From the Streets to a Life Worth Living: AA Speaker – Peter M. – Queens, NY
AA speaker Peter M. from Queens shares his journey from living on the streets through seven rehabs to finding recovery through the Big Book and sponsorship.
Peter M. from Queens, NY lived on the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, went through seven rehabs, and was dying of untreated alcoholism when he found his way to Alcoholics Anonymous. In this AA speaker meeting, he shares how working through the Big Book with a sponsor who took him from cover to cover transformed his life from hopeless street existence to recovered sobriety. Peter walks through his progression from that first drink at 13 to panhandling by the Manhattan Bridge, and ultimately to the spiritual awakening that freed him from a 20-year battle with alcohol.
This AA speaker meeting features Peter M. from Queens sharing his complete story from childhood trauma through street life to recovery. Peter describes seven failed rehabs, living in hallways on the Lower East Side, and nearly dying from alcoholism before finding a sponsor who walked him through the Big Book systematically. The recovery speaker emphasizes the importance of working the steps quickly with proper sponsorship rather than the “meeting makers make it” approach that failed him repeatedly.
Episode Summary
Peter M. stands before the Free Spirit Group in Brooklyn with over two decades of sobriety, but his path to recovery was anything but straightforward. Growing up in Bensonhurst after losing his mother to suicide when he was young, Peter’s first drink at 13 across from St. Dominic’s Church provided what our book calls “a sense of ease and comfort” — silencing the judge in his mind and the constant chatter of voices telling him he wasn’t good enough.
What started as Saturday night drinking with friends quickly escalated into a two-decade nightmare of consequences. Peter describes stealing from his family, forging his father’s checks, and bringing shame to a man who repeatedly bailed him out of trouble on the waterfront docks where they both worked. The progression of his alcoholism reads like a textbook case — from weekend drinking to daily consumption, from family disappointment to complete estrangement, from having an apartment to living in hallways and panhandling by the Manhattan Bridge.
Peter’s honesty about his seven failed rehab attempts challenges common AA misconceptions. He couldn’t make “90 meetings in 90 days” work, got drunk walking home from meetings, and was told repeatedly to “put the plug in the jug” — advice that nearly killed him because, as he puts it, “as a real alcoholic, I took the plug out of the jug, I had no power to keep it in there.” His story illustrates why AA speaker talks on hitting bottom and early sobriety resonate so deeply with newcomers who’ve tried everything except working the steps with proper guidance.
The turning point came outside Port Authority during what he describes as a “moment of clarity” — that lucid interval where he realized exactly what he had become. Even then, it took reaching the absolute bitter end, living in the back of a hallway on Division Street drinking Mr. Boston Blackberry Brandy, before he was ready for his final attempt at recovery.
Peter’s experience in Minnesota, where he encountered people who actually worked the Big Book rather than just attending meetings, changed everything. He found a sponsor who didn’t tell him to “go home and read page 449” but instead walked him systematically through the text from cover to cover. This approach, Peter emphasizes, is what the book actually suggests — not the “step a year” method that allows people to die while waiting for recovery.
His description of working with his sponsor reveals the practical mechanics of Big Book-based recovery. They identified that pages 1-164 contain “the AA message” and everything else is supplementary. Through this work, Peter experienced what he calls being “rocketed to a fourth dimension” — not white-knuckling sobriety but actually being freed from the obsession to drink.
Peter shares a powerful recent experience visiting the South Brooklyn corner where he witnessed his mother’s breakdown at age three. With fellow AA member Joe H., he returned to Van Brunt and Walcott Street for what became a profound healing experience — literally taking the three-year-old boy who had been “stuck on this corner for 40 years” home with him. This story illustrates how spiritual awakening experiences like Scotty G. describes can happen years into recovery as we continue growing spiritually.
Throughout his talk, Peter challenges contemporary AA practices that differ from what’s actually in the Big Book. He questions why we tell people they need a sponsor with “a year or more” when that requirement isn’t found in the literature. He points out that many early AA members, including Bill W., didn’t wait years before carrying the message to others.
Peter’s emphasis on sponsorship goes beyond just having someone to call. He describes sponsors who take people through the steps quickly because “people die” with slow approaches, and who understand that for real alcoholics, separation from alcohol is just the beginning — the real work is removing the character defects that block us from God. His own experience of going through the steps multiple times, each time “coming out on the other side freer,” reflects the practical step work that speakers like Diz T. emphasize.
The transformation Peter describes is complete — from a man who couldn’t look his father in the eye to someone who made amends and now has a relationship based on “different footing.” From someone who stole from people who loved him to a man who travels internationally carrying the AA message. His trip to Iceland, where he witnessed young people with “five and 10 rehabs behind them” working the steps within weeks of getting sober, reinforced his conviction that quick, thorough step work saves lives.
Peter’s message to newcomers is both encouraging and urgent: the days that seem impossible to get through are precious, and what seems insurmountable now will be handled by a God who “will do for us what we can’t do for ourselves.” But he’s equally clear that meeting attendance alone won’t accomplish this — only working through the spiritual program outlined in the Big Book will produce the psychic change necessary for recovery.
His story ends not with mere sobriety but with spiritual freedom. Peter no longer lives “a day at a time” in the sense of white-knuckling through each 24 hours — instead, he lives fully present in each day because “my spirit’s free.” This distinction between relief and freedom, between managing alcoholism and being recovered from it, runs through every aspect of his message and challenges listeners to seek nothing less than complete spiritual transformation.
Notable Quotes
I’m not recovering and doing this a day at a time and trudging and holding on for dear life with white knuckle sobriety. I live a day at a time but my spirit’s free.
As a real alcoholic of this type in our class, I took the plug out of the jug, I had no power to keep it in there and put it away.
Meeting makers don’t always make it. That’s not in my Big Book. 90 meetings in 90 days — if you make, what if you’re a mother raising two kids as a single parent? How is she supposed to pull it off?
I am not my mind anymore. I am not my mind. I’ve woken up to that. I am not my mind because my mind would always lie to me.
Bill didn’t have 10 years before he worked the steps. Ebby showed up to Bill’s house with about two months sober and Bill was drinking and Ebby still passed the message on.
Sponsorship
Big Book Study
Spiritual Awakening
Family & Relationships
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Full Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
Is he right? I went to Iceland. They were talking about my hair, not recovery. My name is Peter. I'm an alcoholic. You guys look great this morning. My God. Sunday morning, a room full of drunks and no one's throwing punches. Ain't that great? I'm grateful to be alive and sober and at a meeting this morning. And I'm very grateful to be here to celebrate with you guys.
First things first, let me congratulate the group and thank you for this very kind invitation to me to be here with you this morning to share. God has moved me around Alcoholics Anonymous since I got here. There was a time when I first got here I was looking to seek the fellowship I craved in my heart. And over the years, I've been able to be part of creating a fellowship I crave. And out of that sincere desire to recover and awaken, God has moved me to many places. And based on my track record, I certainly don't belong here this morning to celebrate, standing here as a recovered member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I will share this too before we get going. Those people who are counting days—that was a great countdown. And I wish I could just tell you and make you understand the importance of how precious these days are. For those of us counting years, we can certainly appreciate what I'm talking about. How precious these days are when it seems like everything's caving in and you're never going to get out from under, because I was there.
But if you step into a room called Alcoholics Anonymous and you begin a journey through the Big Book, what you have just tapped into is a road to freedom, a road to bliss and experiencing joy. I don't give that lip service to sell you on Alcoholics Anonymous. The things that seem so insurmountable right now as you're counting days—wondering, my God, this guy makes 24 years and I'm here with two days, how am I ever going to get there? That man with 24 years said he had one day. We start that way. These are very, very precious days. What seems like you can't get out from under, God will do for us what we can't do for ourselves. Love these days, man. They're great.
The illness wants to take you back out onto the boulevard and get fired up. But the unity and fellowship have great power. And once you're right with God, nothing can touch you. I'm a member of the Free Spirit group, located in Benson, Brooklyn, where we share—the only requirement for membership is not only nice hair, but pink earrings, sunglasses, and gold jewelry.
At my home group, we changed "how it works" into "how you doing." And I'll share this story to tell you the type of spiritual guides God put in my life. This is a true story. I was counting days like some of you guys and I show up at Free Spirit. There were these guys who thought The Godfather was an educational movie standing at the door. They were going to go fishing and they decide to take me fishing. There were about five of them. How do five guys from Bensonhurst get dressed to go fishing? Like I am this morning.
Five minutes on the boat and they were complaining about water hitting their new shoes. These are guys—if you know, somebody yelled out "Land ho," they would say, "Don't talk about my mother." But we're out on a boat and we're trying to catch something. Finally, this guy Sally Boy throws the line in the water and he grabs something. He starts pulling on the line and it's getting heavier and heavier. We're hoping it's not someone from the neighborhood we thought was on a long vacation.
So he brings this little fish on board and it starts doing is flipping and flapping, trying to jump all over the place. They start throwing punches at it and kicks at it. I start to cry because of the poor fish, and they're going to throw me overboard. So what happens? Sally Boy grabs this little fish in a bear hug and goes to stick his head in the water. I yell out, "Sally Boy, what are you doing?" He says, "I'm going to drown him."
These were my leaders when I got here. That's a true story. I'm here today recovered. Imagine.
I just came back from a trip to Iceland. I had the honor of going out there to speak, and I couldn't believe I was invited. I've been invited to some really neat places. But who would ever think about going to Iceland? My dad says they have drunks in Iceland. I didn't think so, but there I am, going to Iceland with a couple of friends. We go speak at this three-day thing out there, and it will be, until God takes me from here, one of the many bright spots in my life.
There are a lot of young people here this morning, and I cannot believe the enthusiasm that I was in the middle of and the excitement for Alcoholics Anonymous, especially our Big Book and the recovery program that is in the first portion of our book. They were telling me that up until about five years ago, they were watching their brothers and sisters die of untreated alcoholism. A lot of these young men and women were 20, 22, 23 years old, with like five and ten rehabs behind them. They grew up drinking and hit the bottom. It's a really bad scene out there.
About five years ago, this book—our book—kind of showed up again. And what they did was embrace it as if their life depended on it. The chapter "The Wives" talks about four alcoholics, the fourth being the worst. Those are usually the ones who will hold on to this and recover. There were a lot of type four alcoholics out there—young people for whom this was it. And this book is being spoken and lived.
I stood at a sober house and I remember when I first went there, I thought, "Wow, sober house. I hope this isn't rough going." It was wonderful. I saw people there with two, three, and four weeks sober, separated from alcohol, writing inventory. They were doing their fourth step. Some of them were even talking about the beginning of their ninth-step experiences, making amends.
This is great information for those who suffer from alcoholism because some of the things we're told is do a step a year and people die. Do the AA way: 123123. It's nowhere in the Big Book. Get your life together first, then worry about the steps. Bad information for a real alcoholic, because we die with that. And that's what they were getting.
Somehow, through God, they've embraced this book and people are getting well. People are sponsoring people with under a year. I mean, we go to meetings and get a sponsor. Someone has a year or more sobriety. I cannot find that in my Big Book. My sponsor made it really clear to me: don't let anyone ever read my Big Book for me.
But here are people at the bitter end, what our Big Book talks about. There was nowhere else to go but drink and die or recover. And they embraced this. I stood in front of a room full of people that were just so excited about another day of sobriety and really holding on to where they came from. I feel blessed to have been a part of that.
You don't have to go to Iceland to be excited about Alcoholics Anonymous. You don't have to go to Iceland to have two weeks and be doing your fourth step. We do it here. Bill didn't have ten years before he worked the steps. Ebby showed up. If that's my bartender, I ain't ready. Ebby, you know, showed up at Bill's house with about two months sober. Bill was drinking, and Ebby still passed the message on. He planted the seed.
Many times at Alcoholics Anonymous, you see a wet one say don't touch him, he's drunk. Well, where else are we going to go? So I feel really blessed. Again, I can't—words fall short of any God experience I've had. And that certainly was one, to be in the middle of all of it and then to be a guest speaker. What a treat. What a treat.
I'm here this morning again. What a great room. You guys look indescribably wonderful this morning. A few of you—I told Bart I think you guys were out on Bell Boulevard last night. I'm not sure. But what a wonderful experience. I am very grateful to the recovery that has awakened my spirit, that I found, that I was moved to find in the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous—the first portion of our Big Book, which little by little moved me from one place to another and has awakened my spirit. That's why I can say I'm recovered this morning.
I'm not recovering and doing this a day at a time, trudging and holding on for dear life with white-knuckle sobriety. I live a day at a time, but my spirit's free. It knows no time. I'm just free because of what I've been given here.
What embraced me at first was the fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous that didn't care where I had been and what I had done and what I looked like. They just said, "Welcome." My growing up, my dad would always tell me there's power in unity. I never knew what he meant until I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous and I found power in the unity of this fellowship.
I relied so much on fellowship. It was my life from meeting to meeting to meeting, because there was nowhere else for me to go, and I felt safety in the power of these numbers. I'm very grateful for the service I'm asked to do. My life has been moved to my basic service. The basis is passing this message on, and the action we take is at the heart of it.
You know, sitting down with another drunk across the table or on the phone and walking them through this work, watching the light in their eyes go back on, they recover, and they go into the fellowship and pull somebody else out, and they recover. We get these clusters of excitement, clusters of enthusiasm for this book and this message.
Many times we catch grief going into contemporary AA meetings where you're told put the plug in the jug. I'll share—I'm not here to upset anyone, but my experience is this. As a real alcoholic of this type, in our class, I took the plug out of the jug. I had no power to keep it in there and put it away. I could never pull it off. I had many, many desires to do that, but I couldn't.
So what happens is people pass this message on in this Big Book. We understand truth and we pass on truth. We get free because we're experiencing our God. And to see that happening—it's happening in Staten Island. It's happening in different parts of Brooklyn. Bart tells me it's happening out here in Queens. Great stuff for those who care to have it.
To tell you in a general way what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now—what I'm trying to be like currently, what I've been moved to do currently in this work. Having gone through the work again and again, I come out on the other side freer than when I went in.
But I will tell you this about going through the work. Waking up is painful. Waking up is uncomfortable. Going through these steps is not a day in the park. It isn't, because we visit sore spots in our heart and in our mind, and there's a squeezing that goes on. And sadly, people don't want to visit that. But with a good sponsor, you go back and visit your past in order to be awake to the present moment. We go back to be here now, currently, and move on. That's what happened to me going through this work.
But it wasn't like that when I got here. God separated me from alcohol June 23rd, 1988. And there was a whole lot of things that went on before I got here. I was willing to go to any lengths in 1988. In fact, before 1988, people would come up to rehabs where I was usually stationed. They would bring an AA meeting, and I thought every one of them was full of baloney, that they were getting paid off by the rehab. I really wanted nothing of what you guys had to offer.
Then I was moved to the bitter end and was willing to do anything. My first drink—I grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and I remember my first drink like it happened a week ago. I remember very clearly what was going on with me inside and what was going on on the corner.
It was a Saturday night. I was standing across the street from a church called St. Dominic's Church, and my friends were just off the corner drinking cold 45 beer. As they were drinking, there was a feast happening. They seemed to be joyous, happy, and free. They were in the moment. They were roughhousing, talking to the girls, having a great time drinking.
What was going on with me was quite the opposite. Not what I experience most days today, where I'm able to pack into the mainstream. I mean, I'm never going to be the guy to dance on a table. That's not my deal. But I'm able to pack into the mainstream because I'm able to get free most days. Back then, it was the opposite. I was the guy in the corner watching everything that went on. I was always observing and wanting desperately to get in there and mix it up. I could never pull that off.
Why? Because there were too many things going on inside me that were tearing me down. I had this judge in my mind, the chatter of a million voices screaming at me all the time. All the time. From as far back as I can remember, about what a loser I was. I could never measure up to the older guys. I tried hanging out with tough guys. I got beat up. I tried hanging out with the jocks. I couldn't do it. I tried hanging out with intellects. No good. I tried to go from crew to crew to crew, and I just never fit. It wasn't anything they were doing, but what I was doing to me was merciless.
This judge would scream at me all the time. Each voice had its own agenda, pulling me in 18 different directions—magnets for trouble wherever I went. And here I stood on this Saturday night, feeling not too good about me. This was springtime, summertime in January 23rd of that year. My mom, who suffered from this illness, didn't get to a place called Alcoholics Anonymous. What she suffered—what our book talks about—that incomprehensible demoralization. She experienced that over and over and over again.
She was brought to a place where taking her life seemed like the only solution. And that's exactly what happened. My design for living was taken right out of my lap. I was completely leveled by that.
I've been homeless and arrested too many times and experienced a lot of things at the hands of alcoholism. I bought it. This, I didn't. And I think all of us get separated from this power as we go along. Something happens, and I think that's where I was separated. I'm not sure, but I think that's where I was separated.
When my mom died, I was like: This God she told me to pray to—she gave me great values, instilled great vows in me. I'm a Catholic. She would take me to church, taught me how to pray, took me to confession. All those things you do growing up. And she told me how wonderful this idea of God was. Then she dies, and I watched her suffer.
And I kind of kicked back and said, "Well, I'm not so sure about this guy they call God. He ain't so nice. You just took my mom. Why should I pray to you?" And I think that's where I was separated.
This Saturday night, my friends were drinking cold 45 beer, and I wanted desperately to get in there, to silence some of these voices, to get out of me. Wherever I went, there I was, and I could never escape. I kept thinking, if I get fired up with these guys, two things were going to happen.
My dad—who back then, if he walked in the room, I'd be on a boat to China. I would shake in my shoes. He was a tough guy, a South Brooklyn guy, a street guy. I was just the opposite. I could never even look at this man in the eye until I got here and specifically made a ninth-step approach with my dad. In fact, my family was moved to live this, not talk about it, but moved to live this, where my dad and I—you know, our roots grasp new soil today because of what took place in here. We're on different footing. Thank the good Lord for that.
But back then, I would just shake if he looked at me. He gave me very clear warnings many times about not hanging out with the bums on the corner. He didn't want me any part of that crew. Don't bring any of those girls around the neighborhood if I knew what was good for me. And I was willing to listen. I didn't want to deal with the consequences.
I kept thinking my friends were drinking. I kept thinking, if my dad doesn't show up, the cops are turning the corner. I know they are. And of all the guys on the corner, they're going to grab me, handcuff me, give me a beating, and I'm going to do like a 20-year bid in some jail upstate for drinking cold 45 beer on the corner.
So it's either catch a beating from my dad or get arrested by the cops. I wanted no part of either. I watched my friends drink, and I don't know till right now, currently, where I stand here this morning, why I put my hand in there. But I did. And I took a sip, and the beer went down. It hit my gut.
And you know what? Nothing happened to me. My dad didn't drive up, nor did the cops. My friends were still standing there, and so was I. Everything was okay. So I took a few more sips. And I took a little bit more.
As I continued to drink, something happened to me that I always share about because I never experienced this before. And that was what our doctor's opinion talks about: a sense of ease and comfort. For the first time in my life, I experienced ease and comfort. What a great feeling.
As I continued to drink, those voices, that judge that screamed at me, started to go away. The pain of losing my mom was removed. I was not thinking about my dad or the cops. I was in the moment. Bill says three great words in his story: I had arrived. And I drank beer across the street from St. Dominic's Church on Saturday night, and I arrived. I was part of life at last. This was a great thing. I was starting to feel good.
I continued to drink. I got beer muscles. I got taller. I had hair on my chest, I think, by midnight. Every girl on the corner loved me. I was Dirty Harry and Baretta rolled into one. Growing up in my neighborhood, I thought like I was Michael Corleone at one point. I mean, this was what a good deal. I was finally part of something, and I wasn't listening to me.
I used to get so nervous when I talked. You know, when you're really nervous and you feel the heat and your forehead starts to sweat, you could hear your own voice talking. You're so insecure. That's how I grew up. Cold 45 beer removed all of that. It was a panacea for my ills for a long time.
Beer, alcohol helped me deal with my alcoholism for a long time. That was pointed out to me very clearly not too long ago. This man never said truer words to me: Alcohol helped me deal with my alcoholism. Booze is a symptom. You know, once we get separated—like those people counting days, you're separated now—what? In order to stay separated, we need to get right with God of your understanding. There's work to be done.
In fact, let me get this out of the way. Anyone who's new and you're being told don't drink and go to meetings—if you're a real alcoholic, the people who tell you that mean well, but they're going to kill you with that. Because as a real alcoholic, we don't have power, choice, and control. If I could just not drink and go to meetings, why would I come here? I'd stay home and not drink. I can never pull it off. You don't have it. Lack of power was our dilemma. Great words in our book.
So if you're counting days and you're separated a couple of days when you're starting the steps, next year we may be going to visit you in a cemetery. That's the real deal with alcoholism.
I got fired up this Saturday night across the street from St. Dominic's Church and I felt really good by the end of the night. I was just feeling wonderful. I went home that night and there were no bad scenes, which were going to happen to me. I've heard many people share terrible stories about what happened to them on the first drunk. I went home. I went to bed. I got up the next morning.
There were no black and blues on me, no black eyes. My teeth were still in my mouth. My clothes weren't soiled. And I remembered everything.
I went down to the park to play Sunday morning basketball games with the older guys. And I walked into that park a little bit different. I had gotten my stripes the night before, so my shoulders were a little bit wider and I had a little bit of a swagger walking into this park, because I felt really good for the first time about me.
And I knew there was a solution out there because the rest of the week I'm going to have to deal with this stuff. But I know Saturday night rolls around, I'm going to drink and capture that elusive feeling. I'm going to get to that place that's indescribably wonderful and put the world at bay for a few hours. What a good deal. I can get through the week.
And I start drinking on Saturday, every Saturday. And I start drinking on Friday into Saturday. Then it became Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And what I started to experience were consequences as a direct result of my drinking. And at the beginning, they were like little things.
My dad would be out hanging out with his friends, doing his thing. And I would wait for him to leave, then go out the door and get fired up. I had two kid brothers at home, and they would see me leave the house sober. Then they would see me come home drunk.
Right from the get-go, I wasn't a pleasant drunk. Few times I was. I was usually full of self-pity and anger, dumping lots of ugly language on their laps about this deck of cards this guy called God gave me. Took my mom. I'm scared to death of my dad. He's cunning, baffling, powerful. I have no idea how to deal with him. And I really felt totally alone in this thing called life I'm supposed to be living. And it all came out. All this poison came out.
My two kid brothers, who idolized me, started to become afraid of me. They would tell my dad about what I had done, what I had walked in with the night before. Then he would get me the next day and give me the riot act. It wasn't like you're going into the house library and your dad's standing there with a certain tie and he has a talk with you. My dad's a long showman. You got cornered. Any room would do.
And you know, you don't blink until he's done, and you go about your business. My dad would raise his voice. My God, I would just die a thousand deaths. He would look you right in the eye and he wanted you, demanded you look at him back in the eye. I could never do that. I would duck and dive. I look like a fighter in a ring.
He knew I was up to no good. Those were the early consequences. So right from the beginning, my family was starting to experience my alcoholism. My dad having to give me these talks, my kid brothers becoming afraid of me, and they didn't do anything. They were experiencing my alcoholism.
So for me to stand here this morning and tell someone like those people counting days, don't drink and go to meetings and you're a winner—that's a lie. That is not what this is about. That's selfish and arrogant. AA is not a selfish program. We hear that. I don't know—I wish I had a dollar for every three times I've heard AA is a selfish program. Where in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, where in our literature, does it say AA is a selfish program? It isn't. It's about giving back.
And the first thing we need to do is practice these principles in our homes, occupations, and affairs. Which means we're probably going to be making amends shortly for the damage we caused. Because I caused a whole lot. Not because Peter Marinelli is so powerful, but what owned me was alcoholism. Our book uses words like a tornado roaring through the lives of others. We leave damage and debris. Who's cleaning it up? Them. How arrogant of me to say, well, I'm not drinking today, so that's an amends. Go ask them if that's an amends. They're starting to squirm.
I remember going back to the corner and drinking and worrying about what my dad was going to do now that I walked in, because he was hip to my drinking, and so were my kid brothers. So what I started to do is get a curfew, and that went out the window as soon as I was told about a curfew. I'd start bouncing around and sleeping in different places, sleeping over a friend's house.
My dad, as soon as I would call him, would say, "Where are you?" Not even hello. "Where are you?" Because he knew I was in trouble. I would tell him, "Well, I'm at this guy's house. I'm keeping company with this girl. I want you home by a certain hour." And he would hang up the phone.
I never made it home. Then I have to get into the house the next morning, and hell would break loose. There were many unhappy scenes in this house over and over and over again. My kid brothers are trying to go to school, had part-time jobs while they were going to school. My dad was down on the waterfront bringing home money to support his family. There was no mom in the house, and I'm doing my thing and blaming them for what happened to me. How unfair.
Well, you know what? I start to experience what Bill talks about in his story—when the morning terror and madness were on him. I start to experience that because I would wake up in the morning needing to get fired up. And like a coward—which is what this thing turned me into, a coward—I start to steal from people who love me, my family. How bad could it be? A beating. I'll take it, but I'm going to steal.
So if there's 50 bucks in a drawer, 30 is half, and it goes with me. That was my thinking. Then I start to steal money and little things that didn't belong to me. One morning, I woke up in this frenzy. I was not feeling good physically. My mind was racing 100 miles an hour, and everyone was sleeping.
So I started going through drawers. In a china closet drawer, I discovered my dad's checkbook. I got the brainstorm—and our book warns about the groaning of brainstorm—I'll steal the checks. But I took the bottom one because I knew about serial numbers, those little corner numbers. I would forge his name and go down to the bodega liquor store and do that and get fired up.
I thought I had a good thing going because I didn't know about checking statements. That stuff came back, and you know what? He came looking for me. Here's a man who would give me money whenever I needed money. I start to bring some ugly scenes into this house, and he would always have the door open for me and have these talks with me. Now he caught me stealing from him, and he came looking for me.
I knew I was in serious trouble. I never shared how I found out he was looking for me. My kid brother—I called the house and he says, "Dad's looking for you. He found missing checks." My kid brother, all the damage I was doing, was still looking to kind of get me out of trouble. How neat is that? I didn't deserve that.
And he and my uncle would drive through the Red Hook projects with a picture of me and money and pay off the mobsters and the junkies to say, "This is my son. Where is he?" This is what I brought to my family. He always knew where I was hanging out. My dad had lots of friends in all parts of the neighborhood. I'd come home and he'd say, "What were you doing on East Broadway and Jefferson Street?" I said, "What do you mean?" He's like, "You were down there." I said, "How?" He's got a crystal ball. He sees everything.
But he caught me by the South Bridge Towers, right across the street from the Brooklyn Bridge. I was sitting in a car with this girl, and he jumped out of the car. I was scared to death, and he screamed my name. I knew I was in trouble. Instead of driving away, I jumped out of the car. I started to run away, and he came after me. After he hollered my name a couple of times, I didn't move.
What I did was I blamed the girl in the car. I came up with lots of fake tears about what was going on in my life. I blamed the Lower East Side, some of the clubs I was hanging out in. I was a musician. I was hanging out in a lot of the clubs down there. He wasn't buying any of it, thank God.
We'll, he sent me off to my first rehab. I went out to this place on Long Island, this really nice place, and I did the 28-day rehab deal. And I hadn't conceded to my innermost self that I was a real alcoholic. The first step that they talk about in our book—I hadn't conceded. I just got caught.
In fact, my first few rehabs, I went because I got caught. It got too hot, and I'll get out of trouble. So I'll do the 28-day deal, get some food, a warm bed, and get out of trouble that way. But I went off to this first rehab, and you know what I did? I did push-ups and sit-ups, a lot of them. I looked great when I got out.
I talked about words I learned called dysfunctional family, inner child, and enablers. I always like to talk about this stuff. I'm not here to knock rehabs. I went through seven of them. And I'm sure there's many of us here who have a debt of gratitude to rehabs. But it's important for me to maybe eliminate some of the nonsense that we hold on to when we get here, because it was killing me.
Enablers. What does that mean? Because your family gave you money, we're going to blame them because they were enablers? My family did the very best they could with what they had. They would give me money and deny me money, throw me out and take me in. They were trying to save my life.
Dysfunctional family. You know, I'm in a meeting this morning. They're home watching TV. I'm really the dysfunctional one.
Now let me say this. I had things happen to me as a young boy by someone in the family that no child should ever experience. And I'm willing to lay odds from here to Vegas—there's a bunch of us who had similar experiences. I don't mean to be arrogant by saying, you know, dysfunctional family, I'm the only one. You should feel the same way, because things like that happen in a family that's not normal. That's horrific. It's horrible. I can't even describe how terrible that is.
But I say what I say about being the only dysfunctional one, and I am here for this reason. The last thing my illness, my mind, needs to do is be attached to that and separate me again from God, to separate me from the last stop called Alcoholics Anonymous. The last thing this thing needs is more ammunition.
Now, I'll tell you this. With all of those terrible things that happened to me and I was purely a victim at eight years old—you know what? I do this work. I'm moved to go through this work. I even went to some outside help, and I've been able, by God's grace, to put that in its place and get free of that too. So I share that with someone who maybe has those deep dark secrets way back in the room somewhere. That stuff can die also. What great freedom for us. I share from my experience, because that's what has happened to me.
I got out of rehab and I went right back to the same vicious cycle again. After 28 days, I started hanging out in the Lower East Side and I picked up a drink. I remember I had a girlfriend meet me at the door. I told her about the 28-day rehab I was in. It was a really tough time, and they really grilled me. Then she brought up a bottle to celebrate. She met me at the door, cracked the seal, the liquor went down.
Forget about making a meeting. I remember inquiring on St. Mark's Place about AA meetings. I just inquired. Well, I inquired. That's good enough. And I drank, and the allergy took over.
There are three things that make me a real alcoholic. The obsession with alcohol. The physical allergy. Whenever I drank alcohol, the craving was intensified, never satisfied. My mind would lie to me over and over again. I would get in terrible trouble on Monday and Tuesday, and my mind would tell me Monday wasn't that bad. We'll do it a little different. It would pretty up a junk god to get me back to a drink. It would do anything to get me back to a drink. I would buy the lie, and the truth would show up. In the end, it almost killed me.
The third thing that makes me a real alcoholic is this spiritual malady where I'm blocked from God. I need to be integrated with this power. And that wasn't going on back then. I became unlike the hard drinker, unlike the moderate drinker that our book talks about.
I tried. Our book even talks about this. I've had ill health. I fell in and out of love. I had warnings from a doctor. I needed medical attention. All the stuff—most powerful desires