“My Sex Inventory Was in Tiny Handwriting, Everything Else in Capitals” – Peter M.

About This Speaker Tape

Peter M. from Brooklyn shares a detailed and passionate account of his experience with Steps Three, Four, and Five at the Carry This Message Group in West Orange, New Jersey. He opens by talking about the danger of comfortability in recovery — how once life becomes manageable, the illness whispers that we can relax, and we drift back toward that restless, irritable, and discontented state of page 52 without even noticing. Peter stresses that he needs new spiritual experiences continually, not just the one he had when he first arrived.

His story begins with arriving in AA in June 1988, broken and homeless after multiple rehabs. He describes a terrifying night of withdrawal in his seventh rehab, screaming for medication that would not come, rolling into a ball on the bed, and finally hitting his knees in desperation with the simplest prayer he could manage: Father, please help me. He woke up the next morning alive. That pattern — turning to Higher Power in desperation and only recognizing the help after getting through to the other side — has repeated throughout his recovery.

Peter walks through the mechanics of his Fourth Step in vivid detail: the procrastination, the eating and cleaning and TV-watching to avoid writing, the moment his sponsor reminded him he had no power to be searching and fearless on his own and needed to pray first. He describes writing a prayer across the top of the page and then being moved by the Spirit through the work — names appearing on his list that he did not expect, including his deceased mother. He shares how his sex inventory was written in tiny, embarrassed handwriting while the rest was in bold capitals, and how his sponsor never once judged him during the Fifth Step. Peter closes with the insight that recovery is about emptying out rather than filling up. The steps are about cutting loose of self so Higher Power can demonstrate through us what can be done. Page 68 of the Big Book became his personal prayer.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and the Danger of Comfortability
• 8:00 Getting Sober in 1988 and Running Around Untreated
• 16:00 The Night in Rehab: Hitting His Knees in Desperation
• 24:00 Beginning the Fourth Step and the Procrastination Trap
• 32:00 The Lay Aside Prayer and Current Inventory Work
• 40:00 Sitting Down for the Fifth Step and Never Being Judged
• 48:00 Fifth Step Promises and Emptying Out to Awaken