Mickey M. at the Freedom Trail Convention – 2021

am i going to stay in this view next to you jay is that what we're doing i guess we're going to be partners in this deal i'm going to go with gallery no no don't feel alone um first of all thank you guys so much for uh including me this big surprise what category I'm in. I'll explain that in a moment, but I love Boston and I love Boston people and I learned something yesterday. I am an addict of Louis L'Amour books so I read these books and I learned something yesterday that Shawmut is part of Boston and so you know I get my geography lesson and the good guys always win with Louis L'Amour. Okay, I start every talk this way. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous for two weeks of sobriety. Can you hear me okay? Okay, thank you. I had been drinking since I was five years old and I was 27 years old and it was hard. I was hospitalized when I was 26 with a suspected heart attack. I came from a family that drank, it was all military and we were Sergeant Rock and I certainly wasn't. And it went like that. And so I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. Ultimately, I had gone to priests and therapists and God bless, they all tried to help. And then I came To You because I woke up one morning and figured out that I can't stop drinking. I mean, that's a revolutionary thought. I'm telling you it came in from Mars. It's like, I can't stop drinking. And I went one week and I realized I was not gonna be able to stay sober. So I came to you. I cameto Alcoholics Anonymous one night. I made a call and I started on this trip. My experience in AlcoholicsAnonymous was it was like I was a fish out of water. It's Like You Take a Fish Out of a Tank and Throw It on the Sidewalk. and that's what I felt like because I didn't know a life without drinking alcohol and it would hurt me so, so much. That alcohol hurt me so much and I thought if I could get two weeks where I don't live like that, where I Don't hurt like that where I'm not so sick, where don't wake up with my hands like this and I can't straighten them and I talked to somebody and I said, What's wrong with my hands he said man it's the booze and i'm going like what because everybody drinks right but it didn't work on me and i i have two brothers they're not alcoholic my parents are not alcoholic and the fickle finger of fate chose me chose me what an honor what a stupid thing to say right no no it's an honor it's in honor we are special people okay listen we know nobody speaks for alcoholics anonymous right so i want to sign up for that right now we are special people god chose us god chose us to be a representative that says you know what god exists you don't believe god uh exists i'm telling you no doctor no priest no minister no nothing can keep me sober and you can't see my bodyguard and he's right behind me and he carries me so that two weeks has um multiplied into 47 years well it'll be 47 years on february 12th so i'm sneaking up on it i always tell my sobriety date a few days early because i'm so you know inclined to impress But I'm pretty impressed. I'm pretty impressed because I didn't die, but the trip has been unbelievable. 47 years. So I came in working the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous out of the book because I had nowhere else to run. I'll say this very quickly. When I found out this was a spiritual program, I really wanted to run. And my thought was are these people going to try to cure me with fairy tales because I had lost my faith in God. And I thought, oh no, they don't understand. I got to really get some help because everything's falling apart. So I went to lunch with my sponsor at the time and I was in a group that was very, very precise. And they were about tough love and I must be honest here because it turned into abuse. It was really, it's real easy to abuse a person coming in out of the street, right? What do I know? And then we get all this hard stuff inside. I stood for the hard stuff. I got great precision from it but I was so suicidal I could taste it. I would sit in a meeting and I just wanted to die And when I got sober in 74, if you talked about your feelings in a meeting, they called it psychobabble and they muzzled you. Now I'm being muzzeled about the disease of alcoholism. You know what I'm saying? I need to talk to somebody about alcoholism and I don't know how to differentiate drinking from alcoholism, you know what i'm saying. so I started going through this group and I'm going like why do I want to commit suicide and where do I go for help and then I got passed up the ranks to the top guy and I got to the Top Guy and he looked at me and he says I told him that I was really hurting a suicidal and by that I mean I have a 32 automatic pistol in the top drawer of my dresser this is not you know i'm something that i'm just making up this is real my my plan and don't we all have a plan when we come here my plan was if this doesn't work i'm going to put my brains on the wall which is terrible which is horrible but there i there i am i'm in the i'm the claws of alcoholism so i talked to him and he looks at me and he said he was a great big guy he looks me he says i don't know man maybe you're going to drink and i felt that i heard the clank of the prison doors shut i thought oh my god i i have got something that can't be handled in alcoholics anonymous i don t know what anonymous to go to so i had been reading a book by this american monk named thomas merton and thomas murton wrote this book called new seeds of contemplation okay now i'm desperate and and i go and i get my book and i've been reading it i've Been reading that book for over 50 years and only these these chapters 32 to 36. anyway i start reading the book and I'm reading in the book now i will say that my time in alcoholics anonymous has been packed with surprises unbelievable surprises and it has never stopped and it's going on right now and i start reading these chapters and he is describing how i feel now i expected spirituality well i expected that if i stopped drinking i would get rainbows and butterflies and things would be easy and i would stop being this insane jerk that i couldn't tolerate i got i got put the bottle down i got sober and i ran into mickey and i couldn t handle him any more than anybody else could and i got kicked out of my schools i couldn d stay there i would just run away and that's the kind of lead up i had to sit sitting in these meetings, and I thought, my God, I'm going to die. So, I start reading Thomas Merton. Huge surprise, number two. One of them is that I got sober. Second surprise is he describes everything that's happening to me, and it turns out in chapters 32 to 36, he is describing a spiritual experience. I'm right in the middle of a spiritual experience. God has come for me. God has come from me and I'm getting what I crave and he will show you how to create the fellowship you crave. Oh my dear Lord. So I got this sponsor and I have to do a quick aside. I'm talking as fast as my brain will let me. My sponsor, one guy out of that group was this little guy with a burnt haircut and all the rest of these guys were so mean but George was a little softer and I thought, you know, he's this guy with a bear haircut. I can steamroller this guy. And he'd just come back from three tours in Vietnam as a Navy medic attached to the Marines. He's one of the toughest guys ever in my life. And I'll say this quickly and please allow me to finish this, okay? So you see there's no prejudice in this. And he was also gay. Now this was another surprise. So I got this guy who was with the Marines for three years in Vietnam and he's gay and I'm coming into this deal and I really need help. Well, isn't God interesting? Because I was so uncertain. I came from a military family and everybody was all tough and I didn't want to hit anybody and I was very intuitive and I soft edge and guess what I thought? I thought I was gay. Now I'm married and I've got a three-year-old daughter, but I must be gay because I'm not that machine gun Mike. What's wrong with me? And so God gave me a gay sponsor who was a real servant to our country in combat Vietnam. And so I don't know where we're going. It's like that line in Apocalypse Now, I don' know where were going, but one look at you and I know it's gonna be hot. So I'm joined up with George and we're going down the path. And George says, Mickey, you're not gay. Now, Mickey you're are not gay cannot resonate in me because I carry a concrete block on my shoulders. Nothing gets in that I haven't already pre-authorized. Do you understand? So he doesn't understand. I'm gay, he doesn' understand. So we went through that dance and bless his heart For two years, he walked me out of that valley. And he would say, you know, Mickey it's always darkest before the dawn. And I would call him on the phone and I would say George, is it dawn yet? Is it dawned yet? And so he stayed with me. And now to finish the part about gay, you understand if you're gay fine please, I mean no offense. And we all have, but how can I go through life if I don't have my identity? If I don know who I truly am, at least in that aspect. So finally George says to me, I'll just wrap this quickly. George says, Mickey, I'm gonna hold in your imagination two pictures. One of them is a naked man and one of them in it is a woman. And which one do you choose? And I look and I'm kind of like, dude, I picked the woman. I mean, it's like, It was obvious to me because I missed the sexual part of homo, sexual. Okay, I had, well anyway. So Mickey comes to life on one rung in the ladder for goodness gravy. Now what's the next thing? What's, there are things that I, there are books that I have not read that I live by or made an impression on me. And one of the books is What Makes Sammy Run. That title floored me. What makes Sammy run? What makes Mickey run? Why have I run all my life? Why can't I fit in? Why can'T I go to school? Why do I want to die? And so we're working the steps, me and George. And I go to visit him in his apartment. Now, George has had all the war he wants. So he's studying to be a Methodist minister. And so I go over and this is my cheese sandwich story. Anyway, so I got my brown bag and I got my cheese sandwich and I'm going to be with George on my lunch hour. And I sit down and I'm telling him the same thing he said over and over and again. And, and, and I am saying, George, I'm cheating on my wife. I'm so angry. Nobody wants to work with me. I want to kill myself and george is you know listening you know and he stands up and he says mickey uh when i got where you are i got down on my knees and i asked god from the bottom of my heart for help and he picked up his jacket and he said you can use my apartment and he left now in george's apartment with a half-eaten cheese sandwich i laugh about this now but it sure as hell wasn't funny i got half a cheese sandwich george says he got on his knees and asked god for help so i got down on my knees and i and i didn't have a god and the only thing i could say was will somebody please help me turns out it was a good prayer and i went back to work and i'm back at work for an hour and then i called george on the phone and i said george i have one question okay it's two questions I got one question isn't it funny I forgot the two questions but I'm going to get them I'm gonna get them all right I'm 74 years old it's a little hard to hold on to all the information I said this is important I'm going to leave you with a half-eaten cheese sandwich, and you're going to say this guy is useless for goodness gravy. All right. So I said, George, do I do the things I do because I'm alcoholic? And he said, yes, Mickey. and I said, is there a way I can recover from the things I do and the things I am? And he said yes. And I got it through. I got it. I can recover from alcoholism. What's wrong with me is I'm alcoholic from the tip of my head to the tip of my toes and I need help and God can do something about that. I couldn't believe it. I've been that way my whole life. I'd been this Mickey for my whole life and George just said you can get you can recover from alcoholism well I went out of there and I grabbed everybody at 1311 York Street where I got sober and I told them alcoholism is a disease and you can recovery from it like they all knew and I had just learned it so anyway it was this big discovery that I can get well and I can get well. Now, what's the price of freedom? What does well mean? I've been in here almost 47 years and I can tell you that what happens when I first went up the steps and there were two layers of steps to get into the doors of this 1890 mansion, 1311 York Street for my first meeting. I didn't know that when I put my hand on that doorknob to enter that and to go in there. First of all, I said to myself, once I open this door, my life's never going to be the same. And I was right about that. But what I didn't know was when I opened that doorknob, I was opening the doorknobs to Alcoholics Anonymous and I was reopening the dooknob to the world of the spirit. Of course, I wouldn't know that. I was going right into the world at the spirit, does that give you goosebumps at all? Because it sure as heck gives me goosebumps. and I've gotten a chance to travel for 47 years in the world of the Spirit. I got to tell you this, holy smokes, you got to go quick. We're going to do it. It wasn't like I did this seamless trip, okay, you guys, because I am an alcoholic. I carry this disease. I'm a carrier and I'm also suffering from it. Now what happens is I took this little break and i'm i'm trying to be funny because it's embarrassing i took this break that was either 10 or 15 years long and i had no sponsor i would you know i would like talk to my brother wizards you know we'd like talk tell each other how great we were or whatever but i had nobody that i was responsible to that i had to answer to that could help me get out of my own way And I'll cut the story short. I ended up on the floor of this business that was failing, and the floor was like this artificial grass they put in the football stadiums, and I could see the phone up above me, but I had worked my way into suicide, and I had my knife out. Now, I had been going down. And while I was going down, I would say out loud this, I can't breathe. Now my wife did not know. And incidentally, she's been in Al-Anon for 47 years with me and we've been married for 50 years. We celebrated our 50th anniversary on New Year's Eve. I picked the date so I couldn't forget it. If you could forget New Year'S Eve, man, you were seriously anyway so I'm laying on this floor and I got my knife out and I can see the phone above me but I can't get to it and and I'm thinking God I'm going to kill myself now I'm going to open my veins right now and it was you're going to be cold Mickey it's going to be so cold. You're going to go into shock. And I was there for four hours. Now, if you define hell by the absence of God, I went to hell for four horas. I don't recommend it to anybody. It's horrifying. And i couldn't stop that. I'd set this up anyway. I just said I couldn't breathe. I can't breathe and the other thing I would say out loud is can I please have a cookie now that means I just wanted something sweet in my life because a suicide is somebody who eliminates options you eliminate eliminate and eliminate you eliminate hope you eliminate everything till there's only one option and that's to take yourself out so I'm laying on the floor, and by the grace of God I fell asleep. Next morning I woke up, and Maria doesn't know where I am or what I'm up to, but I remembered this woman I met in Minneapolis, and she talked about this guy in St. Paul who was like this deep breather in Alcoholics Anonymous, and he had the juju, you know what I mean? He had the juice, and I certainly needed the juice. And so I called her to get his number. And so I'm talking to her, and I'm telling her what she's doing, what I'm doing. I'm 25 years sober, she's 16 years sober. She hears what's going on with me, and she gets, God bless her, her big book and everything and all her AA literature in her lap, and she starts 12-stepping me. And I'm listening to her. And after a while, I think, she has everything I want. And I asked her, would you be my sponsor? And she said, no, because girls are with girls and boys are with boys. And so, you know, and she keeps talking to me at 12 stepping me and I finally just said, Listen, I really need help. And you're making such sense to me, will you please help me? And he said, Mickey, I'll work with you until you find a male sponsor. And she, she worked with me for four years and her name was cookie. Her name was Cookie God gave me a cookie. I asked for it, I got the cookie. And we started down this road, we started it down this road. What I really want to tell you is that I've had a transformation in here. In this book, Merton's book, he said, we wrap ourselves with the bandages of ego like a mummy. And then we identify with the Bandages and say that's me. And we're afraid if those bandages are ever unpeeled, there will be no me. So what happens in the course of this thing is that God started to transform me, transform me. Transform me? Transform me from what? He transformed me from that false Mickey, that guy who couldn't do anything, that guy who was suicidal into somebody that it can't you know what my father one of my father's favorite words was citizen and I got to be a good citizen not all the time but I got to be a good person. I got to be a safe person. I wasn't safe to me, and I wasn't safe with others. And I have had an opportunity to travel around the country and to share this message like we're doing now. But I want you to know that what I'm actually doing with you is I'm loving you. I'm telling you that. I love being with you. I love being with you. And God loves being with you. and he just does that through people. He does that through me. He has transformed me. I am not the man I came in here with. Oh man, here we go. Let's just go a little woo-woo here. You asked me to come here and you're going to get it. So what is transform means? Let's say we are now into the fourth dimension. Doesn't it say that in the book? We have entered the fourth Dimension. Well what's the fourth dimension like, okay, I'm afraid of airplanes, I am afraid of flying. And so when I get into into turbulence in an airplane, I know that I'm a friend and I figured there's got to be other people in that plane that are afraid. So I start praying the Hail Mary, and I pray a Hail Mary and ice prayer Hail Mary. And I pray Hail Mary as long as that turbulence is going on. And in the course of praying that hail mary one time all of a sudden i see myself on a little dirt road and i'm walking into the house of the blessed mother of god we we're in the fourth dimension what and that's the truth and And I live in the fourth dimension. We are in this world, but not of it. I can't believe that he would have anything to do with me. I screwed this thing up so bad. And he has picked me to be with him and to let people know it's going to be okay. It's going To Be Okay. I never have stopped working the 12 steps out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'll end in this thing, if so, if I thought it was amazing that he would pick me to be alive, to not be, to die alcoholic and then I found out that the disease of alcoholism is not in the bottle it's in me the bottle did alcohol did not cause my alcoholism and so we go along like this so we've had heard don prince's name mentioned tonight and um into in colorado and i live in denver in colorada we had no intimate conferences we've been going out on the circuit a lot of us going out onto the circuit and there were more infinite intimate conferences and i i thought well we i'd like to have that where you can rub up shoulders with people and there aren't 1500 of them like they were in our state convention so we got to talking about that and marie and i put in 250 dollars and and don put in two hundred and fifty dollars and we started this conference in the mountains now there are lots of other people who made that possible the three of us couldn't have done it but the idea came out and we started this thing and we called it the breckenridge conference and it has morphed into the fellowship of the spirit conference you know when i say morph look at that god now here he is in action i think we're going to go over here a roomie the persian poet rumi says i throw a stick right and it lands left i dig a hole to catch others in it and i fall in it myself that's my experience with god it's like okay i know what kind of conference we're gonna have and then he puts this conference together this unbelievably beautiful conference in colorado we call it the miracle on the mountain people will come up to that conference and it's like i sponsored this guy for for nine years and then he came up to him excuse me he was a sober for nine years he came to the conference one one year and he came up to me after the first meeting and he said mickey I got to start my program again. I said, why? He says, man, I just got to start my programme again. That's the miracle on the mountain. Who does these things? Rumi asks. Who does these things? God does them. So we gave an opportunity. We gave him an opening and I think, I don't know, that there are like 30 Fellowship of the Spirit conferences in the world today. I keep hoping if they'll ever listen to my name, Michael Moore Irish, Musset. They'll invite me to Dublin, but it didn't work. It's never worked. I'm still here in Colorado and that's that. But think about it. It has gone around the world. Now, what power does God have? What can one person do in the world? Can one person change the world absolutely? Three people better. Hundreds of people better, but you see what I am saying? If I carry, the Greeks call the mother of God Theotokos. It means God-bearer. Aren't we God-bearers? Okay, on a good day? We are God- bearers. That means when we walk into the room, God is present. And we were told when I first started getting sober through Al-Anon, they said if somebody carries God into the house. God is present, and God is present here. I just happened to, I'll shut up in a minute, but I'm going to use every four minutes I got. I asked God years ago, I said, you know, I said God, I would really start like, I'd really start speaking, I'd start speaking on the West Coast. And I got nine years on the East Coast. I threw a stick right, there it is going left. And it was Christmas. And Maria and I had been doing a lot of circuit work, and we were exhausted. And It was Christmas, two weeks to Christmas. And we were on Staten Island in this Jewish, I mean, Jesuit retreat center. And I looked at the pillar, 125 people there. And we were in there with Gary B from Indianapolis. And so I looked at those people and I said, you know, the last place on earth we wanted to be is in New York City two weeks before Christmas. We're exhausted. It's cold as a brass toilet seat. And I said it to be with a bunch of tough New Yorkers. I told him that. And then I told them, and you are the most hospitable, loving people we have run into all year long. And I've just fallen in love with you. The East Coast for me, the East Coast für mich. I have this little sign that says, Mickey, you've had enough, brother. Why don't you shut up and I'm going to do it. Thank you again. I love you so much. Thank you.