Peter M. – Alcoholism Sits in the Head – 2025

Peter M is from Boca Raton Florida his home group is no problems just solutions group and he will be speaking on growing in understanding and effectiveness for 30 minutes on behalf of deep down within we thank you for serving as a soldier for the kingdom in the spirit of gratitude we welcome you Peter over to Well, thank you so much for that beautiful introduction. My name is Peter Recovered Alcoholic and grateful to be alive and sober and part of a sacred place called Alcoholics Anonymous. Thanks for inviting me back and getting to share the good news that was brought to me. June 23rd, 1988 is when a loving God separated me from alcohol. I'm very grateful for this beautiful gift of sobriety. As you mentioned, I do have a home group down here in Boca Raton called No Problems, Just Solutions, where we meet on Wednesday nights at 730. It's a little big book study. It's just a great place to be on a Wednesday night. And I dohave a sponsor. His name is Bob Zanz out of St. Paul, Minnesota. And I'm currently working sponsoring 11 men. So God has me quite busy. And I really enjoy the way God has me in the center of Alcoholics Anonymous. My separation from alcohol wasn't a day I decided to quit because I did that many times only to stay drunk or stop. I did That Many Times Only to Stay Drunk, but God is infinite mercy separated me. Bill talks about that in his story where he's separated from alcohol for the last time. And God had to get in the middle of all of this, because no matter how many times I tried to quit drinking, I just couldn't do it. And it took for me seven treatment centers. It took for мне to be homeless on the streets in New York and being a panhandler on the street bum, basically, all for the price of a drink. And if I was able to panhandle more money, I like to eat pills when I drink too. And it took me to depths of despair. And back then, I will tell you, I'm a cradle Catholic, but I wasn't good friends with God. I really thought he was cruel and unjust. And a lot of the miracles I would hear about God, I thought were for like women and children. Real men don't need God. And what God did for me is he does even currently is create an environment for me to get my attention. And although my mind interprets it as punitive, it's really God showing his love for another one of his kids who was sick and suffering. And so my separation was in the back of an abandoned building in lower Manhattan where I hadn't bathed or had a square meal in quite some time. I was down to 130 pounds. I shrunk. And I was running around with hepatitis C and I was urinating blood and I was dying of alcoholism and I hated everything, including myself. The very same God that I mocked for so long and despised was the same God in a place of desperation. It's unbelievable what happens to a guy like me when desperation screams louder than the ego, that I begged God for mercy. And what he did for me was place me in my seven treatment center. And although the first six months were pretty rocky, I haven't looked back. I haven'T returned to anything that's going to affect me from the neck up. And my journey began with some of the old timers in AA who were sure that God was going to do for me what I couldn't do for myself. And I would hear what they were saying by seeing what they Were doing, if that makes sense. They were chopping wood and carrying water, they were living a life and talking about God, and they seemed to have some order and structure in their life. And I got a sponsor when I came home back to New York, and we began a journey through the big book, which I began to worship for a while, failing to realize that it's the map, not the treasure. But when our big book says we alcoholics are undisciplined and we let God discipline us in the simple way we've just outlined, I'm happy to report to you that although at the beginning and for a number of years was disciplined, it has turned into devotion. My discipline has turned into devotion, where I seek nothing but to please my God and I love doing it. I love the effect produced by God. It seems to be when I'm right with God, I'm okay with me, which means I'm going to be okay with you. So the journey, as I said, was a bit bumpy. And the practices I worked on at the beginning, like kindergarten 101, spirituality, a way of living. I mean, I would ask God in the morning and thank him at night. That's basically all I was capable of doing. But how was I going to grow in understanding and effectiveness? I had to get soul food as I do right now, as I did earlier this morning, as I didn't before I came out on here and do a meditation. I need to get sinful, which means I need to be around people who are doing a similar walk. I need To Give God Its Recognition, not just aware of God, but recognition as to who I'm praying to and how powerful this God is. And so in getting soul food, I found myself around like-minded folks, and I began a journey through the book, and little by slowly things started to happen. I start to wake up spiritually. I'm not saying that the external conditions got better The tendency I can fall into as an alcoholic If I could only arrange life to suit me If I can only get the right about the money The right person in my life The right job, then I'm going to be okay And we get those things and I find out it's still me In that position So part of the journey of going through the steps Was for me to wake up What was I going to do about this voice that's always telling me I'm either really a loser or better than everyone? What am I goingto do aboutthis voice where that thinking mind creates my current reality? It's unbelievable that that voice that spoke to me when I was a little kid is the same voice that talks to me right now. Just situations have changed, and I tend to believe it. I fail to recognize that I'm one with this power called God. And that's the voice that'll turn bliss into bleak in two minutes. That's the noise that'll make me part of you and then better than you in two minutes. It judges everything by lack on what it should have and what it doesn't have. And I ride down this roller coaster, and all it does is take me further and further away from this power called God when, you know, the soul is where I got to get back to. Because I, in a sense, drifted away from the soul or God. The soul is always in a place of ease and comfort and peace. And when I drift away from that, I forget about that. When I want to seek peace, I need to remember that it's that simple. I got this mind that wants no part of this meeting, no partof recovery, wants no pot of God. And it's always looking to infiltrate And if spirituality doesn't hit every single layer of my life, it's going to touch none of my life. So I do the work that's in front of me and do what I'm told. And as I began cleaning up little by slowly, especially steps four through nine, my point of view started to change on a whole lot of things, including this God. Little by slowly I started to listen with the soul rather than the mind. What God will do in his infinite mercy, he's done it for me over and over and ever again, is close off the ears to the mind and open up the ears to the soul. I'm listening different, I'm seeing different I'm behaving different and as I start to clean up the wreckage of my past I start the travel light what I quickly found out was although I never learned it in seven treatment centers is that my alcoholism doesn't come in a bottle of whiskey I thought it did for a long time my alcohols will get a life by devouring mine That's what it does. And even though I'm making meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm physically sober. I still look and sound like an alcoholic. My outlook on life is very alcoholic because I'm operating out of the mind. I'm operating out ofthe past or I'm leading with dread and despair. That's a terrible place to be when I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous perhaps with 5 or 10 or 20 years sober while I'm still grinding it out a day at a time. And if I can just get clear that my God has nothing but good for me and I'm one with this power called God, I start to travel light. Because no matter how much money you give me, it's nice to have money, but I'm taking me into a higher tax bracket. And little by slowly, I'm going to get frustrated, restless, and discontented again. And if you give Me the new relationship, you go through the honeymoon phase, and it's absolutely wonderful. But in a short time, I show up again. And it just goes on and on and On. The work I had to do was soul work, and it was the last place I thought to look at to get me well. And I've heard enough stories over the years where I can identify with many of them that the knee-jerk reaction was to fix the results of my alcoholism rather than the causes and conditions of my alcoholicism once the alcohol was removed from me, once the substances were removed from Me. When I got into Alcoholics Anonymous at 28 years old, I had the outlook behavior of about an 18 year old kid. And I was still had the street, I like to refer to the street was all over me. I saw through it, I spoke through it. I could hear through it? I was not very sober. I was Still very untreated. As I start to work with prayer meditation, I started to get disciplined to a spiritual life. I Was given instructions by a sponsor. And that was doing 10 11 and 12 and not just giving it lip service but really having a a life of 10 11 and 12 which means i was active during the day with step 10 i was praying and meditating uh twice a day and doing my own inventory and sharing it with someone and cleaning up the wreckage of the past all the mechanics yeah all the mechanics but what those mechanics did as long as i don't fall in love with them is take me to a place called the world of the spirit. Now you're looking at it or listening to an alcoholic that is truly broken and flawed. I'm not being falsely humble here. I am the type of alcoholic, if I was a car when I drove away, I would leave an oil spot on the street. I mean, that's just the way it goes. The window squeak, the door squeak. I, I'm broken and flawed it's the way God designed it, but it's a greater need for him. So with all the stuff I get to do, I'm still a broken vessel and I'm really okay with that. One of the cool things about for a guy like me waking up little by slowly spiritually was getting okay with my own brokenness and not trying to deny it because it's where we identify with each other, our shared brokenness. I just don't have to live in it anymore. I don't need to be in it. I'm not going to have to operate out of that wounded place and inflict you with my stuff, but we can talk about a solution to it. So I began this life of prayer meditation. It's unbelievable what has happened to, I mean, I'm not a worldly guy. I never went to college. You know, I spent eight years in high school was a great years, great years of my life. It was just wonderful eight years in High School. So it wasn't the brightest bulb in the box either. But God didn't care about that because what he did was turn on the pilot life for me on june 23rd 1988 and has continued to grow and so i would go into meditation i would going to as i like to say silenced uh to hear in darkness to see where i was to get completely still you guys did a little two minute meditation before this meeting began and back in a day that would have felt like a 20 year uh a term doing that. It was just, it was way too long and way too quiet. And I woke up to all the noise in my head that I would just got used to. And it was really uncomfortable sitting there in a posture and breathing. And someone said, count to 10 and then count backwards. Too much work. It's too much work to do that. You got a pill I can take and be like, you know, the Dalai Lama in 90 days. Can we do that, I'll sign up for that. But it took some work. It took some discipline. And I don't miss days of prayer and meditation because it's just where I'm at. I've been there for a long time where the discipline, as I said, has become devotion. What Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me in growing an understanding and effectiveness and has me doing the steps at least once a year, is that my process through four through nine one time and sitting with my sponsor and sharing with him all my anger and resentment and my fears and my contempt for religion and the Catholic religion, even though I'm a Catholic and been praying to God for a number of years now. When I read all of that to him and shared with him in five, when he got done, it says he sounds like you need to go make amends to your church. So being a grandiose alcoholic, I'm thinking I have to make an appointment with the Pope in Rome or something like this to go making amends. Because what took place in four and five for me was all my resentments towards the church. And I justified every one of them towards religion, and I justified all of it towards religious and spiritual people. And i justified all of it. My sponsor just listened to me, and then he challenged me when I was done. He said, let me ask you a question. Do you go to AA meetings? I said, of course I do. He says, is every AA meeting a good meeting? I says, no. Are there 13-stepers in AA? He says yeah. Have you ever known someone to get a coin or a chip when you knew they were loaded getting one or two years sober? I say, yeah, I've seen it. He's said how come you, and you practice love and tolerance and forgiveness and acceptance with your religious, with your AI? He says, yeah. He says how come you can't do that with your church? And there was no pushback anymore because he had me. I'm a hypocrite is what I was because I'm talking to you about the grace of God and I have all these resentments that I'm justifying and he said to me, you don't have to go back to your religious community but you must clear up these resentments. And when you do that, your level of discernment will be on a spiritual level and you can make a healthier decision. Don't you think that's true? And I said, yeah. I wrote some more inventory and I shared it with him. I did six and seven. And when I got to eight and nine, he says, you need to go sit with the priest and just clean this up with him." And I did. And I told him, I told the priest, I said, Father, I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm here to make amends for what? And I told him about all the contempt I had and all the character assassination, all the judgments and wholesale condemnation. And he said to me something on the forgetties I understand. And He had my ear. And HE spoke with me for about three or four minutes. I felt like I was in there for a half hour. I had this deep conversation. Three or four minute tops. He gave me some feedback, gave me some insight. I said well part of what I do in Alcoholics Anonymous says, I ask you, what can I do to make it right? He said, can you come to Mass tomorrow? And he gave me some penance. And after that, I went. I went the next day, which was Sunday morning with my—I was dating Mary. And at the time, we walked into a 1030 Mass on a Sunday morning. And on the way in, I knew something was changing because my heart was racing 100 miles an hour. It was a nervous excitement. And I sat in sinner's row, in the back row. and about a year later i was asked to be uh um to serve and and to be have a service commitment there and i did that right up until covet and if i'm not on the road on sunday you'll find me in mass on the sunday it's it's as important to me i do it along with aa it's just important to me as showing up to you it has opened up an entire new life for me opened up this big heavy locked door for me that I kept neatly shut to serve me and no one else. So now when I'm on bed and knees praying to God, I'm more authentic. And that's where I need to touch that authentic peace deep down in the soul. And only because Alcoholics Anonymous and God's timing, which is perfect via the 12 step, open that up for me. How dark it was before the dawn. I'm popping around AA, and things weren't terribly bad. But there was a shadow side of my soul that I never knew existed until God gave me enough courage to open up that door and walk through and really take a look at my hypocrisy. And I speak for myself and my contempt that I was justifying, resentments that I Was justifying. How easy was it just to blackball all religious organizations starting with my own because it was convenient for me when Alcoholics Anonymous tells me to be honest open and willing whose principles were I practicing Peter Marinelli's not AA's it was a wake-up call and I'm so glad I had a sponsor who wasn't afraid to give me some truth my alcoholism doesn't come in a bottle of whiskey it sits right up here in the head which wants no part of recovery or God or the 12 steps or you or any of the good things I get to do today. I travel a lot lighter because of it. That's a long way from drinking myself to death and taking non-conference approved dry goods to try to kill myself. I remember laying in some fleabag motel in New York and I wanted to die just like my mother, the way she took her life via suicide was by eating an enormous amount of pills and never waking up. That was my attempt, and God interrupted my death. That's what I do when I'm on my own. But when God wants to get in there and save, he saves. There's something in Scripture that says nothing can hinder the Lord by saving, whether by many or by few. God doesn't care what you throw at him. He wins. As one gentleman told me, Peter, he says, you keep saying God wins as if he's in a competition. He's not competing with anything or anyone. He's God. Another light went on for me. The same power that created me is the same power that's going to direct me, and I need to give that recognition. I need to be even beyond awareness of that. And with all of that, I will trip over my own feet on any given day. I will cause a traffic jam when there's no one on the road except me. It's what I do. So I stay close to Alcoholics Anonymous. There have been times in a... I got through a divorce a bunch of years ago, and the ex-wife got the money, the house, and the car, and moved her new boyfriend into the house that I bought. That's not a good day. And when I got divorced, I had lost my job through that as well. That's Not A Good Day. I buried my dad a few years ago that wasn't a good day I had some health issues along the way one not too long ago, thank God everything's good, that's not a good Day My brother, my youngest brother had some mental health issues which is being taken care of that wasn'T a good DAY when I had to take him to a psych ward My other brother got diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and I watched my brother shake like crazy till it's kind of gotten better through some medication surgery. That wasn't a good day. And there were days when I met my wife, it was a great day. And there's days when I walk into Alcoholics Anonymous and it's a great thing. And there are days when I wake up in the morning and I'm still sober, that's a good thing. So life happens. My wife's sponsor says life is in session. How do I navigate through all of it? By riding the roller coaster of external things or be centered in the one which has all power that one is God I need to find him now his love, his life and his way of living is what's so important to me, how am I doing with that I made a decision back in three to take on this God where my life was no longer going to be any of my business and I take a series of actions called the 12 steps which are going to put me in God's light, what a tremendous promise I get to pass this good news on to people who care to have it. I'm guilty of, you know, ramming it down someone's throat at times, including the big book, and they didn't even ask, but I would do it because I was Mr., you know – I was Joe A.A. with my big book and I drove a lot of people away that way and I don't do that anymore. I don'T even – unless someone asks me, you KNOW, Pete, where are you speaking? I'M not a walking billboard as to where I'M speaking and what i do i think that that's that's not the way god wants it it should just be a spirit of humility so if someone asks me where you're where youre speaking i will tell them i have a little fellowship with a spirit page and we post flyers up there and very often people say pete can you put your the flyer where you re speaking um okay i'll put it up but uh i'm not self-advertisement because God is the star here, not me. I've been invited to many different wonderful places to speak, but it's just God showing this power is not from me but comes to me and I'm a channel for God. God is a star, not a speaker, not the home group, not even the big book. It's all really God and our beautiful 12 steps that make AA a sacred place to grow up in Because quite frankly, I've grown up in AA. So I try to stay close to the ground. I get my own way with that as well. And, you know, today because of it, as I said, I'm very involved, my wife and I with our church and participating in activities along with Alcoholics Anonymous. because of this way of living relationship with uh my family uh is my brothers uh absolutely wonderful uh my dad saw me sober for a number of years before he passed and uh we were two folks who didn't get along when i was younger i mean not not we didn't gets along at all i was convinced when i was a kid my dad wish he didn't have me that's a tough way to grow up but because of what we get to do here and god giving me the the the courage the strength the direction the willingness to practice principles of my home occupation affairs that my dad and i we had a pretty cool relationship for a long time um i trusted him more than most people and we really bonded and There was a men's maid. I could be there for him before he passed, and it was just this wonderful relationship. I think that's why it hurt so much when I lost him. And my relationships with people today are paramount in my life, starting my relationship with God. But I have found this walk that we get to do in AA is a soulful walk, and it is about relationships. we're constantly bump up you know bumping into each other even if it's on zoom we're in contact with people in contact you know those civilians out there those non-alcoholics sometimes they appear to be aliens the way they walk around they're always angry i don't know what's going on with them but it's about relationships and i'm in a place where i really can't harbor resentment towards people it's too painful i have it's Too Uncomfortable It's Too Much Weight To Carry or bristle with antagonism when joe's name is mentioned or mary's name is mentioned and i start to get tight and the character assassination starts i just can't afford to do that anymore so my point of view and way of living has changed albeit not perfect but i it's really important me to understand how short this lifespan is my dad passed at 83 and about two weeks before he passed he sent to me it went so fast and it was a wake up call for me all the hours you squander that could have been worthwhile when we talk about practice principles in all our affairs it's about out there homes, occupations, affairs but part of those affairs involve me How am I doing with me? Reciting the big book and treating me like garbage, putting myself around people who are really unhealthy, people pleasing and caretaking to the point where I'm getting sick. I'm not listening to the narrative in the head that is really negative and believing it to be true. I forgot one place to practice principles, and that is with the guy looking back in the mirror. How does that look? going to church and coming to AA is taking care of me and getting soul food so I can be of service to other people and practice principles in all of those places it's a wonderful, wonderful life and I'll tell you the last thing I'll share with you by the way, be careful when alcoholics is the last things I'm going to share because you might be there until Tuesday we just have a way of going on and on but But what I do now in my morning, I'm up at five. Sometimes I've been awakened at three over and over and over again. And I'm wondering why am I up at three? I want to go back to bed. But I stay up. And somewhere between three and five or six or seven, God has always put something on my heart. An awakening, an insight or something. And someone showed me a quote. You had his name up there earlier, Rumi. it says the morning breeze has secrets to tell you don't go back to sleep so I stay up with that and that's not for everyone but I'm up at five when it's quiet no one's up my wife is still sleeping I come right in here I have a little altar behind me I have all my books and I sit quietly in prayer meditation and as long as God wants me in there I stay in there when God says okay let's get on today I do and at that point I'll make myself a cup of coffee to get a heartbeat because you know sometimes it's not working too good and I sit and read my books and begin my day and at night I do the same thing and I will tell you at night it's Not an Hour Meditation usually it's about 15 minutes at night and I'll do a nightly review but where I was going with this during today I do not forget I really work hard it, not forgetting what I prayed this morning. Now I go right back into self-reliance. I don't go from Moses to Rambo. I'm turning in. I're turning into this power in order to go out. I'm recognizing this power and more importantly, trying to really stay focused that I'm one with God and God is one with me as he is with you. When I get away from that, I go into self reliance and the world is coming at me rather than being a part of it. So I get to travel light on most days. I can't tell you every day because I get my own way, but it's a long, long way from where I was. So anyway, you know, we have a young lady dying to get up here and share. I see her up there and she keeps telling me, get off. I got to share. No, I'm only kidding. So I'm going to turn it over to you guys. Thank you so much for having me.