Peter M. at the FOTS Toronto 4th Anniversary – 2024

my name is peter recovered alcoholic and uh so grateful to be here ali teresa i love you both and thank you for the great work you're doing here i'm excited to be here and i just need to shout out to miss mildred who's i see up there one of my heroes and uh this is just great to be out here um june 23rd 1988 was my separation from alcohol i'm very grateful to be a recovered member of the sacred fellowship called alcoholics anonymous and if anyone's new out there perhaps you know around here a while and kind of stuck in stuck in the mud i pray you stick around long enough to experience the sacredness of alcoholics anonymous and what i simply mean by that is if we're around here awhile we'll get to hear and see the miracles that happen, where lives get reborn and resurrected in the sacred rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, all for fun and for free. And since June 23rd, 1988, my life has changed, not only on the outside, but more importantly on what has happened to me internally, spiritually speaking. And I will tell you, and I don't mean to be falsely humble, I take zero credit for any of it. In fact, I don't take any credit for anything that's happened to me in Alcoholics Anonymous. It all belongs to the members of the brothers and sisters in AA and the loving God who sought enough in me to bring me into AlcoholicsAnonymous. What I have done on my way into AA is wreck my life and harm others. and what my mind has tried to do over the years is pull me away from you into self-will and self-reliance and sometimes I was completely unaware of it so I feel very, very blessed to be still here with passion and excitement and God has given me the endurance to stick around this long I give all credit to my God so it's really important for me to practice fidelity to this loving God and put nothing before that and the way of money, property, and prestige. The great thing about Alcoholics Anonymous, I don't need a PhD or any other kind of degree or money, poverty, and prestige. I don' t need to be the right color. I need to have the right religion to speak truth because it's for free. And what I need do is seek the truth, which is God. Know the truth and the truth will set me free. I need know this God, experience this God and He will download in me the Spirit which allows me to be truthful and be transparent and at times be vulnerable. And although it feels incredibly uncomfortable being vulnerable and transparent and even weak, not physically weak but weak, it's where I have found over and over and again God's greatest strength. And so there are so many things for me to Be Grateful For. And before we get to our big book, I just want to share something from an author that I've been working with for quite some time, and he has really been a huge influence in my life about prayer and about seeking quiet time and communing with this power called God. You know, in June of 88, guys, I was homeless, living in an abandoned building in a really ugly part of New York that we used to call Alphabet City. And I took up residency in an abundant building with six treatment centers under my belt. I had about what now conference-approved dry goods and alcohol and taking pills I could not get away from no matter what I tried, no matter how much I wanted to. And I know I'm preaching the choir, but there were so many times I knew that people around me and my family hated me for what I had become. I knew it. I knew I wasn't welcome anywhere. And moreover, I despised me for who I turned into. I had no life skills. I didn't know about being sober. I just wanted to die. And I would curse the whiskey bottle. I wanted to get out, and I couldn't. and I got to a place that our big book talks about being 100% opus apart from divine help and I never knew what that was until I was in Alcoholics Anonymous and one day, you know how the big book you study it, one day they put something in that wasn't there the day before and I saw this line and I says it just stopped me in my tracks and we live life forward and understand it backwards and I went right back to June of 88 June 23, 1988, where I was brought to by the loving God of feeling 100% hopeless apart from his help. Because prior to that, I had a feeling that if I get enough whiskey in me, I was hopeful I'll be okay. Even to the point where I tried taking my life, that even in that, if I die now, I will be okay, And in June of 88, specifically June 23rd, 1988, I realized I was going to be stuck in this place with a body that wouldn't die. A mind that quit working. I can't get drunk. I can'T get sober. I'm going to BE stuck here. Just drinking to breathe. And that's as far as I'm gonna go. And this is it. And God surrendered me from that. and so I still and I'm so grateful to God that I take to this like a man the desperation of a man drowning this is my alcoholic silence in my life and it's just incredibly refreshing to do this walk with people like Teresa and Ali and some of these other folks out here and get to a conference and hear a woman like Mildred speak that is still in this deal and still hungry for it this is what we call Mark used to tell me we will meet like-minded folks along this journey and sometimes the walk with the big book and the walk with God can feel incredibly lonely like I'm the only one in my town doing this and then we get to a meeting like this and we find 100 or 200 more who are doing the same walk and we lean on each other and the great thing about working a program contrary to what I used to believe when I got here which if you work in a program it's butterflies and rainbows 24-7 I'm going to be rich and famous because I'm working at 12 steps work in a program is coming into direct contact for me with my brokenness this flawed character and hitting those valleys when we're depressed and we're sad and adversity hits and we just kind of tight that I get back in the saddle I write the inventory, I call my sponsor I help another drunk, I make amends and I shake it off and let God take me to another place for me that's working a program with the craziness in my country with the political scene and this COVID that we're all experiencing trust me I had some valleys I was going to get on my white horse and ride through the country and fix everything if I put something really spiritual on Facebook it would change the planet everyone would get it it was going be me against everyone it's bizarre what the mind does and what I would do in those places is write the inventory pray to god it's not so much about working harder but surrendering more call a sponsor and keep moving which kind of when ali asked me about the topic i went you know i sat with it it's on awakening it's it's the setup for the rest of my day but here's what this author writes he says the man who does not permit his spirit to be beaten down and upset by dryness and helplessness that place when we're in the desert sometimes but who lets god lead him peacefully through the wilderness and desires no other support or guidance than that of pure faith and trusting god alone will be brought to the promised land he or she will taste the peace and union with god we will without seeing have a habitual comforting obscure and mysterious awareness of this god present and acting in all events of our life and he goes on and on to talk about this and in a nutshell it's no attachments to anything and what i have found along this way is a quote that i always go to and it's help me i have fallen into the hands of a loving god which kind of makes no sense when i read it the first time why would i have to yell out help me if I'm falling into the hands of a loving God, because my first encounters with God, there were no rungs for me to grab onto. All things that I was attached to were removed and it felt like a free fall into this abyss. Oh my God, where's he taking me? But all necessary for me to prune the tree and to get free, quite frankly, of me, of my attitudes, my ideas, my designs for living, all that had to be removed. as long as I'm in the way I have a less chance of experiencing the fullness of this God and by the time I get to step 11 I better have a oneness with God an experience with God a reliance and dependence upon God again I said earlier that a lot of youngins come to me and tell me I'm really working the steps I'm working so hard my advice to them is it's great you're working at this But what's probably required is a greater surrender than the work you're doing, because what I can simply do, and it's happened to me, is work hard, acquire information, and I'm lacking a transformation. The ego gets a hold of this, and then I go right back into self-reliance. When I got into Alcoholics Anonymous in 1988, I still had much skepticism and doubt about this God. And meditation sounded like something monks would do, some Zen Buddhist master would do. Not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And how wrong I was, how much contemporary investigation I had. And to be honest, along this journey over the years, I still find myself from time to time with skepticism and doubt about my own God. Sometimes my sponsor will give me consideration and say he needs a new sponsor. He's Looney Tunes. It's just the mind and the ego getting in the way. My mind and ego will create delusions and distractions to block me from the truth, which is God. And I don't even know what's going on. Thank you, God, for inventorying. It says this, on awakening, let us think about the 24 hours ahead. I consider my plans for the day. That's the doing. i ask god to direct my thinking especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity dishonest and self-seeking motives and for me there's the there's a the being and the doing the doing is what i'm about to go out and do hopefully carry a vision of god's will to all my activities i fall short with that very often the being where i'm centered in will determine what I do for the day. And so on awakening, my life for the past few years has been fairly consistent. I've asked God to discipline me to the spiritual life because I'm an alcoholic and I'm undisciplined. My own book tells me that. But when I first got sober in 1989, I meet this man, Vince D from New York, and he was sober 30 years at the time and one of the rare birds who backed in was in a book and he said to me share with me about your morning what do you do in the morning i was thrilled that a guy with 30 years was interested in my morning i figured i was going to give him some insight and enlighten him a little bit and um as well what i do is i wake up you know i have coffee i read the newspaper i didn't have a computer or a cell phone back then read the paper and you know uh take a shower and get dress pray go to work and it was very matter of fact he says so let me get this right so you're up about an hour or so you do about four or five activities before you go to god i said yeah he says who's preventing you from getting drunk before you get to god our big book says on awakening so a fool like you doesn't take over and i heard him and so i've been fairly consistent My own awakening starts at 5 a.m., almost every day. Sometimes, I will share this, there's been times where I've been awakened at 3 and 3.30 in the morning. And I'm wide awake. There is no thing to be concerned about. The head's not running wild. It's just I'm up and energetic and excited about the day. But what I want to do is roll over and go back to sleep. I have a full day's work, and it's this early. And I would wrestle with that. But over and over and over again, I would just go with it and come in here and pray and meditate. Maybe it's 3.15 or 3.30 in the morning. And when I get done somewhere during the day, God lays something on my heart. And I read a great quote one time, and it says this, that the morning breeze has secrets to tell you. I don't know if it was Rumi or some other Ali Sheikh who said, okay, so you know the And I started to pay attention to that, that when I'm up like that, I'm going to be up. I can sleep when I get home from work. And what does God, what do we have? And I realized the sacredness of that and the sacredess and the whole W-H-O-L-E of God that we, I am so important to him that he wants us really alone before the day gets going to talk to me, to talk. To us. that isn't being boastful or being larger than life it's just the sacredness of this God so on awakening I pray before I you know, I don't have six red bulls and a can of cigarettes and go pray and meditate and make sure everyone likes me on Facebook and take a few selfies and say I'm about to pray and meditate look at me, I do not do any of that stuff I go right into sacred silence with prayer and meditation because the mind is going to distract me during the day, and if I start putting more information in there, it's just going to pull me away. It's kind of like if I put a sheet of loose sleep in the door jam, the door's going to close fine. If I put three or four sheets, the door is goingto close fine If I could put 100 sheets of loose sleeping in that door jam the door isn't closing, and that's exactly what happens to me by accumulating nonsense. And I fail to see the all of God in everything. But on awakening, when I first started this stuff, you know, I had the chatter of a thousand voices and I got into reading many, many different spiritual pages. And I became obsessed by that and started to idolize that stuff. I became an idol worshiper. But it's a number of years now that I'm really clear that I need to go into on awakening prayer with the centering prayer, thanking God for another day, choosing the Lord's Prayer. Because I'm clear, my prayers cannot convince the Spirit to do anything. But I'm going in for God to do what He needs to do with me. It's not about me telling God my will and as this benevolent Father who's going to give me this stuff. But for God tomorrow, I'm here, boss, ready to go to work. And I pray to God to allow me to stay in His truth close to His heart and away from the darkness of my mind. See, what prayer can do, and I say this because I've done this, it can turn into a transaction and a negotiation. God, I do this, and you give me that. I'm really a good guy, but I need some of this. Please put her in my life. Please put him in my love. I really need that money. That Powerball ticket I've been doing inventory all month, I really can use a little taste after that Powerball. And it just goes on and on and becomes a transaction or a negotiation me failing to realize who I'm praying to the role I can play in on awakening Pete the AA spiritual guy I'm going to pray and meditate because God knows all the work I do or I go in as the husband or the wife or the son or the daughter or the CEO and I go into the sacred moment the most sacred moment of my day the most important event of my life playing the role in front of God who's given me everything and removed the things that I thought were good that were bad for me. The arrogance I can show up to the altar with, the altar meaning the prayer place. So my day is about getting some centering prayers. I pray for many people, people who've gotten sick, people who have passed. I go to God and ask him to show me how to be of maximum service. I go to God to ask him, show me a vision of your will into all my activities to be the best example of him. My job, quite frankly, it takes nothing for me to tell you tonight how much I believe in God. It takes no effort for me to tell how much I pray. Rubber hits the road when I need to get off the knees and out there and be a living prayer that when adversity hits difficult times hit this coveting hits what do i do then when she says honey i'm leaving you oh god forbid you lose a loved one when the world when you're confronted with that brick wall that's what i need to be the living prayer it's easy to be spiritual in an a.m meeting i'm on my best behavior how about when no one's around when i'm sitting on my couch all alone i need to be and i go to god allow me to be the best example of you i can be to carry the vision of your wants of all my activities because when i'm not guys this has been my experience then now i'm listening to my head my alcoholism doesn't come in a bottle of whiskey my alcohols and sits up here in the head and it's not looking to go anywhere i could be sitting on my couch this is on awakening i'm praying i am now moses i'm a guru i'm enlightened i've got visions i'm hearing voices and i get in the car and get on 95 and i turn into rambo and that takes five minutes for that to happen or adversity hits and i turn into, I get on the white horse and start running and I forget about all of these principles because what has happened to me, this has happened over the years. Guys, if you're around long enough and some of the old timers will confirm this, we're going to hit those spots. I need to be really mindful of this. Am I being gutted by God or the part of me that thinks it's God? And then I begin to play God not only in my life but with others and I'm completely unaware of it. on awakening in my prayer time before I even go to meditation over and over and over again I've been confronted with my own stuff and very often I don't want to go past that because I know it's ugly and uncomfortable but what God has done over andover andover again is shed me from those ideas attitudes and emotions about who I think I'm supposed to be, the role I'm supposed to play. I get to get out a lot when conferences are running, 30 weekends a year, and young folks come up to me and look at me like I'm flawless sometimes because I'm out there speaking. I don't have to write inventory. I don' t have any bad moments. I don''t get angry. And so the ego says, well, we need to play a role now. We're in the AA meeting and you're the speaker. You're not a conference and you' re the speaker as a role to play Here's what God does. He brings debt to every identity, every role that does not come from him, and that's freedom, where it can be me once and all, brokenness and all. And here's where I'm at. And again, I'd like to put him on the spot. I mean, when I sponsored Ali, he was brutally honest with me. There was no like, I'm Ali and Pete's my sponsor. His inventory and Ali, you helped me, was just, here it is. that's why he's still here it's actually refreshing and I can learn more from the people I'm sponsoring sometimes by some of the folks who've been in this for a long time on awakening I don't do any of this perfect but what God has revealed to me not only in my life, but yours that he's beyond our cleverest plans because I get an idea in my head that okay, this is the road I'm on I'm walking this way I'm going to achieve this goal I'm gonna make something out of myself and I'm Gonna do all that stuff The money, property, and prestige is very seductive And I'm On This Road And I'M Walking And I'M Knocking Down Walls And I Wake Up To Find Out I'Ve Been On The Wrong Road Because No Matter What I've Accomplished I Was Never Okay i'm on the wrong road and i'm so grateful that bill put meditation after prayer to get quiet to go into sacred silence so now i begin to listen to what god lays on my heart it's really important that when i speak for myself that i'm the more up-to-date i am with the men's and the more up to 10 a.m., my nightly review, I will be able to hear in silence and see in the darkness. But if I'm jammed up with a lot of me and all of my stuff and unfinished amends and a lot unwritten inventory, that is where my focus is and I'm traveling heavy. How can I hear you when I'm consumed with me? I would love to tell you why I do this perfect, but trust me, I don't. scripture says i'm weak flesh sold unto the slavery of sin the things i want to do i don't and the things I'm not supposed to do I do it also says I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go I will counsel you with my loving eye on you what tremendous amount of power in those words so five o'clock i'm up i come here on awakening and i get quiet and i make a lord's prayer i love our third and seventh step prayer i say the serenity prayer i'm a catholic i'm afraid of catholic and work with something called rosary beads and i say those in the morning that takes some time but that's what i do when marion does sometimes we pray together we always share what came to us in prayer if anything or meditation and when I'm done with speaking I need to go silent and I work with posture and breath and just be still it is truly about communing with God see what I'm doing right now is I'm communicating with you And next Tuesday, Ollie and Teresa will have someone up here, and they'll speak, and I'll listen. And it's reciprocal. We go back and forth. And in prayer, you know, I'm talking to God. I'm offering things. I'm praying for surrender, spirit of surrender. But I need to commune. And my grand sponsor would always talk about this. I need the Spirit of God to go into sacred sounds and just be still. I try to do that during the day as well. And I work in a business with a lot of moving parts. But I try to get that time where I lock myself in my office, I go sit outside. But for me, unawakening is vital. It is a precious time for me. I've gotten in touch with my sponsor who has always asked, where does it hurt? And sometimes unawaking and going into sacred silence, I will touch the pain that hurts in the soul deep down in here. Those unresolved conflicts, those things that happened to me as a kid, the things I did to other people. And sometimes I need to just be still and let that surface and go to God with that and go to a sponsor with that. Guys, in 1988, when I came into AA, I really had a lot of problems with God, although I begged him for mercy. And now it's really important that I'm a regular member at my church on a Sunday. and since COVID has happened and a lot of the conferences have been gone to Zoom I can get there every Sunday prayer for me has been like breath and as long as I'm out of this dualistic mind this negotiating mind this frivolous mind this mind that wants this now and that later if I can stay away from that I get to breath and prayer is like breath when I popped out of mama I took my first breath, and that was a prayer. And God will call me home one day, and I will take my last breath, and that will be a prayer, and i realize i've been praying all along. When our book says the nearness of our creator in the third step, i don't have to get close to be close to god. I just wake up to the fact that he's closer to me than my own breath. But sometimes i just need to wake up to get that so i get excited about going into prayer because i'm talking to god during the day people must see me say this guy needs medication he's talking to somebody my name is by the way they must think i'm drunk every night because all they do is see me with a suit on talking to something you know talking all along there he is again he's taking to someone no one else, isn't that? But for me, I get excited about going into prayer in the morning because I'm getting to talk to God and I know He's listening as He is with all of us. And I ask Him to allow me not to play His role today. There's a prayer I work with, God I believe help me with my unbelief and my meditation right after prayer. There was a time where I got into, by the way, I don't know how much time I have, so just wait when I'm coming up on time. There's a time when I got in to the contest. It happens sometimes when you get a bunch of new guys together and it's like I meditated for 10 minutes, I meditated for 20 minutes, I've been meditating for two weeks and I haven't even gone to work I get up at 5, I get off at 4, I haven' t gone to sleep it's a contest on who's meditating longer and I got into that and I would let you know how long I meditated at the first opportunity and I realized there's nothing but ego driving that that my behavior was still alcoholic while I'm praying I'm not praying it looks like I'm crying But I'm not praying. Who's praying? His ego. So I just offer some words in prayer, and I'm excited to, okay, God, here's where I'm at today. And I go into the sacred songs to listen. Most days I don't travel heavy like I used to when I first got here. There's been lots of adversity over 32 years, a lot of disappointments, disappointments, a lot of heartbreak, a lot of financial hardship. All in. Life happens. We live in a world of impermanence. It's problematic. But somehow, because of prayer, because of meditation, because my trust reliance upon God, and trust me guys, I never went to college. I'm not better than anyone in this room. I'm certainly not more educated than anyone. But God is God. That there becomes an undercurrent of okayness in all of it. That I don't know how or when God's going to show up. I I just know he's going to show up, and it may not be to what I want. Carrying out the vision of his will is not carrying out the mission of my will. And I need to surrender to that. My God has removed many, many things from me to the point where it hurt, and I say, why are you doing this to me only to find out when I get to the end of the road it's exactly what I needed, that the things I wanted would probably have hurt me or killed me? again on awakening we think about the 24 hours ahead we consider our plans for the day before we begin we ask god to direct our thinking especially asking that it be divorced from self pity dishonest and self-seeking motives under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance. And this is proper use of the will. Getting away from me, getting away from the thinking and the thought life, that is the predator while I'm sober. And I'll just share a quick story with you, and I'm probably going to run out of time, I guess. It's about a year ago this happened now, and And I was in serious financial trouble, and so was my company. And doing everything I can to help people in the business atmosphere and giving all I got for the people who come in there because they're broken. And no matter what happened, it just wasn't working. I'm a business owner. We went past the honeymoon stage into hardcore reality. we're not going to make it and my bank account on this particular day was zero and I'm thinking how in God's name am I going to pay my rent and I need to call my better half or tell her we're in some serious trouble and I got invited to this facility that wanted me to show up and the last place I wanted to do was go there this brand new facility but I went as a professional courtesy and I couldn't wait to get it out of the way and when I walked into this place there was like an electric scoreboard in the lobby that says welcome Peter Marinelli and the folks came out started shaking my hand basically telling me thank you so much for being here we love you, we listen to your CDs now I say this for this reason most people feel pretty good about this going down the strip I'm dying on the inside I am not worthy of any accolades and when I sat with the owner of the company and he's telling me how much he loves what I do and recovery and on and on the only thing this thinking mind that produces nothing but fear resentment, self pity, dishonest and self seeking motives could focus in on was his Rolex watch his Ferragamo shoes and his Canali sport jacket that's all I could see and the next thing I look at myself and I gotta get out of there because I am a loser. This is what my mind tells me, yeah? And I got back to my car and I began to weep that I missed the class that they gave out the manual on how to be a success. I'm a complete loser. And what I began to do was like I did that morning was go back to prayer and I sat in my car and prayed Father please just point me in the direction you want me to go I don't know what any of this is about and the intuitive thought came because if we're clear we can hear call your sponsor he called my sponsor who was making mustard out of Colorado and I told him what was going on he said this is alcoholism there's nothing wrong with you circumstances happen this is alkalism it has you feeling so dejected about you and he prayed with me and I got home and it wasn't a great day but I wrote some inventory called him back that night and shared with him and the aha moment happened that I was no longer a business owner the business owned me and I was not getting inspiration or tune of thought because I was holding the wheel too tight and I began to let go and so did one of my partners and so then Mary we begin to let going here comes intuitive you know what happened it got worse but we kept chopping wood and carrying water I kept going back to God, back to God. Wherever you want me, I will go. I will go where you want me to go. Do what you want me to do and say what you want me to say. It's none of my business. And at that moment, we all then began to feel freedom. And everything has turned, professionally has turned. It is the 180. But I remember not to take over. I know it is a role to play. I turn all things into the Father of life. If spirituality doesn't touch every single area of my life, it touches none of my life. I can't pick and choose. I'm either all in or I'm not. So I stand ready in the morning to have God deal with me as he sees fit and go wherever he wants me to go. That's not to say I've been afraid a few times and nervous about the journey. When I talk to him and carry the water, I say, okay God, we're going in. And sometimes he says you stay on the sidelines and do nothing. That's even more frustrating than taking action. So for me, unawakening allows me not to live my story anymore. I get to live by myself. I live my life. I tell my story, but I don't have to be stuck in it anymore. I have to project my brokenness and my woundedness onto other people because AA, the 12 steps of sponsoring God, has allowed me to heal for the most part from that tremendous amount of freedom. When my book says joy is happy and free, it doesn't mean I have a fat banking account and I go and come as I want. Freedom in here, I'm leading with the soul rather than being dragged around by my own self-will. That's tremendous freedom. You know, here's me, my brokeness, and you know, this is it. what tremendous freedom in that that I don't have to play God I'm not God and show up to you in AA with my brokenness and you say me too this is the only place in the whole planet that I know of that I can share with you the most terrible nasty awful terrible things I've done and you say here's my number give me a call only in Alcoholics Anonymous I love all of you Ali, Teresa and Miss Mildred my heart to you guys I love you all that's all I got peace