled with contempt, prejudice, old belief systems, pomp, calamity is this wedge between us and God. If you can see it with the mind's eye, right? It's the only way I can describe it adequately.

But we feel empty. And what we do, we start reaching out, get the car, get the money, get the job, get the relationship out there, out there. External conditions.

And it works for a little while, but we still feel empty and wondering why was on us all the time. Then the car gets old, the relationship gets old. I bring my old behavior back into those affairs and I'm wondering how come I want to blow my brains out and I'm in alcoholic synonymous.

In order to fill that void that we feel, we have to literally remove everything that's in there. If we have an 8 oz glass full of water and try to fill it up, what happens? It just pours over.

There's too much. That filled glass is what makes us up and it's full of things that are killing us. We simply have to empty it out and fill it up with the spirit of God and awake.

And that's what this work does. That's why a lot of people run when they hit step four because the rubber hits the road. It's one of the many any lens and we feel like we're dying when we go through this work.

It's drastic and revolutionary proposals they're talking about. It's uncomfortable. A book in the 12 says who cares to admit complete defeat?

None of us. Who cares to look at manifestations of self? And I can't blame you anymore.

It's necessary. It's vital. And I need to know God's showing me.

God showing me. God showing me. You want get free?

Here's what's in your way. I'll help you out of the way. I'll help you get out of the way.

And we have 12 proposals to get completely free of alcoholism. So I'm painted into a corner in step one. And step two offers me a solution.

came to believe that a power greater than myself will restore me to sanity, wholeness of mind. And in wholeness of mind, because of a spiritual experience, my thinking mind is no longer telling me about drinking. And if I'm waking up and I'm growing up spiritually and I'm really working with 10 and 11, even the untreated behavior is dead.

I am free. Although I'll have to write inventory from time to time because parts of self may show up in a form of a resentment or an expectation or a fear. little contempt once in a while, but I'm not experiencing untreated alcoholism in the form of sprees and contempt all the time or simply living on page 52.

Came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. We have an experience. We start to really believe in this power based out of the experience we have.

We seek experience. We show up to this power of God and we're wondering, you know, how do I believe? Who do I believe in?

And when we study chapter 2 agnostics, it blows the door wide open on any contempt that we may have when we're talking about God. What a powerful chapter of spiritual literature. Our own conception of God, no matter how inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach.

And at the beginning, it could be God group of junks for good orderly direction. The bottom line here is, am I willing to go along spiritual lines or not? Am I willing?

Yes or no? Circumstances in step one allowed me to be willing. So step two for me offered a solution.

It was a pointer to the solution. The way all this work are pointers to God. My thinking mind.

Main problem for me. My thinking mind. My thinking mind will get me into trouble faster than the biggest person in this room.

My thinking mind will do me in faster than the biggest, toughest guy in a bar. My thinking mind will destroy me. The only way I rely on my thinking mind is when it's completely clear of wrong motives and I'm walking on this path and I still seek counsel.

my thinking mind. I use it by making plans like getting here tonight, making plans to get here, making arrangements to get here. I use it.

My thinking mind is set aside and my my my my uh my way of going through the day is relied upon God and inspiration, intuitiveness, seeking counsel, clear of wrong motives. I can make a list, a to-do list for today. need to do this.

Got to get to work, call the boss, call a client, take the kids to practice, cook dinner. You know, our usual mundane tasks that we do sometimes, plan it out, and I go, I use my thinking mind. When it's using me, I'm driving here, and I'm character assassinating the guy from last week who didn't talk about the big buck, right?

I'm worried about next week. I'm worried about what happened a week ago. I'm in 10 years ago.

I'm in 5 years from now. only would a, could a, should have, and that guy at the meeting and she better not start this. When I come home with dinner ain't ready, and it's just no, none of it's good.

Why am I driving to this meeting? Why did they ask me to speak? I got nothing to share.

I should just go home. It's too much traffic. Thinking my thinking my thinking my guy asked me to sponsor him.

I can't stand him. Oh my god. Obsessive and compulsive thinking mind.

And what the spiritual awakening allows me to do is recognize that and get free of that in here also. So step two was my solution was appointed to the solution and study chapter to agnostics. They beg us to lay aside prejudice.

Lay aside old ideas. One of the greatest prayers I've worked with is something called the lay aside prayer or set aside prayer. When I first heard that prayer, I thought I was telling God, what you gave me is not good.

I want more. Want something different. All was simply doing is let laying it aside.

If I have a bookshelf full of books and I buy new ones, I take some down and put them to the next level and put my new books up. I'm just laying aside to make room for new for new experience. Lay aside prayer.

God, please let me lay aside everything I think I know about the big book, the 12 steps a you God for an open mind, new experience. Father, please let me see my truth. Let's go.

Just lay aside. No one's telling me to forget it. It didn't work.

Just lay it aside. So am I willing to have God be everything? What was my choice to be here?

And again, I think our book is as tough as our book can be is very mild here. You know, they ask what's our choice to be? Is there really a choice?

I'm faced with alcoholic destruction or finding a spiritual way of living, a spiritual way of life. And our book says or else. I know what the or else is.

I'm back in a hallway on a low side on a good day drinking Mr. Boston Blackberry brandy to pass out. because the pain of being awake and sober is too great.

That's my or else. That's my alcoholic destruction. And we take people with us.

Step three, I make a decision in three. And it's simply a decision. When I was going to meetings in Brooklyn, I would hear do the AA walts 1 2 3 1 2 3 or do a step a year.

And I don't get that. But I do get this. that I had to be willing to live life on terms other than my own.

God's terms. I live life on God's terms today, not life on life's terms. I fail miserably living life on life's terms.

Chapter agnostic says God's terms are are easy, open, all-incclusive, never exclusive. When we're in the sunlight of the spirit, it's just kind of like with all the challenges, with all the things our families have to go through sometimes, there's something deep down in here that we move. We move.

We move. No attachments. Some requirements in step three talks about am I convinced that my life run on self-will can hardly be a success?

Something to sit with? Because the the first answer I'll always give to the sponsor is oh sure I am. Sit with that.

Am I really convinced that my life in every area of my life can hardly be a success based on me running it? One of the assignments I got to do about the third time through the work was go through every area of of my life and sit with it. Did I think I was doing a job, a good job or not?

Did I think I was capable of getting past any unmanageability that I was experiencing? Was was I involved in any of this stuff? And I had to search diligently because if there was a little tug on it, that means I was holding on to a little self-reliance here.

And if I'm doing that somewhere there's fear and there's unmanageability. And here comes page 52. And if I don't do anything about that, here comes a suddenly suddenly the thought crossed my mind.

A drink would be nice. >> We'll hear lots of times about the third step decision about turning it over. Let go.

Let God. How do you turn it over? And we can we can talk for hours and hours and our book is so precise.

Just what do we mean by that and just what do we do? Can't get any clearer than that. And they show us what do we mean by turn it over, Peter.

And this is how we do it. There's some neat stuff on page 62 and 63. Um, if I can find it.

Great promises, third step promises. It says, "This is the how and why. But first, I had to quit playing God." Why?

It didn't work right next which means now I decided hereafter in my drama of life God was going to be my director. The director tells the actors what to do. Right?

The director on the set is the boss. Tells the actors what to do. God is the director.

He is the principal. We are as agents. I didn't know what that meant.

And then I sat with my sponsor. Very simply, Michael Jordan. We all heard of Michael Jordan, right?

He's the principal. He hires an agent. He gives the agent power to go out and represent him.

He goes back to the princ to Michael Jordan says, "This is why I have him." Michael says yes to this and no to that. We represent God. We have given great power in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Page 68 says that God will demonstrate through us what he can do. That's great power. Working with another drunk is great power.

We go out and represent God. We're his agents. He's the boss.

He's the father. We're the children. Unconditional love.

Teach us and guide us. Provide us what we need all the time. I sat with that and worked with those promises for 6 months.

Sat with it in meditation. Read the words and sat with it because what it tells me on page 63, it says, "When we sincerely took this position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. I had a new employer being all powerful.

He provided what I needed if I kept close and performed his work well. It tells me established on such a footing, I became less and less interested in me and more and more about what I can contribute to life. Less and less about me, more and more about you.

And if you shoot over to page 62, I'm consumed with me. Selfishness and self-centerness is the root of my troubles. It's all about me.

One page over, I'm out of the way. What can I contribute to you? What can I give back to this life?

great promise. And the third step prayer is the affirmation of this of this decision in three where we simply sit with someone whether you hold hands or get on your knees, however you do it, the intent is what counts in a third-step prayer. Even the wording could be different.

If I never heard his third step prayer and I'm sincerely looking to turn my will and life over to God, you think he's going to sit back and say, "You missed the word, so do it again." Right? The intent is what's pure. It's what counts.

my intent pure. But we have a beautiful prayer and we get to look at it, memorize it. We sit and we say our third step prayer and then we don't hang around.

Let me let my get my life together. I'm working my third step. How do you you know without doing step four cuz it says next we launched out in a course of vigorous action, right?

Step four, personal house cleaning. And we go through people, institutions, principles, fear, sex. The principles for me became more and more current belief systems as I did this work.

Even belief systems I inquired in alcohol acquired alcohol synonymous. So we have this four column inventory resentments of all the people. And I had to pray before I wrote because whenever I didn't pray, I didn't write or I would justify.

I would conveniently forget the sponsor doesn't need to know about that. And I started to get sick. I could feel the the the the thing in here, this unmanageability.

And I sat with my sponsor and I'll clean up the language, but he says that you made a third step decision to turn your will in life over to care of God. And he's going to show you what to write. The pen is simply a spiritual translator.

God is giving us the information I need to ask him to be searching, fearless, and moral. Why? To stay away from a drink and be of service to you.

And if I go help drunks, great. Primary purpose. And so I began to pray before I write and give thanks when I was done so I don't walk around with some of the sorted spots I'm going to be visiting and stuff for around in my the rest of my day.

And I wrote down all the people. I went back through my life. I didn't care if there was a resentment at the first inventory connect with them.

I just put people down. That evolved over time. And then I did my second column.

Why I was angry with the person in column one. I didn't write a life story. You know, um uh I don't like Joe.

He's really a good guy when I first met him, but lately he's been really kind of funny and I always say hello to him and we go on, you know, this thing. And suddenly I'm really right and Joe's really wrong. Anger, anger, anger will insist.

Anger will insist that I be right. It'll insist that I be right. And when we're in a resentment, you know, when we have that retaliation going on the mind, I mean, if you're like me, we're beautiful.

We're like Clint Eastwood and Dirty Harriet. I mean, we come back with the right, you know, comebacks. We know how to maneuver.

If you want to be tough, we lay the guy out on the floor, one punch. I mean, we're just great, right? On the inside.

On the outside, we say, "Sure, anything you want." We walk away when we get home that that you know I look at third column right pride personal relationship self-esteem security pocket ambush ambition sex relations parts of these areas of my life that are being affected and our book says we considered it carefully. Why? Because we get to see fear a lot.

The third column, pride. No one should see me this way. No one should know this about me.

Why? Because they may not like me. What does that mean?

They may stay away from me. What does that mean? I may be abandoned, feel abandonment, which means I'll be alone.

I'm going to die. Security. What I need to be okay.

They're not giving me what I need, which means they don't respect me, which means they don't care for me, which means they're totally discounting me, which means I'm going to be alone, which means I'm going to be abandoned, which means I'm going to die. Fear in the third column. We'll get to see it.

It's a precursor. Sets us up for fear inventory in some cases. And I get to write the fourth column.

Rubber hits the road. What's all about me here, all the manifestations of self. And then I go sit with someone in five and I need to speed this up cuz we close and >> go uh 1 hour and then open it up.

>> Okay. So we're almost on the hour. That's why >> um right through 7 time we have two hours.

>> Be here till next week. Don't worry. >> It'll be a good one.

>> Thank you. Thank you. Um fourth column talks about my part where I was at fault and it's the first time for me that I could not blame you even though you may have done some unkind things to me even though you have gone out of your way to hurt me.

And for some of us like me, maybe when we were little children, we were bothered by adults in a way that was completely inappropriate with me. Okay. How do I write down a fourth column?

You ripped me or you robbed money from me. An adult who did something that was improper with me. Right?

You went out of your way to harm me in another way. How am I at fault in the fourth column? I have to disregard what you did regardless of what it is entirely.

It's one of the many any lengths our book talks about and rubber certainly hits the road. And I've I've experienced all of those sort of resentments and everything one every one of those are showed up in my fourth column. And I remember calling my sponsor saying, "Hey, I was 8 years old, 9 years old, and 10 years old.

I was a little guy and I was scared to death and it made me feel dirty for the rest of my life on the inside. I felt less than less than a man. I felt inadequate because of what this person what they did with me.

And my book is telling me to put down where I'm at fault. And my sponsor, bless him, he said, "Peter, how long have you been hating this man?" And I I I'll call my my old sponsor. I'll call him Bill.

Uh I says, "Bill, my whole life, in fact." And I went I kind of got a little animated. I says, "I'm strong enough now and big enough now that if I had him in a corner, I', you know, I' I'd look to do some damage." That, he said, has to go. The hate in your heart has to go.

Don't need to love this man. Certainly don't need to have a relationship with him. Just stop the hate.

It's it's what's blocking you from getting to the next place. Now, rubber hit the road and it was a lot of work behind that. A lot of prayer and a lot of seeking some outside help.

I got so free of that. I've been in that guy's company a couple of times. And I didn't pick up a chair and break it over his back, you know, like my Clint Eastwood thing had going on.

Little John Wayneism going on. get in there. None of it.

I got free of that to talk about it to you and I pray I'm not being distasteful in sharing that with you. Okay? And I share that because over the years women have come to me and shared that type of pain, but the guys never can't.

I'm a guy. And I auntie that up and little by slowly over the years men have come to me and says I never told I never even told my sponsor that we need can I talk to you about that we need to talk about that all the people who physically hurt me for no reason I'm at fault where hating them vengeful spiteful character assassinating I had to get past that stuff it was one of my many any lengths and trust me it was one of my many any lengths but little by slowly little by slowly I start to free of that because we're talking about God taking one of his children from point A to point B. What I have to remember here, what I what I ask you to consider when you're writing inventory is no matter what goes on paper, no matter what sort of sort of spot we get to visit or what shows up, right?

What sort of resentment, whatever it may be, it's coming from a loving God. The work we get to put on step four is coming from God. God is saying here, this is what's in your way of getting free.

I'm not doing this on my own. The spirit's moving me. The pen is the translator and it comes out.

And if you if you've done inventory, you know when you're writing all of a sudden things start showing up that you just where's this coming from? Right? It's God.

So our inventory when we follow directions and please the St. Lip Service I I offer this to especially someone who's never done inventory. If we follow directions, we have a sponsor and we pray.

The fourth step is in a sense perfect. You know, we hear this word, I got to write the perfect fourth step. You can't write a perfect fourth step.

We can if we turn to God in spirit. In essence, the fourth step is perfect because we're following directions and God is giving us the information. So therefore, it is perfect because God is not imperfect.

So those things that I care to forget about when I'm writing, oh my god, I can't believe I'm reliving this. Go through it. God will move you through it.

It's what's in the way. The obstacles in my path, the obstacles in your path, whatever they may be. Park Avenue, park bench, I don't care.

Don't compare. What's ever in the way, God's giving it to us. We suit up and show up.

I'll do anything, sponsor, any lens, turn my will and life over to care of God. And God says, "Okay, your life is truly mine, and I'm going to show you how to experience all of me." isn't my God doesn't hold back and say, "I'm going to give you a whole lot of work and watch you do before I you can experience my love." We're the people who were blocked. We created this.

I've created my own calamity. I've created my own uh uh uh um dramas, my own contempt. And God's saying, "Here, here's the sledgehammer.

Get it out of the way." And he allows us to do that. And we really, you know, may you find him now. We don't have to look too far cuz the great reality is deep down within right here.

Thumbrprint of God on all of us. The spirit of God in every one of us. Back to resentments.

The great reality is deep down within. God's in you. God's in you.

God's in you. God's in you. I'm angry with you.

I'm blocked. I'm angry with you. I'm blocked.

I'm angry with you. I'm blocked. I'm angry with you.

I'm blocked. Times that by two or 300 people. That's what my first inventory looked like.

I made 200 direct approaches. And and that's just where my story took me. I had five books of like spiral notebooks.

My sponsor almost bailed on me when I showed up. Resentment after resentment after resentment and fears. Fears.

Unbelievable fears. And God says we can get free. And then it tells me in step four that we're prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle.

And it holds the key to my future. prepare to look at it, my life, this work from an entirely different angle for the first time ever. There's a shift in consciousness because they have some thoughts that promises.

There's a shift that happens within while we're doing the writing. And some of us are not even aware of it, but it starts to happen when we get to see ourselves on paper. Excuse me.

Thank you. It's kind of like walking down a Manhattan street trying to go from uh Madison Square Garden up to uh Time Square on a day like today. You're trying to, you know, weave in and out.

But if we go up to a building up to the 10th floor, we look at it from an entirely different angle. We see a path. The news copters are up there for a reason.

They can see clearer. It's a different angle than the guy driving in the car. God allows us to have a shift to look at a life from a different angle and get to see our part.

Get to see how we started the ball rolling. Get to see how unforgiving we've have become. Get to see how we're so attached to a resentment or a fear or a part of our life of drama that it becomes our life.

We get attached to drama. This false sense of self. This is my life.

This is my drama. I'll create more drama. I'll look for drama.

So I go into me and I say there's Joe with the drama because without the drama I feel like I cease to be and I get to see all of that. You you'll see it in even in our meetings the person who's always in drama and looking for new drama because they think that's who they are. They think that's who they be in here.

It's delusional but I was like that too. Step four allows me to see that the false sense of self, the this the the the me that's run by a thinking mind and all the drama that creates my attachments to my external condition thinking that was a remedy for what ills me on the inside called alcoholism. Got to see all of that.

Wrote out a fear inventory. It would be fears like I had up until I was about 15 fear of firemen. I mean simple fears like that.

I the firemen used to roll down the block or go put out a fire. And I couldn't understand why I was 15, maybe even 16, and had this this feeling in me that was like I was scared. Couldn't identify it.

What was going on with that? Wrote out some inventory. When I was a little boy, I remember living in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

I remember my mom would give me the little bottle and I'd lay in bed and the fire trucks would roll down. Bam. Brun Street on Red Hook, Brooklyn almost every night.

And there was a famous post that I was out of this fireman, this this roughl looking fireman having this little baby. He was taking him out of a burning building down a ladder. My head told me, "The firemen are going to take me away from mom and dad." He got internalized.

16. I'm still afraid of firemen. Writing out inventory, fears come up.

Where's this coming from? I got to see I got to see that from entirely different angle. simple fears like that.

I got to see other fears. I got to see how much my fear was attached to because I was in self-reliance. I got to see fears of dying, fears of no money, fear of poor health, fear of money, fear of good health, fear of never dying.

My sponsor helped me do the opposite. The great assignment. Fear of being old and poor.

Okay. Most of us would raise our hand, right? Okay, write this inventory to the fear of being rich and growing very old.

Fear of being rich and never dying. Let's play that. Let's play with that.

What's that look like? Why would there be fear? This fear because self is in the way.

Who wants my money? How do I protect my money? I'll be around forever.

What does that mean? All the people I know are going to be passed on. I'll be alone, abandoned.

I'm going to die anyway. Got to do the opposites with fear. We got got two uh uh institutions uh the first time I went through the work, the medical community and the religious community on top of the list because both didn't save my mom who died from this.

My resentment inventory, by the way, had uh I was told to write down me and God. I found a whole lot of things to be angry with me about, but I didn't think I could really be angry with God and and or tell anyone about it. But I put down God because he didn't save mom either.

And I blamed God for everything. And as one of my teachers says, I've been going through life treating God like a person and people like God. Had it backwards.

You know what I mean by that? I go to Joe and say, "Joe, I need this done, okay? And I expect Joe to follow through and got every line across every team do perfect.

He's human. He makes a mistake and I'm writing pages of inventory on him. Not going to turn to God.

It's not going to work anyway. Got it backwards. I treat God like a person, like fallible, and the person like God infallible.

I got to see the difference between friends and acquaintances. If we had coffee together, you were my lifelong buddy, right? And I wondered why you weren't around all the time.

That was a hard one for me to swallow. Difference between friends and acquaintances and and principles were a lot of belief systems I grew up with. And I sat with my first sponsor and we went through this work.

And my first sponsor embraced everything I said. He didn't judge me once. He looked bored a few times also.

And he gave me some insight. And remember when I called up my sponsor about this incident that happened me happened to me when I was a young boy. And as they want me to write down where I was at fault, you know what he told me when we sat with my fifth step?

That the same thing happened to him. And I felt no longer alone. Another guy, another man experienced this and had the same repercussions from it.

My lungs were filling up with air again. It was called God. Since then, going through the work, I've been able to work with uh what I call multiple fifth steps.

Our book talks about uh personal persons. And I sit with other people besides my sponsor. And trust me, where our book says we may have had spiritual beliefs, we now begin to have a spiritual experience that has happened to me every time.

Not necessarily when I got done with five, but somewhere between five and nine. Step five, um, with my current sponsor sitting with more than one person, personal persons. The first time I went through to work, it was just a sponsor moved on to six and seven.

And since then, I found out and I can talk to you about this from experience that the more people who are on this path that I get to share with, the freer I get. who understand what I'm about to do, understand it's a life and death errand, will embrace what I have to share and give me guidance and feedback and make things that much clearer and kill ego, kill self some more. Pages 23 to 43 make me a seeker of God and they still do.

And if this is one of the only lengths I need to go to in sitting with more than one person, then so be it. And I got to see in sitting down every time with my fifth step and even more have a profound impact on me in the latter times I've gone through the work is how I was playing God. When I wrote when I was writing out my footstep and going over my life, I saw how I was playing God.

How I uh uh had my plans and designs for everyone else. How I assign roles for you, for me, and for God. No wonder why I was in so much fear.

I got to see all of that on paper. I got to see everything I don't want to be. Do I want to still walk with this into the rest of this journey?

No. It made my six-step consideration that much easier to make to say yes to all my belief systems about God. I got to see knowing God by not knowing.

I got to unravel a lot of my belief systems about God. God is this, God is that. My my idea of God, my concepts of God were just that concepts.

Very little experience with God, if any at all. And they my my my concepts about God came from a thinking mind, a limited thinking mind. I can be the most worldly man in the world in in on the planet, the most red university scholar and yet my mind whatever it comes up with about God amounts to a grain of sand on a beach because we're talking about infinite power and all my my plans and designs all my decisions everything having to do with God were based on what I can see like if I step outside of this meeting hall and I look down the block I'll probably be able to see for about a few blocks and that's it.

Look behind me, the same thing. To my left and right, the same thing. Can't see any further.

And I've gone through my life based on that limited sight distance. And I've interpreted everyone based on limited sight distance, limited uh uh uh whatever I had in me. Limited limited insight, limited intuitiveness.

And I did the same exact thing with God. And my book dissolves all of that because God is everything. And if God is everything, then maybe God is nothing also.

Before there was everything, there was nothing. But there was this power. And it was there before my heart took its first beat.

And it'll be there long after my heart takes its last beat. It's present power. All love no opposite.

And I had to see that. And I got to see that. And how I got to see that was by sitting with someone in five and sharing what I had just wrote, what I had written.

And then great things started to happen because I would get some feedback and some guidance and be steered a little bit clearer in in a better direction. And then I would ask questions. We ask questions.

And if my sponsor didn't have the answer, he would send me to someone who was better equipped to answer. There's great learning and great experience in asking questions. Because if we don't ask questions even about God, then we become fanatics and we see what's happening on the planet because of things like that, right?

We ask questions. Ask questions. Sit with the sponsor.

What does this mean? Great students ask questions. Great teachers are students also and seek counsel.

How neat would it be if you could imagine this about asking questions. If whatever your God looked like, if there is a look, whatever your power is that you prayed to showed up and sat down next to you, would you hesitate to ask it him questions? You may confess how much you love them, how grateful you are.

Then you would be a student saying, "What does this mean? How come this?" We would ask, we would would it would just just come out of us. The questions we would have to ask.

Here we are. The greatest spiritual teachers I've found in my life have been members of Alcoholics Anonymous, Recovered Members. Why do I hesitate to ask questions?

Ask questions. We have some fifth promises our book talks about. And I didn't experience those fifth promises the first time.

Right after I got done with the fifth step, I was more relieved that it was done. I did feel something that another person knew all about me and there was some the mind had some disturbance but here felt very light, very open, very very roomy, very free. I didn't have to worry about what if they find out how much I angry with that or fearful about that or something I did, you know, read sex inventory to another guy, you know, about those things that we rather just not let anyone know about certain behaviors, right?

Someone knew me. And those fifth step promises, I I remember starting to experience something. And I didn't wake up to till I was in 6 7 8 9 and I remember uh being at a meeting in Brooklyn and um I was in uh got my instructions 6 and 7.

I was creating this list for 8 and uh something was going on that I could not describe and when I can't describe something I feel so blissful and so joyful. It's God. I remember sitting with another member that my sponsors uh sponsored also at the time and and I'm I'm sharing with this person what what's going on with me and they were just delighted for me because they knew what was going on.

Since then I've sat with a prospect and then the sponsor, another AA member and then the sponsor and shared my fifth step. It has evolved this way. Um, I don't have that many names on like I did the first time.

Although, one time I went to sit down and figure this is going to be a snap inventory. There'll be about 10 names and 70 names show up. My current inventories are just that.

Current inventories when I revisit the work. However, sometimes old resentments still show up. Things from the past still show up and I put them down anyway.

But my focus is on current stuff. And how I knew I was starting to have a a shift, an internal shift within uh me was this way. I I going through the work that I know was the third time maybe.

And a friend of mine uh from California called me up and he said, "Hey, how's that inventory going?" Um and he had this this snicker about him, this way of laughing, very cynical. And uh he laughed and says, "How's that sex inventory going?" Right? And at that moment, I knew something changed because the first time I wrote inventory, my sex inventory looked like a newcomer's sex inventory.

Everything you would expect was in there, right? But this time, a few years removed from the first time, it had little to do or nothing to do with sex. It had to do with my ideas of how men ought to be be and how women ought to be.

belief systems about our journey thinking we were well there's an obvious different but thinking we were different in spirit and I'm John Wayne and you're the fair maiden you know waiting for me to come home and real men do this you know I grew up in a a family full of long showmen from downtown Brooklyn and real men throw punches first and worry about it later. Anything less than that, you're less than. Now, we've changed.

Thank God. My dad being watching me do this and my brothers seek that path, he's kind of like softened up a bit. But growing up, it was you throw punches first, worry about it later.

Anything less than that, I was less than. And women are supposed to be this way. And I was having trouble with personal relationships.

I wonder why. Right? And I got to see that stuff.

And I realized how much God allowed me to get move past the stuff that plagued me on the way in. The great change that happened for me. My whole life was full of infidelity with girlfriends and things like that and meeting the same type of women, wondering why they hate me and I hate them.

But then something happened where um I've been in a very long-term relationship when I was married and even after that dissolved and I'm in a new relationship where I I'm I'm honest which is very unlike how I used to be and I'm just so grateful for that cuz what I what I found out also by going through this work is my harsh treatment towards women and God has allowed me to treat women like children of God, not like as women and I'm the man to seek counsel with women. And I have to get a women's perspective to see what that how they approach this. There's a few women in Jersey who are just great teachers to me.

And I woke up to that because I had to share something in my in my first fifth step and that I and I and I really dislike men who do this. But there was an incident came out of a blackout in downtown Brooklyn on the F train Smith and Ninth Street if any of you guys know that. It's a big train station beating up a girlfriend ripping her purse out of and hitting her because I wanted money that she had and wouldn't give to me.

Came out of a blackout in that condition. I don't know what happened to I don't know where I was before that, but I w I came out of this blackout in that condition and she was in tears crying and people, you know, just keep walking by because they don't want to get involved. I hated me.

I hated me for doing something. Turning into an animal that I turned into. And alcoholism had a big grin on its face cuz it had two, not one now in its grip.

That was painful for me to read in my fifth step. What my heavenly father's allowed me to do is I don't do that. I've never done that since.

And I treat women with respect. I don't 13st step women. I see vulnerability when they walk in here and I direct them towards women.

It's the least I can do and try to be a teacher or a friend or a big brother to some, but not manipulate and deceive because my spiritual life depends on that. It's how God allows me to do it. And I'm not making a sacrifice when I do that with me.

It's who I be. And I share that not to think highly of me but the greatness of God. Step six after finishing step five it says if we can answer to our own satisfaction looking at are the stones properly in place.

They ask us some questions on on the bottom of page. here. I think it's 75.

Have we tried to really sneak something through the archway? Have we tried to get something past God that he we think he's not going to find out? Have we omitted anything for building an archway through which we shall walk a free man at last?

I thought I was free in the past. Now it's telling me at last you're really going to be free. Is our work solid so far?

The stones properly in place? Have I skipped on the cement put into the foundation? Have we tried to make mortar without sand?

And says if I can answer these questions to my own satisfaction, I looked at step six. We're building this archway. I was a long showman, a union guy for 23 years.

And I know how union guys perform. Shortcut. Let's get out of here.

Coffee break. That's a generalization. Not all union guys.

I did. Right. I'm not getting paid to hell with the archway.

Right. I don't want that archway. So God's showing me what to do.

And really, God is the one who's building it, using me building it, using a sponsor building it. God's doing it. It'll stand forever.

I'm going to pass through this archway free. I look at these questions and if you break it down to asking, have we tried to sneak something by? Have we kept something that no one's going to find out about?

that sex inventory, that fear inventory, that thing that I thought was insignificant. I feel like an idiot for sharing this as it has we have we antied up and if we have then there's a shift that is great promise book says doesn't to your uh sponsor satisfaction not to the group satisfaction if we can answer to our own satisfaction. We've had a shift go on here.

Power. The lack of power we had. Now we're getting some power and we're using that power.

Okay. Can I answer these questions to my own satisfaction? Truthfully, yes.

Look at step six. Am I ready to have God take every one of these things? And I consider, am I ready to have God take them all?

He better. Because if I don't turn to God and have him work work in those defects and deal with them, they will deal with me. And very often what happens is what gets in the way is the way.

This work we look at it like what order I can't go through with it. The same thing with God. How do I get to God?

Oh my god, that's too much for me. What gets in the way is the way. But when we start to unlearn, we get free.

When we start to subtract and reduce things, take things away, we start to get free and we got to we get to see that we are beyond form, beyond name, that we're really truly and this has been a new new thing forming. I've heard a million times, but a new meaning forming, new depth, that we're truly spiritual beings having this human experience beyond name, beyond form, beyond content. Same thing with God.

Just is spiritual being moving from moment to moment to moment to moment. Free or in the grip of alcoholism. We look at step seven.

The prayer has very little to do with me. The prayer has a whole lot about me being of service to God and others. And I ask God for strength to go out from here right here to do his bidding.

Steps eight and nine. Enter the world with a spirit. Go work with others.

The second time I went through the work, it became my first step for life because what I was what I was looking at was the the manifestations itself, the defects of character that were still there that had to go and if they didn't, they were going to kill me. It was my first step for life. And I sued up with a spirit of willing to have God remove these things.

One of the assignments I worked with the first time was I listed the defects that were revealed to me and listed the opposites of those defects on another sheet of paper. dishonest, honest, self-s serving, giving, hateful, loving, and I turn back to God for this stuff. I go through the work the second time with the sevenst step and I and I and I I do the sevenst step prayer and I remember feeling completely empty on the inside like I never been to an AA meeting in my life.

Like I never opened up the big book. I was vibrating on the inside. I was scared to death.

There was no thinking about a drink, which is key to this experience because I found out later on it was truly a God experience. And I was feeling so shaky like I was dying. I prayed and went I prayed again and went to a meditation after the sevenstep prayer.

And I sat in meditation. The words that came to me was, "Father, save me from me," which is what I talked about a little bit earlier. Father, save me from me cuz I will do me in faster than anyone.

And then I called up my sponsor. He says, "Mark, here's what's going on." He said, "Sounds like you're having an experience to me." Thanks a lot. There was something that took place this particular day.

It was a Sunday. And every fiber of my being wanted to put my hand on the wall and go with old old way of doing things, old belief systems. I'm going to get in there.

I'm going to go fix it. Get in there, go fix it. Got to get in there, go fix it because it's going to turn out this way.

And I couldn't. I couldn't. And I wanted to all day.

I was on this obsession. I got I got to do something. Should make this call.

I should go do this. I should make this call. I got to do something.

And I couldn't. Well, the end of the day happened. And I promise you, it worked out perfect.

Divinely perfect. And then I was so grateful that I didn't create another new drama by doing what I wanted to do. Common sense truly became uncommon sense.

One of my teachers says, "My my answers for today are tomorrow's problems." Right shift. What I found out that experience I was having the second time through the work, I was truly experiencing the emptying out, the death of self. And it feels like we're dying sometimes when we go to the work because we're dying the death of self before the physical death.

And that's what was happening to me. I got to challenge everything and it was incredibly uncomfortable in here. But then I got free and that emptiness start to get still and the mind started to get still and then I got present and mindful and back to breath.

My eight-step list which came out of step four and I start making amends. I've gone through this work many, many, many times. It feels so wonderful on the other side, not always when we're going through it.

So why deny my spirit in me and others I get a chance to help the greatness of God, the greatness of this power? All the work we do in here are pointers to the glory of God. We ought to be in AA a pep rally for the power of God.

We should be shouting from the rooftops about what God can do for us. A pep rally for the power of God. And too many times in contemporary AA meetings, don't talk about God cuz you'll scare a newcomer out.

Tough. If the lucky booze may kick him back in if it doesn't kill him, it's like getting wheeled into an emergency room with what a life-threatening wound and the doctor says, "Easy does it." What What are we What are we demanding? We're demanding help now.

Stop the bleeding. I don't want to die. Help me.

Well, what happens when the drunk walks in with one day state of obsession dying and they show up to us, you know, the last place they're going to walk into, but here they are and we tell them easy does it, but we don't give them a solution. or the gentleman or the woman who walks in here with 25 years or 20 years or 15 years or 10 years and his diamond is thinking about drinking and suicide and just too afraid to tell anyone because we may think less of them in their thinking mind and that they're not blowing their brains out. They don't know what to do and we say well they got 10 or 15 years they got it together really how do we know or when we tell the newcomer instead of I'll sit down and work with you once they ask us to sponsor them or we offer this book to them before they ask us to sponsor them and say we have a solution for you you never have to drink again we tell them make 90 meetings that we here but some meetings make 90 meetings in 90 days Right?

And my book tells me we had to quit playing God because it doesn't work. Aren't I playing God when I tell a newcomer who's in a state of obsession, who keeps relapsing, who can't stop drinking, make 90 meetings in 90 days, like I know they're going to make 90 meetings in 90 days without picking up a drink. If they had the power to do that, what the hell are they doing here?

But I play God by saying, "Joe, you can't stop drinking. So make 90 millions in 90 days. Make more coffee.

He or she is trying to hold on to another hour. Their life is in the toilet. They're dying.

Maybe they just got to have another treatment center and we tell them just put the plug in the jug. That may work for some. And if it works for you and you're here tonight, bless you.

I'm not trying to tell you you're wrong. What I am going to do is challenge it for real alcoholic because I got that information and almost died. And the people who showed this book to me annoyed me.

They disturbed me on the question of alcoholism. And I'll close with the story on how it happened. God separates me June 23rd, 1988, December 22nd, 1988.

I want to drink more than anything in the world. Everything's caving in on me. I'm acting like a drunk without a drink in me.

And if I She only loved me again. If only this happened. When that works out, I'm living in Minnesota.

There's 30 ft of snow out. I can't take it. I'm driving down uh I don't know wherever it was uh somewhere in in Minneapolis or Bloomington and I said to myself the first bar I go to or the first crew on the corner who's dealing something I'm getting fired up cuz this is awful.

And then something came over me in here. I says, "God, I'm in trouble. Just help me.

I don't know what to do here." I thought of this gentleman in Minnesota. Called him up. He was my first sponsor.

uh kind of like a first sponsor. Went to his house. I shared my dramas of life with him.

He says, "Peter, where are you with God in the 12 steps?" I said, "Joe, when do you start the steps?" And he says, "When you stop throwing up, you're late." He disturbed me on a question of alcoholism, but he offered me truth. So, I won't lie to a drunk, and I hope you don't lie to me. And I'm very grateful to give this message away with the same love and gratitude that it's given to me each and every day for fun and for free.

That's all I got. Thanks. >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.

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