M Workshop , Into Action Konvent Stockholm 2010 – Part 1 of 4 – 2010 – Peter M.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Peter. I'm a recovered alcoholic and grateful to be alive and sober and part of a sacred place called Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was asked to speak this morning on specifically working with others and what that looks like for me and what I was getting while I was sitting there because I don't have a clue what I'm going to talk about when I do these things. perhaps how that has evolved for me from the first time I started sponsoring people my direction from sponsors what a sponsor is supposed to be doing what we're responsible for the accountability we have how that trickles into home group and a reflection of the home group, etc. Part of sponsorship and working with others is the 12-step call and I know many people in AA who've never even done it I did a 12-step call. And what are we giving away in sponsorship? So there's some things to talk about in a very, very short time. And I don't know where spirit is going to move me, but we shall see. God separated me from alcohol June 23rd, 1988. I'm a recovered alcoholic. I say recovered because I am. My home group is also called the Vision for You Group. and we meet over in New Jersey on Thursday nights from 7.30 to 8.45. And the neat thing about my home group, I'm one of the founding members of that group and it came by way of a resentment and then I got a coffee pot and I started my own group. I moved from a borough called Staten Island, New York, crossed the bridge into New Jersey. divorce will take you to strange places and divorce, I landed in Jersey and I was attending meetings in Jersey in my town, in Union and I quickly noticed it was contemporary AA and bless their hearts but it was put the plug in a jug don't drink, go to meetings, don't worry about the steps, don' t worry about God God will find you, you don't need to find God and just a lot of stuff that was very very middle of the road and I was brought up with different information and when I would share at some of the meetings I was attending they wouldn't ask me to share anymore and I walk into a meeting with the big book and they would look at me like why are you bringing trouble into this AA meeting it's kind of like if you're a Catholic and you go into church with a Bible and the priest says what are you bringin' that thing in here for what's wrong with you and so I was experiencing resistance right away and I would write lots of inventory about it and call my sponsor and I had this intuitive thought one day perhaps I should stop complaining and start serving and maybe start a group a vision for others a vision that I have and my favorite chapter in the big book is called A Vision for You so that's the name and my sponsor Mark said yeah, start a crew just stop calling me and complaining just go do it And it's interesting when God works because the dots get connected real quick. And suddenly there was about a half a dozen men from my town, yeah, let's start this group. And church gave us their blessings. And so we started this group, and the first night we were there, there was About, I don't know, half a Dozen of Us, founding members. We had a speaker come down, and he brought about four or five folks with him. and there was one woman who attended, two women who attended. That was the size of the group that stayed that way for a while. Well, we're anywhere from 75 to 100 on a Thursday night now. And we've done our first big book workshop. We have traditions meetings. We have a concept workshop. We're involved in every service area. We contribute money. We do all the things we're supposed to be doing. The group is living in all three sides of the triangle. But here's the thing that I really love about my group. What I get to do is I'm there at 6 o'clock on Thursday nights, and the reason why I'm There at 6 O'Clock is to work with others. I have some men that I sponsor, so I tell them to meet me at 6 o'Cclock, and they get down there, and they get Down there at six, not 630. And we sit in the back somewhere at a table, and we start going through the 12 steps. We have upper rooms in the church, and Sometimes we escape to some of those rooms, but I'm working with someone. Well, what happened is they get well, and then they get prospects, and they start working with others. And then those guys get well and they stop working with us. And now the women are doing the same thing. So here's what's great. When you get to a Vision for You group on a Thursday night at 530, coffee's on and someone's working with Someone, and I'm there at 6 o'clock, and there's about 20 or 30 of us working with people. And when the meeting ends at 845, we don't bolt to the car and go home. We're hanging around, and we're just talking about this, what we do, looking for newcomers, standing at the door, who took care of that new guy, who's got the new woman, and it looks like that. Who's going to a conference? Who's speaking where? So it's pretty neat. So by 930, there's still home group members hanging around in the parking lot. And whenthe weather is nice, because it gets cold back home, when the weather is real nice, The parking lot is there until 10 o'clock. So it's a pretty neat deal. It's one of the bright spots of my life. Now, how that starts is truly by sponsorship. When I see a sick group, I'm looking for the elder statesman or the bleeding deacons. I'm Looking for who's sponsoring the people in that group that allowed the group to get sick. That's what I always point to. And we can say, well, the sponsor has nothing to do with the prospect. That's a lie because if they're not doing what you asked them, then why are you still sponsoring them? Is my ego so wrapped up in this person getting well or am I here just to serve and allow them to bottom out? So when I see a sick group, I want to know who the sponsors are of these members, who the bleeding deacons are because they're definitely not all the statesmen and that's how the group needs to do new inventory. And the members need to perhaps go to work again. So there's a tremendous amount of responsibility that gets put into the lap of someone who's sponsoring others. Before we get going, what I really like to do is if those who care to join, I like to leave outside outside and see what sort of where we are as far as meditation goes. So what I like to do when I do these things is get a three minutes of silent meditation and observe where we are in posture. So we can kind of get centered in focus and move forward. So I ask if you don't want to do this, this is this is OK. But if you can just put books down and and just get into a comfortable position, obviously it's not your home. and what I'd ask you to do is just be comfortable. And you can read the newspaper if you don't want to participate, it's okay. But if you do, I like to observe what posture looks like and how that goes and if we can just close eyes, drop your shoulders and take a deep breath in and fill up the lungs with some nice clean air and then pump it out. and a simple way to do this is count the breath in one and count the breathe out two and count the breathe in one and release the breathe on two and if we just let nature take its course we will breathe without having to breathe and the heart will beat without having to plug in somewhere and just watch breath go in gently and then watch breath go out if we can for a moment take yourself to a very safe place in meditation somewhere where you're safe and comfortable relaxed a room a destination completely free at ease see yourself there. Let's do that. forward. And let's see ourselves in five years in meditation. Let's see ourselves in 5 years. Where are you? Who's there? Career, what's that look like family, loved ones? Where am I living? How's that? Look, look at the Colors. Get the scent of the surroundings, what you're wearing as well. How's that feel? How's it look? Give yourself permission for abundance. Anything's possible with God. Embrace abundance. Breathing in and breathing out. A little by slowly, let's take ourselves back. Further back to this room. present. And when you're ready, just open up and be here. One of the neat things I like to do with that is how resistant we are to abundance, seeing ourselves in five years perhaps in a house that we envision ourselves living in, maybe with children, maybe with a loved one, Maybe walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe. Maybe being wealthy, maybe just wealthy in spirit. And the mind wants to shut that down and say, oh, you can't do this, that's not possible. And the first time I did that, I saw the home I was living in. I love being by the beach. I want to live by the Beach one day where it's warm all year long. And I saw The House, the colors, get the scent, what I was wearing. and I took myself there and as I was there I was very uncomfortable about experiencing this abundance. And I kept walking through that and allowed myself permission to experience abundance, inner abundance and external abundance. Why not? Because what the mind does or the mind will try to create drama and anything that God gives me the mind also looks to destroy it. And the way to the truth is to the destruction of that which is false by challenging belief systems. And so we go through this little walk in meditation, what we just did, usually about 45 minutes long, and sit with that. One more thing. I did observe some of the postures, some of us. And just I'll put this out there, posture and breath, posture and breath when we're sitting in sacred silence and meditation. And some of us had our legs crossed. Some of us were sitting like this. Some of use were sitting like this, and perhaps no one ever taught us. But if we're going to meditate at home, even if it's three minutes or five minutes or 45 minutes, whatever it might be, is to wear comfortable clothing when we're meditating and how to create a space, a sacred place that we can go to once or twice or three times a day. And sitting with our back straight and perhaps in a position like this perhaps in like this, perhaps like this but not with legs crossed and meditation posture shouldn't be uncomfortable and painful and my back is hurting my legs are cramping, it shouldn't been like that there should be some discipline in how we're sitting but it should be comfortable so we create, we get a cushion we have a meditation mat, whatever it might be and ideally no sandals, no shoes, just be loose and then we sit and we don't have to ever force God in I don't have to force or create silence I can't create that which already exists I don' t have to go find God because God is not lost with physical extensions of that which is non-physical my hand is not separate from my arm it's all part of the same thing it can't be separate from God the mind says we are all I have to do is wait just wait and sometimes we get wrapped up into doing, gotta do I've got to be spiritual, damn it. I'm going to be damn spiritual, right? And I'm gonna read books and I'm gonna really pray and I'll be so spiritual if it kills me, right. Stop! Or we get attached to the length of time in meditation. I meditated for 45 minutes. I'm a guru because you only did 15. And how long do you meditate? We do things like that. We all do from time to time, right? Or we try to force ourselves into having some sort of experience in that meditation. I want to meditate on what my marriage day is going to look like, so let's go. Stop. God knows what we need. He hears the heart, hears the soul, reads us. And all you need to do is stop, stop everything. And sometimes in a meditation we'll hear noises outside, you know, police truck going by, a loud engine going by The dog barking next door And here I am trying to get silent and I'm trying to be spiritual And I'm going those SOBs, I'm making too much noise You know, and I get attached to that and I run with that And I can't, and i'm fighting And i'm creating struggle in trying to bestill And just let that stuff be, stop everything, just be with it Okay, here's a noise, come back There's another noise, comes back my mind is taking me somewhere else once I know that, I'm back again just be and stop counting breath one counting breath two and I'll go to that very pure sacred place of the stillness it's always present and when I'm in that place I'm not even aware that I'm there because as long as I'm aware I'm meditating I'm still part of the control I'm meditating now. I must be on about five minutes now. I must begin really spiritual right about now, right? Then we get to a place where we lose all of that. And that's when we're in. And then we'll come out. And sometimes direction comes from that. So just to start off the Saturday morning moving forward. Now, if we have sponsors who are on this path, who are working with the disciplines of 10 and 11 and meditation specifically, they will be able to teach us some of that or perhaps guide us to places where we can learn more of that. Because one of the things we don't talk about in AA enough is prayer and meditation. And if I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, well, prayer is talking, meditation is listening, I'd be driving a Ferrari today. Because that's what we hear. It's a quick way out. Prayer is talking. Meditation is listening. Okay, that's it? there's got to be more to it and so with the sponsor who's awake and present, who's working with this who's searching out other information to go along with the big book instead of we start to learn become students and we always want to be students even when we're sponsoring and teaching we need to keep the spirit of a student beginner's mind can't teach an expert have the mind of a beginner if you will always open to new ideas so even when i teach i'm a student always in the spirit of a student sometimes i teach when i call my sponsor on wednesday evenings i'm a student and he has spiritual consent to do what he wants with my inventory and give me whatever he sees whatever he hears he's allowed to you know kind of as we say rip the cover off the ball just go for it and so i'm accountable to him so every wednesday night to call my sponsor and read inventory to him. Okay, some considerations before we get going this morning as to where we are, where we can locate ourselves. And one of the things I always like to kick around is this. Currently, is my life one of struggle or is my life oneof peace? How am I doing? Not what I'm telling people, but in here, up in here. Like when we go home later on and we're all alone, what's that like when I'm in my car. How's that feeling? When I'm at work and I'm saying, good morning, Joe. Good morning, Mary. How was your weekend? My weekend was great. Underneath we're going, I hate them. I can't stand it. I got to get out of here. How am I doing? Is my life one of struggle or peace? Is mi life one if resistance or acceptance? Am I resistant? Contempt, pride, investigation. Am I resisting any new information? I don't want to hang out with those people who are in the big book. I don' t want to hanging out with anyone. I didn't want hang out with me? Is my life one of resistance or acceptance, embracing, being wide open? One of the neat things that happens is when we really go through this work, it's happened to me several times, is that we get wide open. Okay, you have a different religion. Let's hear about it. Maybe I can learn. Teach me. There's no threat anymore. And that allows me to be very present. I'm not in a place of resistance, which means I have to protect and defend. When I'm in a space of acceptance, I lose ignorance. And what I mean by ignorance is simply this, losing the sense of who I really am. Connection to God, one with God, you, connection to God. When we lose sense of that, I start to get protect and defend or run because I need to watch you because you're going to get me or I need you to get you and so now let's drop bombs on each other. Let's go to war. I do the big book this way, you do the Big Book that way. I'm right, you're wrong. Now we have a warring theologian thing going on, right? But when I'm in this place of being made wide open and I lose that ignorance and I'm very much aware of I'm connected one with God and so are you, suddenly the universe is new. Make sense? Okay. Is my life one of dis-ease and discomfort or peace-seize and comfort? Do I live a life of desperation? Do I Live a Life of Inspiration? Am I inspired by others? Do I inspire others? How's that currently looking, right? Do I still believe an external condition is a remedy for this internal illness called alcoholism? How's That Looking Currently, Right? How am I? I call it a thunderbolt. You know, you wake up one morning and you get a phone call. Someone in the family is sick. They were great yesterday. What do you mean they had a heart attack? What doyou mean Joe died? Or you're going to work, you know, Monday morning, ready to start, and the boss says, we're cutting you loose. Company's not doing good. What doyoumean? When those, I call those things thunderbolts. When those thunderbolTS hit, what doI do with that? Because when those things happen, what the mind looks to do is deny the existence of something greater. well God's not here so I need to take over and here comes fear here comes self-reliance because there's no God in this which means I'm currently agnostic and a man's got to do what a man has got to do when John Wayne gets involved I'll pray later right now I've got to go beat up my boss because he fired me and I'll make amends later but right now I can't trust and rely upon God now I do that in AA, this is real life I needと do what I need то do How's that going? Because the mind always wants to deny the existence of something greater. When I'm having some struggles, perhaps I'm on a little spree, a little sex spree. A little fear spree? A little food spree ? A little money spree , right? Who am I telling? Am I sharing with a sponsor on things I really don't want to share about? Or do I say, well, it's me, so it's okay and I'll get through it. But you better share everything and off I go. So I don't need to tell the sponsor about this. Because I'm me and I'm okay. Or am I anteing up and telling the sponsor, hey listen, I've been on a food spree. I've ben on a gambling spree I've be in fear like you can't believe I've bene on this sex spree I need help How's that looking? Because it says a life which demands, not to suggest, a life which demands rigorous honesty. Not when it's convenient for me or I look really good. So people in AA go, wow, he or she, that's so honest. I haven't told you a third of it, right? But it makes me look good. Am I rigorously honest with someone? How's that looking? Now as a sponsor, I need to know if I'm not annoying the people I sponsor, I'm not doing my job. If the prospects don't get pissed off at me once in a while, I're probably not doing a good job. If they're getting upset with me regularly, I must be a hell of a good sponsor because I'm giving them truth. You know, when Joe walks into a meeting and I say, Joe, how's it going? Fine. Everything's great. Everything is great. He's got 14 days sober. Nothing's great. right you're not great so let's stop so as a sponsor we need to rely on that intuitiveness i was talking to someone early about some of the things that they work with uh in the steps and rely on intuitiveness anything to be of maximum service to the alcoholic it's the god intuitiveness we don't have to explain anything to anyone OK. So as we get into working with others, what I like to do is first go to page 18 in the big book and page 18 in the italicized writing says this. But the X problem drinker who has found a solution who was properly armed with facts about himself or herself can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours. Am I an alchee who's found the solution? What solution? Ah, what solution are we talking about? Well, in AA, contemporary AA will say things like it's an individual program. No, it isn't. We all have different solutions. No, we don't. If you have a third edition of Big Book, Not the fourth edition, which I have a major problem with. But if you have a third edition, I don't like the color of the cover. I mean, it starts from there. But if You Have a Third Edition in the Big Book, the old third edition used to have that blue and white paper cover. On the inside, it read this. But the basic text pages 1-164 have remained unchanged. This is the AA message. Hear what I just said? But the basically text pages, 1-160 remain unchanged. This is the A.A. message. So it begs the question, what message have I had an experience with and what message am I passing on? Book says we can't transmit something we haven't got. And sometimes we will what we do. And that's untreated alcoholism. Sick prospect. Let's knock on the sponsor's door. Right. So when it says I'm an ex-problem drinker was found, the solution is the solution from the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. or is it from a lot of like slogans and one-liners in AA and what I'm using for my own common sense? I'm making it up on the fly because it sounds good. Forgetting I'm playing with someone's life, they're coming to me saying, hey, I don't know if I should get divorced or stay in this marriage and I give them just a one-liner or something that I just made up because my ego has gotten so out of control, I can't say I don' t know. See him. am i armed with the solution it says um that i found a solution armed with the facts facts about what what an alcoholic is i know my truth i know what i suffer from and i can probably pinpoint what you suffer from right how's that looking once these things happen when i ante up and tell you about me and i come from that place of you identifying with an alcoholic suddenly we have a trust bill did it when he knocked on dr bob's door dr bob said i'll give this guy 15 minutes i don't have time for this five hours later why it was one drunk talking to another you know how we are when we see sometimes we go shopping and you get all these civilians out there they know how the conversation is hi how are you how's it how the kids how's the wife and you're gone unless they're real good friends then we meet one of us in the store everything stops we're pushing people pushing us out of it because right in the middle of the department store so would you write inventory yeah i'm field-based insecurity i don't understand why and people like you know we lock in how many times have we gotten phone calls you ever do this get a phone call hello pete it's mike hi mike and the guy keeps talking i have no idea who this is he thinks i know who it is and i'm going okay how's it going i feel like drinking today Where are you? Okay, what's going on? It doesn't make a difference. Who cares about the name right now? Bill talked at the language of the heart. I got Mike, whoever Mike is, on the phone, but he's an alky who wants a drink. I know. We can move. That's what we're talking about here. Know my truth. On with the solution. I can win the entire confidence of an alki in minutes. There's a thing that goes on with us. It says, until this understanding is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished. So if I come to you, if I, you know, Carlos' family calls him and says, Carlos is drinking, he needs help, and I show up and just start talking to him, he's going to say, who is this guy? Where did he come from? But if I sit down and say, Carlos, I'm an alcoholic, and I was drinking for 20 years and I wound up in jails and institutions and I got sober once I start drinking I can't stop drinking see he's in he knows I'm like him he's going to listen I work in a treatment center business for years and I get a call to go see some gentleman an old money southern Texan It's like talking to that marble granite. Going nowhere. As pompous and arrogant and as rich and old school as you can get, right? He was laying in the hospital bed with cowboy boots on him. So they tell me to go make a call on this guy. I said, okay, off I go. And his wife was out there, and she says, he's not going to listen. He was crying. I'm so afraid of him. And I walk into his hospital. It was the man on the bed. I walk in to his room, and he has the covers up to here. And the lights are off. And she walks in. I flick on the lights, and it gives me a stare that could melt the granite. And he says, who in a southern, very southern text, who is this? So I kind of pushed her back, and I says, my name is Peter. I'm from Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm an alcoholic. And he just kind of turned and looked at me. And I says, I just want five minutes of your time if that's okay with you. He said, okay. So I sat down next to him, and I knew how to address him as yes sir and no sir because in Texas that's real important. You can't say like, hey, how's it going? Because you lose them, right? So I sit down and I said, listen, I'm an alcoholic. And I start to ante up a little bit about me. And the covers that were up here came down to here. And he's listening. My job was to get this guy into treatment. That was my goal. I spent about ten minutes with this guy, and I swear, God be my witness, the tears started to flow. And he said to me, I need help. Help me. Got him. Cut through all of that because he knew where I was coming from. I drank like him. He drank like me. There was no ego involved. This is what I'm about. And we got him into treatment, that's what we do I talked to him about a solution I talked about what I was up against I had no attitude of holier than thou nothing except the sincere desire to be helpful he didn't have to pay me for anything I didn't care what kind of religious background he had if he had one at all I didn'y care if he believed in God I don't care, not on that initial visit and I didn''t take this big book and ram it down his throat I didn ''t do that I had to befriend the guy Get him to trust me, that I'm a drunk like you. Let's have that talk. He doesn't care how spiritual I think I am. He doesn'T care about God. He needs to trust Me first and find out how he can get well from this cancer that's eating him. It's called alcoholism. But if I go in there with both guns loaded, I'm A Spiritual Big Book Guru, I lost him. Go home. sometimes it's best to go pay a call and I drunk when we have no clue what we're going to do how I'm going to approach this but I've been praying and meditating Father show me what to do I'm in probably a lot better shape than I have an agenda if I have a job if I haven't agenda going in because it's really about me looking good on that 12 step call having said that if you can flip over to page 34. And this is where some of us can run into trouble with people in AA or when we're sponsoring people. It says, for those who are unable to drink moderately, the question is how to stop altogether forever. We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. So I'm sitting with this drunk. Do they have a desire to stop? Or are they just sitting with me because the wife said, go sit with Peter? Oh, I'm throwing you out. You have a real desire to stop? Now we do know that a desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. It helps us. It may bring us to AA, may get us into treatment, may even allow me to sit with someone who's going to help me in AA, but just depending upon a desire To Stop Drinking for the long haul is of absolute no avail But we can start with, hey, I want to stop It says whether such a person can quit upon a non-spiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he or she has already lost the power to choose whether they will drink or not. So if I'm sitting with someone who still has power, choice and control that person probably doesn't need to go to some of the many any spiritual lengths that I have to go through or we have to go to because they have power, choose and control perhaps because they're just a hard drinker and the hard drinkers may have a horrific war story. Sounds worse than mine. But when it came time to stop, because circumstances warrant that, okay, I'm going to stop. Liver's bad, got to stop health is bad, gotta stop. She's going to divorce me, stop. So I stopped and I go to AA. But people like us, we try to use that to stop and we keep drinking. Those are the folks, the real Alkies who need a spiritual way of life or else. And we know what the else looks like. So when I'm sitting down with someone, and I'm talking to them about what I'm going to do, what this is going to look like, I can see if they're going to bristle at antagonism, and they're gonna sign up to go to any lengths. So what's your drinking story like? Well, when I wanted to stop, I could. Really, let's talk about that. And if they still convinced that they have power, choice, and control, then maybe, as a book says, I'm not convinced they're an alcoholic. And our book gives us that power to do that? Are we convinced that they're alcoholics? If I'm convinced you're not an alky, I don't need to work with you. I better work with him because I'm convinced he is. Boy, am I convinced you are. Right? I tried working with some folks who I would listen to their first step assignment and I'm listening to like five and six and ten pages that they wrote and I's sitting there going, And tell me you drank one beer in your entire life. What are you doing here? It was a lot of therapeutic clinical stuff, a lot of behavior stuff, but no phenomenon called craving, no mental obsession. Some people smoked a little grass here and there in their day, had a couple beers, threw up, got sick. Doesn't qualify for being an alky. Getting DWIs. You have them out here, DWIs, DUIs, where you get stopped by the police for drinking while intoxicated. You get a fine. You go to jail, things like that. So some folks come to AA and say, well, I had a handful of these things. I must be an alcoholic. Perhaps not. Well, I've been in the treatment center a few times. I've gone to detox. I'm an alcoholic? Perhaps not! You just got caught. The job said you need to go to treatment. Okay, I'll go. I'll keep my job. You know, wifey-poo said, you better go do something about your drinking. So I go do Something About My Drinking. Does it mean I'm a alky? What makes me an alcoholic, I need to know that as a sponsor When I'm sitting with someone, know the facts. Arm with the facts about what this looks like. Okay. So let's flip over to working with others. It says practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity as a promise from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. They use the word intensive. They use great words in our book. Intensive means I don't say, here's my number. Call me when you want to drink because most alcoholics are not going to call you when they want to drink. They're going to tell you when a drunk is over crying. Say, come get me when I want to drink. I go drink. Intensive work is not saying, call me intensive. Work is not taking an alcoholic, putting him or her in your car and taking them to a meeting that's taken into a meeting where hopefully your message is being delivered. Intensive work is you and I are going to get together at 6 o'clock at my home group where you're going to come to my house, and we're goingto march through this book. And it's going to be spiritual homework assignments, and there's goingto be accountability, and things like that. I'm your sponsor now. So intensive work with other alcoholics gives me immunity from drinking. It works when other activities fail. This is our 12th suggestion. We carry this message to alcoholics. I think it comes of age that the basic text AA provides is one alcoholic working with another. When we lose one alky working with other, we don't have Alcoholics Anonymous. We have a bunch of drunks meeting together. We can have a PTA meeting for that. We can meet anywhere. We can be on a street corner then. But the sacredness in AA is one drunk giving his time to some other drunk and passing on a message so you can wake up and go back in and pull someone else out. That's AlcoholicsAnonymous. But I better be going working with someone having had a spiritual experience.