Ali H. at the FOTS Step 11 Speaker Series – 2024

and that's damn it i was hoping you guys would do it and uh it's all good no i don't care it's all good um so all this called a few different people that we booked ahead of time you know to see if they can switch and speak today last minute nobody could so uh so uh she asked me to step in and i and it's an honor for me to do so just want to put a couple of things on the table um i am tired i haven't slept much the last couple of days and newborn baby in a full life and a beautiful life you know so my brain's not working and uh and i just i feel like i have nothing to offer i really do that that's just how i feel i need to put that on the table because when i share my secrets on the tip when i put it on the tablet and i'm transparent with you guys something seems to happen more times than not where um where the spirit steps in and and shines a light on it. And he does whatever he does, you know? So step 11, all right, do my best. I wanna start off by saying what a gift this meeting has been. This meeting is a result of a step 11 practice, by the way. And when the pandemic hits and we were all afraid of what's gonna happen, the first thought was one of fear And the second thought was one of usefulness, that prayer. My knees got bent and I prayed and I asked God, can you please show me how I can be useful? Because it's been my experience that when I wash the world's feet, my hands stop trembling. When I try to be of service to you, I have a peace inside of me. And the Spirit filled my heart. And what was told to me is that start a meeting to talk about me. And that's what happened. So I ran it by Teresa and her and I played and meditated. And she came up with this beautiful format and the last almost four years been so blessed because I feel like every week we're here dining a spiritual meal together. You know, I got to meet friends and brothers like Calvin and many, many, more light carriers, seekers. you know we get to talk about this beautiful power this loving power this infinite resource this inner resource who has taken me from the scrap people life and the most and dropped me in the most beautiful life today you know as a result of these steps as a resultado of you beautiful people pointing me encouraging me to cultivate and deepen a relationship with this loving power. I get to sit here before you and I get to tell you, I get to share with you that on a daily basis, to the best of my ability, as humbly as I possibly can, sometimes I fail at that, you know? I tap into this power. I wake up to this power, I experience this power I get to walk under the sunlight of the spirit of this power and I get to come over here and tell you about this power in the 11th step no matter how difficult life is as it seems to be right now but I gotta tell you sometimes when I lack of sleep it just seems seems to me heavier than they are so I know that much right because everything I have is because of this power a relationship with this power suicidal couldn't draw a sober breath the last two or three years of my drinking unlovable unloved ugly on the outside and inside unemployable and unemployed and the only thing that makes sense because today i'm looking back at it with with a little bit more clear spiritual lenses hey the only that makes science is what i was seeking was always seeking me is what at first was a what seemed like a flimsy read was a powerful loving hand of this beautiful loving god that literally grabbed me caressed me brought me to the sacred rooms of alcoholics anonymous next to you awakened people who introduced me to a sacred book the big book of alcoholics synonymous and he told me kid this is not an intellectual exercise it's a spiritual endeavor this two-inch book is going to become thousands of miles deep if you seek him to the best of your ability and that's what i've done for the best of my ability but i didn't come into these rooms believing the relationship with god i didn'T come into these rooms really seeking i had a very dysfunctional relationship with self with my head with my thoughts that's why you know for seven years in and out of this program i knocked on every single door that i can knock on to prove to you that i'm not like you guys i don't need a power greater than me i am the power i'll figure it out chasing romantic relationships and jobs and accolades and acknowledgement chasing chasing chasing every time i would reach a destination that i thought will fill this god-sized hole this void inside of me i would feel empty soon after it was like it was putting an ice cube on a third degree burn of the soul for a couple of seconds and then after and my mind is racing, and I'm worried about what you think about me. I want to crawl out of my own skin. I want, I wantto kill myself. I want a drink. That was my life, you know? And for years, I've been in this program, thinking I'm the power, trying to play the role of this power in your life, in everybody's life, in my own life. I've told that this ease of alcoholism beat out of me any idea that I had that I could do this life on my own. I was brought back here to you guys a blank slate humble, teachable and you began to draw on me you began to blow life into me with your kindness, with your love show me that we don't shoot the wounded here, show me that no one's better than anyone else in Alcoholics Anonymous we all walk shoulder to shoulder showing that the highest position anyone can ever have in the spiritual realm, in the realm of the spirit is that of servant you know as a result of a relationship with this power what you told me is that Ali when I came back and I was able and ready to listen to you you said something that you probably were saying all along that don't worry about trying to figure this thing out you know because my brain wants God on a spreadsheet one plus one plus two plus three it wants an answer right but it doesn't work that way because to know God I got to be out of my mind i gotta be out of this mind i gotta transcend this thing cognitive thinking it's got to come from the heart only from the part can you touch the sky room he says you know what you told me is that the only thing we're going to set the bar really low for you how about this how about you don't need to figure god out how about this you come up with your conception of god that works for you and how about this can you concede to your innermost self yes that i'm an alcoholic for sure but the next step can you can see to your inner most self that maybe maybe your ideas did not work if you could do that we'll introduce you to a new concept the god idea may work for you because it has for us so you start to become the lights the light carriers that will shine the God idea to me. Your ideas did not work, but the God idea will. Our ideas did not work and the God idea did. So then I began a journey of a very scientific process, I think. It's not esoteric to me, it's not philosophical, it is not, I'm not going to use the term, okay? That's a little rude. It's very practical. it's a scientific process what i mean is this i have gathered evidence in my own life the last few years through a series of actions that i keep doing and getting results for of the existence of a loving god in my life gathered evidence you never told me to believe in anything you just said keep an open mind give it did your ideas work though well this got idea man and there were times where i was in a fear fetal position and all i could come back to is that is that you know what at this time i don't even know but i'm gonna act as if i'm going to act as it god exists and how i do that is i stay in the in the circle and triangle i stay clean house trust god help others i share myself honestly with you guys i cultivate and deepen a relationship in this beautiful uh with this beautiful loving forgiving power through prayer and meditation and i get to experience his light again you know i act as if that's all i have to do program of action from the action i get results it's so simple but i want to complicate it i want to unpack it in front of you guys i want To describe it to you i want to show you, when I'm really in spiritual sleep, I want to teach you. And you still don't shoot me. And he still pour love into me. That's God right there. I woke up when I was truly ready and this teacher that God sent in my path when I was brought back to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, opened the big book of Alcoholic Anonymous with me when i was truly ready so we went through the big book line by line i'm not telling everybody to do that that was just my experience the big books start to become alive to me because what happened was that with the gift of desperation seven years in and out a couple suicide attempts in those seven years they give the window the giftofdesperation met the window of the grace of god and one of you sat at that window one of his angels and what you did for me is that you poured you experienced on the pages of this book and that's how it became alive to me and i got to do the same and as a result of these steps i was set on fire immediately right away i'm still on fire but see not on fire like living a perfect life on fire as in like i still have a deep yearning to get to know this this to deepen the relationship with this loving power I have a deep yearning inside of me to be with you to be closer to you to be a better humble person just a little bit better today than I was yesterday inside of you because in every man woman and child there's a fundamental idea of God right so that if God is inside of me then God is outside of you when I'm separate from you I'm separate from this power so i have a deep yearning inside of me to serve you and i do it imperfectly and i make mistakes thank god god doesn't make too hard turns for a broken soul like me i pull that card out a lot you know i'm sponsoring people first sorry last minute i didn't really get to meditate on a topic so step it out on my journey i guess you know it's coming out it is what it is um i uh i'm sponsored the first three years in the program sponsoring a lot of men speaking here and there coming to these rooms professing to you that the relationship with god is the most important relationship in my life it's the most sacred relationship of my life lying through my teeth if you ever want to know what somebody believes in listen to their words fine but watch their feet Calvin knows about that. He's a boots-on-the-ground kind of brother. Calvin knows about that, so if you were to watch my feet, you would have seen that I'm giving God very little time throughout the day. This relationship that I professed to you guys, that has transformed my life. Look at the beautiful life I lead, right? I'm still doing it three years in. Quick little prayer in the morning. Please keep me sober, and at night, thank you for keeping me sober. Now, please, I always need to say this when it comes out this way. Please, I don't mean this as disrespect to anybody that's doing that. God bless you if it's working for you. All I'm saying is that for me, what I found is that this path is so broad and roomy that however, when I take a small 24-hour humble step forward each time, it gets narrower and narrower and narrow. One of the ways it narrows for me and my elders is that I can no longer get away with not doing what the big book suggests for too long step 11 suggests prayer meditation an old-timer saw me at these meetings eh one of you loving old-timers you saw me you didn't embarrass me in front of people you knew I was lying but you knew that I didn't even know that I was like you know what I mean you pulled me aside you said Ali that's interesting so you're you mean to tell me that the relationship with your wife I'm sorry with God is the most important relationship in your life? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Well, I want you to consider something. What other relationship is important in your Life? Afsi, my wife. What this old timer said to me is that, well, I Want you to consider this. If you give Afsi your wife the same amount of time on a daily basis that you're giving God, she will divorce you. Imagine, imagine me and Afsi the last 11 years of marriage. If all I did to communicate with her, Good morning, honey. Good night, honey Kibis over God Thank you for kibis There will be no relationship Any relationship That means anything in my life I have to spend time with I have cultivate and nourish Fertilize Let it grow You know See i have found that every time this is a good barometer for me okay i don't know if anyone else can use this but when i'm feeling uneasy and i start to feel like a fraud somehow some way my walk and my talk are diverging starting to part and go opposite directions so when i am coming to these rooms telling you that the relationship with god is the most important relationship of my life with my life and i don t have a prayer meditative life i start to feel like a fraud inside these rooms the disease of alcoholism is talking to me you're a loser look at you i start To become really rigid in this program i start To tell people that they're doing it wrong i start To go line by line and staff 11 workshops and unpack it as if like i am the one that knows everything Meanwhile i'm not doing anything so i have to put up a front like that because that's how this illness works On me i'm, not saying on you on me loving God from that day to this it's been a few years man I have cultivated deepened nourished a relationship with this loving God I have basked under the sunlight of this God I've been present to this God in this breath, in this moment i don't i don' t apologize for the relationship i have with this god and i don''t try to force you my belief in this god i invite you to gather your own evidence of this god through a series of actions if you want to that is for our newer friends and if you don't all good okay a prayer life has grown around me a meditative life the last few years eight years or so i was going around me organically i spent i spent time with this power in the mornings spend a good amount of time i just wake up really early in the morning well these days i'm doing overnights because i have a four and a half month old baby so i stay up to six in the mornin and i sleep for a few hours you know because he's still at that stage where he's every two three hours he's up so after he can get some good sleep i stay up because because she's a lot more valuable to this family than I am and I know that and the only sacrifice I can make is sleep and that's plenty. And that's even not enough. She really is. She's a child of God. I love her so much. That was a tangent. A lot of different prayers and different modalities of meditation. Sometimes it was guided and sometimes there was contemplation and sometimes it was two-way prayer, but these days it's just silence. It's just a lot of silence. I just close the door and go inside and I sit in silence because I get to go in the darkness to see and the silence to hear. I get that. I get it to be comfortable in my own skin. I get you to go into darkness to see and the science to hear That's the talk about common sense becoming uncommon sense. Bill Wilson talked about it, right? In the third dimension, all third dimension thinking in this spiritual realm has become uncommon sense to me because in the third dimension when I was building a relationship with self, when I thought I was the higher power, when I wasn't spending much time with this higher power what my common sense was it's gone I'm sorry it's got all right God what you got planned now oh my common science was that I really I literally thought like I I really thought i'm seeing i'm living life with it with with open eyes and open ears and an open heart i didn't know i was another spiritual teacher talks about i didn'y know i was sleepwalking thinking i'm awake i had no idea and you've introduced me to a beautiful path in which i get to go on to the darkness to see and the silence to hear one time there was um it was early in the morning i was working i was working construction back then a few years back right and you gotta wake up really really early for construction so i had to wake up actually early to sit in prayer meditation i'm sitting in prayer and meditation after some time the voice is i've come to know this voice like i don't hear it audibly some may nothing wrong with that i hear it in the in my cells they start to scream at me and what it said to me was go uh go and tell afsi that everything's going to be okay it's five in the morning she doesn't wake up till 6 30 i'm not gonna wake her up it's 4 30 in the morning she'll get upset with me right but i said i i've learned to listen to that voice so i went upstairs quietly i just bent over her the bed quietly and i quietly whispered in here baby hey everything's gonna be okay thousand percent baby that's the thing we have with each other i say a thousand percent when she's worried right a thousand percent baby her eyes pop open she starts bawling she sits right up she's like what are you doing and i said well i was meditating the voice said to come and tell you everything's gonna be okay thousand percent baby don't you worry she starts crying she said are you kidding me she said the last 15 minutes my brain had my depredator mind had woken me up i just had my eyes closed and i was it was just torturing me with thoughts of this business deal that's going wrong and i just i couldn't stop i didn't know what to do you mean god sent you here she gives me a big hug i hear a big kiss i go to my work and she calls me during my break he said you don't understand what happened when you when you did that i was like it was like god spoke to me i know my all my fears fell from me and when my mom because my mother-in-law lives with us she says mommy woke up and i went to her room and i gave her a big hook and the whole day i just been giving people love and love and loving love and I became present to this truth to this fact that the only thing I need to know in this, the only thing I need do in this world is to help his kids. You want to get to know me? Help my kids? Really? You want you get to me? Well, here's a difficult situation. Help my kids. The poet Rumi says being a candle is not easy. In order to give light, one must burn first. You want it yet to know me? Here's a difficult situation. Seek me now. Seek me now somehow, some way as a result of very imperfectly trying to cultivate a relationship with this loving power. Somehow, some way. I don't know when it happened. I know how it happened, but I know what happened this world stop happening to me everything starts to happen for me everything everything is a message everyone's a messenger doesn't matter if I don't like the way they're giving me the message doesn't mater even if they're asleep to the message they're given me I don' care everyone's message, everyone's messenger my life has meaning and purpose because of that because I'm to be a channel I made a deal in the third step with this power the deal was God look, I've destroyed my life sober I've done I've been I've destroy my life sober never mind drinking marriage on the rocks one time we almost got divorced depression in recovery. You can't find a job to help support a family in recovery, feeling like a fraud in recovery I don't know there's so many things hurting people in recovery I have destroyed my life sober So I'm at the third step by the way, I have to renew this commitment to this deal I made with this with this loving power every single day. It's not a one-time thing, right? So I come to the third step. I renew it continuously. God, I've destroyed my life sober. I cannot manage my own life. Can you please take care of the details of my life? I will make a deal with you. You are the employer. You're the father. You'RE the director. You ARE the principal. I'm going to stay close to you. Do your work well. I'M going to just help your kids. That's only the best of my ability you take care of the details of my life because i'm supposed to be a channel the deal was not was not to have a happy marriage all the time to build the bank account to become a speaker seeker sorry to become a circus speaker do whatever it is that is in the head you know none of that was a deal i destroyed my life sober or drunk i give up please take over I'm going to be your servant and everything I will do from now on in my life is to serve you and your kids and by the way I fall asleep to that at times but I have you guys to remind me of that I have YOU guys to demonstrate for me what it looks like when you do that because I'm to be a channel and the flow of God's love that this this flow of god energy if i'm a channel if i'M a pipe coming from a well the flow is supposed to come flow through me into the lives of others that's how i get present to bliss and love because when I'M in my purpose when I'm praying meditating to show you how spiritual I am and needing to definitely make sure to speak at every at every talk I do on step 11 how long I meditate when it's not asked of me when I need to do that constantly when I mean to do it when I'm in need for you to look at me and put me on a pedestal that flow of God's love that God has gifted me with it becomes like a swamp it starts to stink and I start to choke on it It's got to flow through me, man, like a clean river. It's gotta be about his kids. I pray and meditate because I want to see what his will is for me to help his kids, that's it. End of story, period, exclamation point. You know? I was having trouble finding a job early on to help support a family. I remember one of these times I was sitting in meditation early in the morning asking him my prayers are about usefulness because you've taught me every single prayer in the big book is about usefulnes to one degree or another you know usefulness god usefulness help me help me be useful god i'm afraid i want to stop fighting with with afsi over the bills i feel like i'm not a real father a real man can you please help me all i'm asking is that just whatever you do with my finance on my career just please put me in a place where i can be of maximum service to you and the people about me that's all i ask you in my own way different prayers what's the idea the words don't even matter i gotta waste the idea for my heart right so i say that prayer and that that day i'm working i was like digging ditches whatever i was doing and an intuitive thought came what i need you to do is go volunteer at a 12-step base treatment center i know that's an outside issue i'm totally i understand i'm not going to talk about treatment centers but 12-step based treatment center so i go through this i i do a few phone calls here and there and volunteer but god i asked you for a job that i can support my family volunteer all right so i i go to this i find this 12-stop based treatment set i make an appointment with uh with the manager i sit down it is in his office and we start to talk about this and that and and they had a list of like criteria that one needs to meet even to volunteer and I didn't meet a couple of them right and then he was although the the interaction was good he was just I guess he was busy and he just wasn't like he he was sort of dismissing me in a kind way but just like you know maybe you get those criteria met and then you can come right and Then I watch I get to watch this power I get to watch his power do for me what I cannot do for myself I get to watch this power when he has work for me to do. I get to watch the walls come down every single time. Three of his most senior counselors walk in his office, one by one, 30 seconds apart. I had no idea. They had no idea I was there. One of them I knew, two of them, I didn't know. They walk in his office with some emergency that they had. They would never, I found out later, they would never just you know that just doesn't happen they turn around they see me in the in the seat and every single one of them are you kidding me Ali what are you doing here I know you from this you don't understand Kevin this guy you got it they left and his jaw dropped and he's like I guess God's God plans for you eh you're probably staying here I said all right man so i stayed at this place and i started to do big book stuff classes you know just they do the first three steps at these places i'm volunteering right so i'm doing just the first two steps or three steps and i start to talk about god and i said to watch thank you john thanks brother i start to watch the the eyes of this man in these men light up it was a men's treatment center and they start to come to me can you help us do whatever it is that you're talking about experiences i start to get sponsees over there and just volunteer on my own time we go listen to fifth steps and you know what happened so after after about a after about a year of doing this he comes to me the manager and says would you like to come on board but i don't have a degree you need a degree for that place eh i don' t have a degrees like i don´t care i've seen enough i'm gonna pull some string with my manager strings with my manager he brings me on board i start to work there for a couple years but the point is this the point isthat and they don't pay much at these places especially uh um it's not it's a non-for-profit one it was okay so but the the point of that is this see i asked him to take care of the details of my life and allow me to be of service to you put me where i'll be maximum service to throughout this two or three years of volunteering and working there all my bills are paid i have very little fear of financial insecurity even though i have plenty of financial insecurity and i'm walking in bliss because when he has worked for you the walls come down there's so many examples there's så many examples the spirit has john i got my time or two but i got four minutes so i'll i'll finish soon thank you um the spirit hasn't dropped spiritual breadcrumbs for me and the 11th step in the big book it says two lines that i used to conveniently ignore be quick to see where religious people are right make use of what they have to offer there's lots of books out there see because for a while i was treating this treasure map with a big book as the treasure not the treasure man if i when i treated it the treasure the words in this big book start to program me i started to become rigid the spirit was lost but it's the treasure map and this treasure map it says to me only if you're moved to alley go beyond this book but keep a at the center of your life but you can explore so god put spiritual bread comes in front of me and i picked them up ended up in churches i'm not a christian i i i make friends with the reverend and we we did a bible study in his home with his family and friends for like 10 weeks the book of matthew whatever it was fantastic i loved it i'm still not a christian i ended up in mosques and churches and at cartoli and thomas merton and anthony de mello and the universe of god man if i can contain this loving power in the book ends of this sacred big book then my god ain't big enough i'm sorry and i'm not pleased with please don't misunderstand i'm not saying everyone's got to go explore no no but if you're moved to i got i gotta explore man that's what i did on i want to share and i'll end with this just one of my most profound spiritual experiences in the last few years that i don't usually share um because i thought i was going crazy uh 2000 at the end of august beginning of september 2012 um i was in a deep meditation and and my cells and my body started to scream at me this is the last day of your life like i'm telling you i heard it this is all that there is in this moment how do you want to remember it how do you what do you want to pack into the stream of life and i became present to that roomy line that says you're not a drop in an ocean in the ocean you're an ocean and a drop that god is in this moment right here right now and for the next three and a half to four weeks i walked around from the moment i opened up my eyes to the moment I closed my eyes at night I felt like I was on five hits of ecstasy i i will walk around i just want to give people love it was just the craziest thing and then and and i was just smiling all the time and i want i would watch people and i would walk by and they're smiling it was like there was a shift of energy as i entered the room like that i would wash it i know it's not me i know that you know and i guess i got scared i don't want share because i thought i'm going you know first you know what i mean it's yeah okay you know so i would share just a couple of people i shared first my sponsor then my wife and i slowly i share with theresa i share it with my brother calvin one time right just a little bit a few weeks later after about four or five weeks i had a huge injury with the with a tendons in my chest muscles just rip right off and by the way that experience went away but you know what remained you know why remain then knowing that god is everything then knowing that everything's okay that's what remains in my heart in my soul because i don't believe it's just my experience I don't believe that I'm supposed to be walking on water and bliss all the time because that would not make me useful to other people. The big book says, we're sure God wants your head in the clouds with him, but your feet right here on earth, that's where your fellow travelers are because it's in the gash in the armor and the wounds in the psyche and all the brokenness and all of the pain that he gets to shine through. So I'm back on earth. I'm not at five hits of ecstasy anymore. And I'm a little tired these days, and I'm a little bit low today. I was. And I want to thank you for your kindness, for your generosity. That's all I have to say. Thank you so much. Oh, God. Thank you, Allie.