Peter on Step 2, the Predator Mind, and the Gift of Desperation

My name is Peter, Recovered Alcoholic. I'm grateful to be alive and sober and part of a sacred place called Alcoholics Anonymous. And again, thank the group for having me back here to share about the good news that was brought to me. June 23rd, 1988 is when a love of God separated me from alcohol. I'm very grateful for this gift of sobriety and the path, the course God has put me on, which I didn't see when I first got here. And quite frankly, when God sobered me up and surrendered me in June of 88, as much as I had a powerful desire not to go back to that life, there was another voice telling me it wasn't going to last very long based on my track record because I was without power. And I knew that I just didn't know about this power or God was going to save me. I just knew I flatlined. there was a couple of attempts where one real serious one where I wanted to check myself out in some fleabag motel. So things have certainly changed, thank God, and Alcoholics Anonymous. I do have a sponsor. His name is Bob Azanz. He's out of St. Paul, Minnesota. And I dohave a home group right down the road here called No Problems, Just Solutions. And we meet 730 on Wednesday night. It's one of the bright spots of my life. Last night, the meeting ended and everyone was in the little courtyard um for a while uh we're there around six o'clock and uh eventually we kind of mosey back to the car and then we're meeting by the cars and i watch all of this stuff happen and it's a fabulous group because i remember when it started with about maybe 10 of us and it was just a couple of tables and you know just talking about the book it started off so organically let's get together and talk about our sacred book and it just blossomed and it was basically attraction and not promotion which was where god loves to operate so i'm grateful to be that i'm currently sponsoring 15 men and god has me uh quite busy uh it's like an assembly line three a day and uh most of them come prepared and and show up on time and even though i'm their sponsor i don't have to reintroduce myself to them. And that's a pretty cool thing. So, you know, last week we got to talking a little bit about step one and my journey in here and what that really looked like coming out of six treatment centers, going into number seven by way of being a homeless guy, living in an abandoned building and panhandling and stealing and not eating and not hydrating myself i was in serious trouble in 1988 uh having said that please understand park avenue park bench pain is pain so you may be the drunk who came in here still held a job and have their home instead of the wife and kids or the husband and kids around it doesn't disqualify you from being in here we take different paths to get here until we wake up and the point of desperation a gift of desperation, where God surrenders us. And I can tell you a little bit about that day. I've shared it from a million podiums, but there was something going on inside of me. We live life forward and understand it backwards. I couldn't pinpoint it then. I just knew something different was happening. I didn't know it was even good. It just felt like everything, the bottom had fell out, and I couldn'T go any lower. And that's an awful place to be. Last week, I believe I shared that drinking wasn't even working anymore. It would still the nerves as our book said, but I couldn't get there anymore. I couldn'T get nice anymore. And no matter how many pills I ate, I couldn' t get past me. And Alcoholics Anonymous allows me to get past here and past me and create a lot of space between me and me. Distance between me in this thinking mind is predator. But there was something happening. And the evidence was when I made a plea to a God that I didn't like, that quite frankly, I hated on many occasions. And I'm a cradle Catholic and I've shared this a million times. I had no problems with the carpenter, but I knew he wasn't really interested. And this God, czar of the heavens, punitive. And he's got it in for me. And look where I landed. But there was a shift in consciousness. Something happened inside of me. this internal reorganization and i had nothing to do with that sometimes we do the steps and expect like as if i'm i'm doing keeping me sober during step four or i'm keeping me sober during amends or i'M KEEPING ME SOBER RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I MAKE A LOT OF MEETINGS I GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH IT THE ONLY THING I CAN TAKE CREDIT FOR IS WRECKING MY LIFE AND THEN I CAME IN HERE AND THEY GIVE ME a coin they tell me tell them how you did it and i say i didn't do anything i really didn't i wrecked my life and what you did via god was handed me a solution out of this book a band-aid an open wound called the fellowship and a little bit of service to do they didn't say you're here become a dcm they just said help clean up see the guy with the white chip you have 10 days he's got no days tell him how you got 10 days do some service i take no credit for any of this stuff and that That's not being falsely humble. But there was something happening inside of me looking back on it now, and as I said, I reached out to this power first, and my words are, please take me from this. I don't want to die. See, I was afraid of dying. I didn't wantto die. I knew I was in serious trouble, but I didn' t have the energy or the wherewithal to wallow in my own self-pity anymore. That was gone. It was a fight for survival, And it's really interesting. I'm thinking now how to save my life rather than how am I going to get money to keep the drunk going? And in Alcoholics Anonymous, I have found when I get consumed with me and my little plans and designs are what my life's supposed to be like. Am I popular enough in Alcoholic Anonymous? Do people recognize me? Do I have enough money? I don't have a relationship. I need a relationship, I've got to get out of a relationship i'm consumed with me and when i do that my aliveness is deadened i'm consumed with the rids the rest of you and discontented stuff and what begins to happen little by slowly i begin to forfeit all the invitations that god is sending me i can't hear it but on june 23rd of 88 i'm begging for something to happen take me from this i don't want to die with my words please take me from this. I don't want to die. I don't know where I'm going to land yet. I didn't know it's in store for me, but I will do anything other than this. That didn't come from me came to me. It's called the place of getting surrendered now for years and alcoholics anonymous and I meant to sincerely I would tell you how I surrendered on June 23rd 1988 and if you say that that's cool. My job is not to cause a disturbance while I'm speaking when I sponsor you I will disturb you I finished up with Ryan yesterday and Anthony was walking and he tells Anthony go ahead your turn to get your day ruined go I was surrendered see I didn't even have the we call it the gift of desperation a gift is somebody gives you something. Someone hands you a Christmas gift or a birthday gift. I was given a gift of desperation, and my mind interpreted it as punitive, and it looked punitive. It was awful. I'm filthy. I'M starving. I' m dehydrated. I am thinking if I get a drink of me, it's going to kill me. If I don't get a drinking, it'S going to KILL me. I don'T know what to do. And in that place, the ground gets very fertile, and I didn't even know it. And at that point, God can, in that vacuum, if you will, of there's no more me anymore, suddenly it's filled up with God's spirit, even a little bit, enough to get me from here to here and beat me into a state of reasonableness while I'm thinking other than the way I used to think. What do I need to do? And the only thing I could think of on that particular day was make a call to my dad, and I was going to call Collector. And I couldn't even make that call because God had other plans in the works. and my dad found me on the street corner and I knew it was over. Now, I'm not thinking Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm nicht denken Detox or Treatment. I'm niet denken anything about recovery. It was this simple. I don't want to die for the first time. I've been uncomfortable in my life other than making music. From doorknob high, I was uncomfortable. I know you can identify with that. It's just no matter where I was, I was just a little uncomfortable. The kids would be playing tag in school during lunch and even if i was playing i'm self-conscious every move i make and i know they're all watching me don't look like a fool high school a disaster i had just lost my mom a kid in homeroom said to me do you ever talk i was stoic there was nothing going on wreckage on the inside nothing on the outside and it just operated this way unless i had beer or whiskey in me then suddenly i loosen up and i'm able to pack into the stream because i get separated from this for a moment this is the predator and it's recovery i no longer look on most days for circumstances to improve so i feel better let's face it circumstances improve things are easier but i'm not attached to that stuff when i get this i'll be okay because a few times i had that i still wasn't okay what i do is take me and my money into a higher tax bracket, and it's not okay. I'm still dealing with me and the rest of you in this content feeling. I've still having problem-person relationships inwardly. I might be nice and cordial to you, but inside, I got dialogue, a lot of narratives going on. I can't control my emotional nature. I pray to misery and depression. On my way to work, pretend I'm really okay. Get into work, I'm not okay! Going to the gym, I am okay. leaving the gym, I'm not okay. Walking into a meeting, I turn into Moses. And I get to the diner and I'm Rambo. And I'm doing this. I have a feeling of uselessness. I'm full of fear. I feel like I can't be helped other people. It's all the internal stuff. Now outwardly I might be presenting well, but inwardly I've got a lot of stuff going on. I've got serious control issues if they only do it this way if they'd only say this if she would only do this and if they would only do that I would be okay so I'm flicking my will on you I'm afflicting my woundedness my brokenness on you for you to fix it but I'm not telling you to do it I'm just expecting you to it you need to tell me you love me on cue what an inflection in your voice that I believe you need to applaud when I walk into a room. I had a sponsor, Mark Houston, says we don't want to be liked. We want to being worshipped just to feel okay. Clancy says, well people have to feel treated extra special just to feel normal. It's broken. It's a failed system. It doesn't work. And why we would tell a newcomer bring the body and the mind will follow baffles me because the last thing you want in this meeting is my mind and I don't want yours either. It's the troublemaker. It's where my apples and lids, those bedevilments I just described are not out there. They're all in here. My book is clear over and over and again that unmanageability is always an internal condition. Now, we live in a very hostile world right now. It's messy out there, messy that I can remember since I'm a kid. And we like and dislike certain things. But I think if that side would change their point of view, I'm going to be okay. And even if they did, I was still not okay. it's me the problem sometimes a guy comes to me says pete i keep meeting these crazy women i perhaps they are but you keep picking them it's always made in unmanageability internal condition because i lack something called god i'm using self-reliance when i'm in self-reliance i'm in fear when i mean fear i have current agnosticism going on i don't doubt god but Right now, he's not going to fix this. And he's taking too long. And it's not gonna work out the way I want. So now I have some current unmanageability because I'm trying to turn the wheel a certain way, turn the dials a certainway. I'm gonna be a bulldog to certain people. I'm going to be kind and loving, all to get what I want There's no happy ground. It's called current un-manage-ability. So I gotta ask myself a question. am i looking to feel better or get better everyone wants to get better but i'm attached to getting better which means i'm going to look for things that make me feel comfortable that's what i'm gonna gauge my progress on how comfortable i am and if you're around here a little while especially if youre over 60 there's gonna be days where the body gets cranky it doesn't operate the way you'd like it to it squeaks a little bit she okay I have a habit of choking people up when I speak so I take a look at where I'm not right now am i looking for comfort to feel good or get better because getting better is not going to feel comfortable. Getting better is going to make me disturbed plenty of times. Going through the steps isn't like a walk through the park and everything's beautiful, especially when we hit step four. Must be done, got to be done, needs to be done but it's going to a spectacular upheaval in there. I'm going to face me for the first time and I'm not permitted to blame you and the mind is going to protest against all of it. Protest so much, I'm going to feel physically ill from it. Anxiety, lethargic, uncomfortable, don't want to do this. Feel pressure. Feel like the screws are getting tighter because the mind is protesting. Mind wants no part of this. It's all current unmanageability and I get to touch my current agnosticism. I getto touch mycurrent unmanagability. How far away have I drifted from step one? Is what my sponsor would always ask me based on my behavior, not what I say. If you ask me, Peter, if you drifted from step one, no, I'm all in. How come I see you doing this and this and this and you haven't made a meeting in a week? You forgot you're an alcoholic based on my behavior. I can't gauge my spiritual health based on what I'm comfortable with. My behavior is a direct reflection of the value I put on my recovery and my God, my behavior, not what I say. This is easy. We pull a kid out of high school or college tell them read the first 164 pages and come back and report to us what you learned. They'll give you a flawless talk and go smoke weed in the parking lot or become a communist if they're in college. I'm not sure which one. But something needs to happen deep down in the soul. And I just knew something was happening, and I couldn't put my finger on it. And I don't know if I was given a ray of hope. But when my old man showed up, I knew I was going to be okay. And that was the ray of Hope. When I was in that hallway, and out on the street corner, I'm just feeling like any minute the whole body is just going to collapse. I'm Just going to hit the ground and never wake up. Now, a day earlier, I would have welcomed that. This particular day, I didn't want that. and when I saw my father drive up and get out of the car and call my name I didn't say well this is my ray of hope I just knew I was going to be okay I was gonna be safe I remember my therapist asking me what's one thing you want to come away with therapy one thing you want a walk away with and I said I want to feel safe for the first time in my life I've been afraid my whole life from this high I knew just something was not right until I picked up a drink and that boomerang and cut me to ribbons at the end. I was knocking on death's door. So am I looking for comfort or am I looking to get better? You know, I'm in a place of dis-ease and discomfort or am i experiencing ease and comfort? Am I in a place of desperation or compliance? Place of desperation or inspiration? You know and if no matter where I am it's just take a look. Awareness is the greatest age for change. where am i we like to do my lineage we like to do the bedevilments every couple of months just open up see where we are with this because i can't grade my own report card how you doing pete i'm great until i do bedevils maybe not not so good i'm having trouble here i got some stuff going on all of that unmanageability becomes plaque on the soul i'm not turning to god for this i'm relying upon this my experience the next meeting to fix me and i feel good during a meeting not great. I go to the next meeting, now I don't even feel good. I'm feeling kind of worse. My head's spinning 100 miles an hour and the thing about the mind what it does. It throws out a problem or a thought and gives me a whole narrative behind it. A whole storyboard. And it seduces me into believing it. And they're my thoughts so they've got to be true and that's what gives it power. So off I go. And then what the mind does, who caused the problem in the first place is, Pete, I know how to get out. And it presents a solution to me. And whether I achieve the solution or not, I still bring me there and down the rabbit hole I go. My mind at the end of the day has me small, insignificant, fragile, competing, and you're bigger than me. What's really interesting, that voice that talks to me now with almost 38 years sober is the same exact guy that spoke to me when I was in kindergarten. He's followed me around. And because of Alcoholics Anonymous and getting some spiritual muscles working out in the AA gym, on many days, I can recognize it and I get separated from it. It doesn't dictate what I'm going to do. I see someone walking into a room or walking into work, just walk in a room, I said, they got a situation going on. None of it's real. And I'm not talking about, God forbid, someone's ill or we just lost our job or someone passed. That's real-life stuff that's going to weigh you down. God will keep you buoyant. I'm just talking about the imaginary stuff. It's all current and manageability because they're not present when I need to be here now. I'm of no use to you because I'm consumed with me. In fact, even when I'm talking to a drunk who's got one day, I'm so consumed with my life. I'm worried about what a cat will one day thinks of me and how I sound. That's alcoholic behavior. So my alcoholism doesn't come in a bottle of whiskey. I could be suffering from alcoholism without ever putting a drink in me, and I'll die from alcoholisme without ever pulling a drink, and I'd blow my brains out. I think I shared last week that one day God's going to call me home. I hope it's a long time from now because I'm having a blast. Life is fabulous. with all its challenges but one day God's going to say time to come home let me pass with alcoholism because once an alky always an alkey rather than from alcoholism the two different walks and so I found my job is to please this power called God get right with him which means I'm okay with me which means I'm Okay with you and suddenly what begins to happen is you'll come to me with drama she'll come To Me With Drama they will come to Me With drama but i don't have to go to anybody for any of my drama because there really isn't drama the situations there's some caring concern that i'm a little worried about but drama is the whole scenario and i'm all jammed up and i don t have too much of that i have my moments they usually get me and i shared this a few weeks ago my drama usually hits around two or three o'clock in the morning and i m wide awake staring at the ceiling and sometimes it's gripped me with fear I'm 66 I'm looking at my mortality I don't want to leave you I don' t want to have a baby I don''t want to live her I don'T WANT TO LIVE MY BROTHERS I'M HAVING A GOOD TIME EVEN THOUGH IN HERE I KNOW THERE'S PARADISE ON THE OTHER SIDE I DON'T WANNA LEAVE I'M NOT RICH YET I'M STILL A WORKING GUY I MIGHT DIE THIS WAY WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN TO HER I haven't been to Italy yet how could you do this to me I've got to go to Italy and it's on me and I'm staring at the ceiling and that thought begets another thought and suddenly if you ever watch on Sunday the football station there's like four games on at once and you're watching this one that's my head well let's go here, let's take a look at this one and it's all going on and I can't sleep until that little voice says come to me and I go into my prayer room and I get on bended knees Father I'm afraid tonight I don't know how to get out of this but it's on me and I'm down the rabbit hole I'm asking for mercy and I really have faith that he'll get me out the evidence of something unseen is faith And the cool thing about faith is this. I don't need a spreadsheet to prove it to be true. I just have faith, which will bleed right into belief. Faith for me brings an end for a need to understand. Prove it to me. You don't have to. I know it. That's all given to me by this power that I found in Alcoholics Anonymous. So I get cornered with step one. And I found the real unmanageability, The essence of unmanageability is not knowing what today's going to look like when the drink calls and I answer, and I can't stop it. A big book talks about Jim, the automobile salesman. Suddenly, the thought crossed my mind, suddenly shows up, I'm done. It's sitting next to me. I can think the drink through, play to take the end, keep it green, remember where I come from. Suddenly, he's right in front of me. I'm without power. I have no God. I'm screwed. That's real unmanagability. how many cats we know were coming up on a year and you hear they went out right before their first year or made the year and then disappeared again it's unmanageability they woke up in the morning going to go to work and go to a meeting somewhere between there they're in a crack house that wasn't the plan we get hijacked that's real unmanagability and it doesn't make a difference how we dress what kind of money we have or who we're hanging out with i got a soul problem There's a disconnect, if you will, or a sense of separation from this power called God. And all Alcoholics Anonymous does is make me come to the realization of the connection because I'm out of the way. The process of recovery is by removal, never addition. God gave me everything I need to do this walk. I popped out of mama July 14th, 1959. All the tools were there. And what I did with this mind and in programming of people, in circumstances, I start to accumulate stuff I think I need. I need more of this. I need More of that. Got to have some of this, a little bit less of that, and it's a pylon. And I come in here, and I don't know which end is up, like a messy deck of cards. An alcoholic scientist says, Come on in. We're going to take everything apart. We're gonna rip it down to the bone. There's nothing left. Then we can start over. it's a remover if we really look at the steps over and over and over again they're pushing me further and further out of the way and pulling the structure down until we hit the 10 and 11 and we're made new third step says we're reborn it's the beginning of a rebirth I'm not reinventing myself that's dangerous and acquiring knowledge in here I remember I was new and a bunch of us went I was in Brooklyn and a bunch of us went to this diner after the meeting. There was about 10 of us sitting there, it was a guy sitting there and he was talking about the history of AA. He was dicing the book up, talking about traditions. I said, oh my God, this guy's fabulous. And somewhere in there he says, I got seven days back. And after we left, I told my sponsor what's that about? And he took a call to take it smart. Knowledge received intellectually provides no nourishment for the soul. What I need is a change in here. I need an awakening in here because it's null and void. There's nothing happening in there, if you will. The spark's got to be ignited. You know that feeling when you walk into a meeting that you're familiar with and there's hugs and handshakes? You can actually feel that. The soul music before the meeting, the noise in the meeting. It's igniting all the right things in us. the steps will do that and stay with me there's a there's a presence there's an okayness there's stillness underneath all the noise and it's just simply God I've reconnected to this power but I need to be convinced of what my condition is that I'm an alcoholic and I'm going to drink the default button sitting right there whether things are good or bad I will hit the default button drink without my permission even though I know it's going to be bad I'll pay any price tomorrow to see comfort tonight. And so when I get caught in enough what the book says, it talks about step two. This arrival came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. And when we get there, it's kind of like God can and he has restored me to insanity and my experience will abundantly confirm that. I'm not grasping at straws. My life is living proof of it. The faith has come to fruition. It works. I'm here. came to believe. Our book says, do you now believe or even willing to believe that there is a power greater than you? That, not even in a power, that possibly somewhere in the galaxy there's something bigger than you. My sponsor said, yeah, it's called gravity. More powerfully, jump up, you're going to fall. You can't stop it. For me to sit here and say I'm the beginning and end of it all, I probably need some medication. that's what the book is doing blows the doors wide open Pete do you believe that there's something bigger than you well yeah and when we study chapter what a great chapter agnostics it tells you exactly what this book is about to enable me to find the power greater than me which is going to solve my problem not only the drinking but my problem which is living life on God's terms I have no clue how to do it I make it up as I go along I'll do what you do that must be right i say things i don't even believe in just to get accepted i hang out with people because i'd rather be alone and they're undesirables but i go there somebody likes me well like puppy dogs i am you say you love me i'm all over you pete's a cool guy you got a friend for life i mean that's a horrible way to live and my life proves that anyone who gave me acceptance, I'm hanging out when my music days I was hanging out with punk rockers skinheads, mohawks more things in their skin if you had a magnet, you'd kill them but they liked me so I'm hangin' out self-esteem about that high came to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity and agnostics will tell me how to find God where to find God and even why to find God. And it's so simple the great reality of God is deep down within, I've been looking out there when I get that, when I experience this when I lose this, I'm going to be okay, I have a sense of okayness in me, and even if I get it I'm still not okay, it's short lived the last place I'm gonna look to do, to look, is in here because my mind won't permit me to go there, because if I go there it's out of work the great reality god bill uses the word a lot of different words for god is right down in here and how do i do it it's so simple they don't say get rid of your old ideas they just say lay them aside because if they said get ridofit we're in controversy because we love controversy they said to pete lay aside old ideas just just put them aside for a moment maybe some of them we can use later just make room for new books on the bookshelf we have a beautiful prayer we always like to say, the set-aside prayer. God, please set aside everything I think I know about the big book, the 12 steps, my disease, AA and you, God for an open mind and a new experience. God please let me see my truth. My grand sponsor came up with that. He kept bumping heads without goals. Can you just lay some stuff aside? Okay, I can do that. Can't you just set it aside for one minute so we can have a new experience? Power greater myself was going to restore me to sanity. I mean, I learned this from Joe and Charlie. If I have to be restored to sanity, I must be insane somewhere. And it's not the stuff I do when I'm loaded. The most insane thing I will ever do is from a place called sober. And it's just a drink. It's the sex spree again. It''s the money spree again. Is the gambling spree. Again, is the isolation spree? Again, it's the anger spring. It just goes over and over and over again. And I come out really remorseful with the firm resolution oh my god that was bad and if he or she finds out if they find out i'm never going to do it again and i'm back in again it's my escape valve because i can't be present here the same way would pick up a drink coming out of treatment i go because i was so tight when i'm doing these other things the same exact thing it's by drink coming in different forms i'm still experiencing sanity while i'm maybe double digits sobriety i'm not okay and then i take a look at might bedevilments and i see they own me again if anyone doesn't know what a bedevilement is something that torments frustrates and harasses me and i keep inviting those people over for dinner expecting them to be cordial and they rip me off and i invite them in again because i lack the power called god it's that simple for me alcoholics anonymous is a whole spiritual walk it's a spiritual movement, and nothing less than that great fact. Our book over and over and over again talks about God, God, God, may you find him now. Bill uses different words. For me, my Alcoholics Anonymous ought to be a pep rally for the power of God and not hide him in a closet and shout his name from the rooftops for the great works he does. And if that disturbs you, keep coming back. That's just a thought. I'm not trying to be arrogant or pompous, but if somebody's sitting here with a couple of days for the 15th time, somebody's going to deliver the truth. So let me be the bad guy tonight. But the cool thing about God, there's no checklist at the door. And there's no sin list either. It's just come on in. We're all broken. Come on in you're in the right place and we're about to flip your life upside down with a cup of coffee. It's incredible. our book talks about how uh perhaps we've disturbed them on the question of alcoholism our book talked about how trouble will arise when we talk to the new man and talk about god with agnostics the difficulty they talk about when i talk to joe about god is not god towards joe it's always joe towards god when they start talking to me about god god didn't have a problem with me what my awful track record it was me having difficult towards god based on my own little worldly clamors mostly in my own head or looking at news headlines or if there was a god how come this happens and it would gauge god by that always looking out i needed someone to blame god's a good guy to blame he's responsible for all so when you talk to me about god i can feel myself get tight but you talking to me seem to be very loosey-goosey and uncomfortable and very comfortable in your own skin and i'm dying a thousand deaths what are you doing what do you got and a very wise man told me your own conception of god which it tells me agnostics is good enough it's it's adequate it's okay it's just a willingness to believe in something other than me i'm on my way and that is such the cool part when i'm sitting with someone that as soon as willing to believe in something other than theirs they're on their way because i'm not willing to believe in this anymore it don't work it's broken it's flawed and i gotta go to that which is perfect all powerful has all knowledge and power and fears nothing that's god how do i get there it's so simple 12 steps and i'm there it's an assembly line of manufacturers awakenings different times, different speeds different experiences but anyone who's walking in the sunlight of the spirit will have God's stories, plural to tell you which we do here, we tell stories what it was like, what happened and what it's like now after the awakening with all life's challenges so what I used at the beginning was you even though I'm a cradle Catholic I have no problem with the carpenter But it was too far away, and I sinned too much. I screwed up too much I don't know if I have to be redeemed before I even get on my knees I really don't knows. I'm ignorant So I used you A group of drunks for good orly direction And it started with the gift of desperation I had no idea God had his hands all over me In the back of an abandoned building My God, and perhaps yours too, I bet he does doesn't have to go to some decorative palace to get one of his kids. He goes into the hood to get us. That's where he finds us. The broken, the unwanted, the missing parts, that's where he's hanging out. And it's unbelievable, and I can tell you this from experience, I've had a few birthdays in AA, and my friend Mickey can say the same thing, he's here longer than me. That we become some of the best advocates for this power called God after getting out of hell. Go to an AA meeting, you'll hear a whole bunch about God without even quoting scripture, without even quoting the book. Someone will tell their story and say, but for the grace of God and thank God for this and thank God. That's depth and weight. If I'm sitting there going, I don't know what to do but these people keep referring to this guy called God. There must be something there. And then they tell me your own conception, whatever it is, is good enough. You have to compete with your rabbi or your priest, or your deacon. You don't have to do that. This is AA. Come on in, whatever works for you. Great outdoors, good. Good early direction, good, and that's what I use. Group of drunks for good early direction. I do a lot of workshops, and sometimes I'll get a guy, and I know the look. They come up to me, you know, looking at their shoes, and they tell me they're struggling. It's usually around some sort of spree. Now, having a problem with God, I don't believe anymore. I really don't believe in God and I say to them are you an alcoholic? yeah, so why don't you just quit drinking and get on with your life, why are you coming here for it and I get their attention what do you mean, is that, yeah so what, join another club of too much God, yeah you don't need God, don't worry about it now I got their attention what did you come here for I'm an alcoholic so you're telling me you have to come to these lame meetings so you don'T drink anymore Well, yeah. Well, how long are you sober? Two years. So this place is keeping you. You're telling me this place is keeping me from drinking. Is that right? Am I hearing this right? Yeah. So isn't AA a power greater than you because you can't do it on your own? Yeah, there's your higher power. Next. That's all it takes. A mustard seed of willingness and it'll move them out. The big book is really clear on this. I come in here with prejudices about how I'm supposed to worship. Prejudice about the God I have to see. Prejudices about what the past was to look like. And I'm already playing God while I'm trying to seek God. How can I get God when I'm only playing God? Desperation kind of levels the playing field. I need anything but me. And the mind is always in the middle of it. what my uncles were doing it did it to me uh during my first year and change i'm acting out with food and i'm getting a really bad problem with it a serious situation i i'm binging and purging become physically ill from it why it was my drink i felt control i felt power it was relief and i look forward to it because the world right now is a little uncomfortable and i'd be sitting on the couch and say, I can go do this right now. And I have my fingers down my throat and I'm puking up bile. Or I go into the refrigerator at three o'clock at night and just gorge on food until I got sick. And it was doing this regularly. And to start the show, my department shouted, there's something wrong with Pete. We don't know what. And some of us will go on different speeds and I keep repeating it. That's in its form of insanity. And always thought insanity was just step two but it isn't it's a step one problem and for me step two is a pointer route and the best analogy i can give you for step two works for me and it's based off something that happened to me i was in bernardsville new jersey one time for a meeting first time out there it was pre-cell phone pre gps in the car thing you usually ask for directions and wrote them down or if you're like me i'll remember it i got it don't worry and uh i get to the meeting and i'll get gas on the way home and i finished a meeting and I forgot to get gas. And I took a left instead of a right, and a right instead of a left. And if you drive around Bernardsville, New Jersey, you start to get these roads like this and there's farms and silos. I'm from Brooklyn. I never saw a silo in my life. What is that thing? And so I'm waiting for Jason to pop out of the bushes. It's pitch black out. I've just these winding turns and the thing is pinned on E. Now I'm nervous. I don't know where to go and farmhouses at night scared the hell out of me they're creepy there's nobody out but a big silo i don't know what to do and uh and luckily as i'm driving i see way up ahead lights it's a gas station a little strip wall head towards the lights i'm hoping i make it the thing's pinned on me and i keep driving and sure as in there were two gas stations and a little strip mall problem solved fill up the car with gas go in there i'm trying to get to 78 east or west i don't remember just go down the road make a left it's right there you're home i can breathe again i'm in the dark i don' t know where to go i can't get out step one i can' t take this anymore and step two is the lights up ahead it's a point around of the whole mess am i going to do it when i'm desperate i will up until then I'll figure out make another left here, I'll make it right there I'll go here, and then I can't take it anymore the car's not empty, I have no phone what do I do? Lights, follow them step two, it's a pointer out of the mess I'm not out yet I'm heading in the right direction how free do I want to be? do I wanna get past here? the relationship with this power went from a group of drunks with good orderly direction to a God person to me, which our book talks about. Whatever my God is, and that's the result of going through the steps the further away it got away from me and I cleaned out what was blocking me in four through nine suddenly God will reveal himself in our way that we can understand that's tangible for us. I don't have to get a sense of self from something I did a long time ago good or bad. I don'T HAVE TO GET A SENSE OF SELF FOR SOMETHING I ACCOMPLISH OUT THERE RIGHT NOW they're just things that happen, my sense of self has arrived from a power called God and here's the cool thing, step 10 talks about it, the problem gets removed, now the truth about the problem will never get removed once an alchemy, always an alchemist, but the thing that's snoring at me will get removed, it just comes this is the miracle of it, it's part of the process so some of us say we're recovering alcoholics and that works, some of is don't say we're recovered. But our book talks about getting to a place of recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. They're not talking about cured, but the symptoms of the illness have been removed. I'm not thinking like an alcoholic. And what this process little by slowly as we start to return to Saturday, as I did, I'll speak for myself, is the filter changes. I'm now listening with the ears of the mind, but listening withthe ears ofthe soul. I'm going beyond what the eyes see I'm seeing with the soul and I have to remember to do this we've been transformed we talk about going on retreats a lot of times and it's to get away but a lot times we go on a retreat just to get away and on the way home Sunday back into the stream of life we're miserable all again and by Wednesday we forgot we did on Friday, Saturday and Sunday A retreat is about going back home to God To be further transformed by God It isn't an escape Recharge my batteries All I'm doing is asking God Please have more of me So the shackles around my wrist Of attachments and difficulties And bondage and self-imposed crisis Little by slowly fall off And God is the only one who can do this I can't do that Recharge, retreat It's about going Back to the Soul to get out there and if i'm transformed i don't have to remember to be kind or charitable or sit with the drunk in the parking lot for another hour when everyone's eating dinner went to the diner and i'm in a parking lot where joe's got two days he's a mess i can't walk away from it i have to Remember to sit with The Drunk i'm looking for the white chip is in a meeting i'm looking for the 30-day cats uh looking for help and they're afraid to ask you can spot them you can smell it drunk if you will i've been transformed we have been transformed where that guy's new let's find out what's your name joe how long you here i just guys my first time ever what told me to do that i don't need to remember to do that no one has to tell me you better go to church on sunday i can't miss it better pray in the morning otherwise you're going to get drunk no i you have to remind me it becomes a working part of my life it's who i be now that's a transformation and nowhere nowhere in there is the thought of a drink nowhere there is a thought of acting out i take zero credit for it i have fidelity to god i'll experience god's fidelity in my life if i'm faithful to the practice i will experience the practices faithfulness to me it never fails. It always works. With all the mess I make, because I'm the type of drunk, by the way, who will trip over my own feet. I'm The Alcoholic, who's on 95 and there's no cars and I find myself in a traffic jam. I'll tell you how alcoholic I am. I had to go somewhere in Miami and my GPS took me, I don't know what it is, 441 to Sawgrass, one of those things. and when you get past western avenue there's an express lane that takes you all the way left to go there's no cars it's like the autobahn i call it mariner she's just a little weird what's the matter there's nobody behind me and there's someone in front of me and i was annoyed by this no oh great no traffic no pt alcohol need to see a little congestion I felt alone, I was afraid give me some traffic, I feel okay so no matter what you throw at me this is going to have a problem with it I'll do things like that the mind I'm sitting on the couch and it's a beautiful sunny day in South Florida everything's good thank God the health is good everything's cool and my mind will start wrenching and suddenly I go down that rabbit hole then the spirit shows up But I'll give you a quick story and I'll get out of here about the soul, what it does when we're attached to it, when we've won with it. When we're in a current experience with the soul. I remember a long time ago, I was first getting sober. I was living in Minnesota. I think I told this story maybe once or twice before. And I had no money and I was using my brother's clothes and a winter showed up in Minnesota, it's a little rough out there. and uh i was getting no money from home and i called my dad he knew to went to his end he sent some money went right to the uh the council's office and they gave you like a little allowance and i had money to go out and buy a coat yeah and um and i how to bring back a receipt it was like like child stuff and okay i'll bring back your receipt so mr big shot walks into town and i go to this men's clothing store and there were some people shopping in and the owner came over to me and the manager said can i help you and i said no i'm good leave me alone and i'm petrified because i know those people are talking about me there's the drunken bum who wrecked his life and i don't know how to buy a coat i i kid you not i have no idea how to buying myself a winter coat i don'T KNOW WHAT SIZE I WEAR i DON'T KNOW what to pick out i'M TOTALLY SELF-CONSCIOUS MY my heart's busting through my chest and I left and I walked back to the sober house and Sharon who was my counselor she said honey how'd you make out and I broke down crying I'm embarrassed, I'm humiliated I couldn't even do this so she called up this guy Eddie T who was a big brother to me I had about 10 New Yorkers dope fiends, crackheads, alkies follow me in the druggie buggy two of us close when they walked in the guy grabbed his weapon I mean, you know, he's your dad. And he says, my friend says he's going to pick out a car and I'm going to help him. And he tells me what size it is. I don't know. He says, let's try it if you want. Let's find out. So whatever I was, 40, regular, whatever the heck it was. He said, which one do you like? I said, well, these are nice. Let's try them on. I said it feels warm. It's comfortable. Let's look at the price. How much did your dad give you? A couple hundred dollars. You couldn't afford this. Let's take it, bring it to the guy, and you got yourself a coat. I got in the van. They were all applauding for me. And I went back to the house. How'd you do? And I said, I got a coat. And she was thrilled for me. Here's what happened. I don't know, maybe 10 years into sobriety, that coat didn't fit anymore. And I couldn't give it away. I thought about giving it to charity, giving it a homeless person, bring it to the church. You know, they feed, they take care of the poor. I couldn'T do it. That's just sat in my closet. I put a garment bag over it because that was my sober coat. It meant that much to me. And then one day, God said, okay, let's give it to someone else who can use it. And I found someone who could use it, a new guy in the meeting up in New York. He said, you need a coat? Here it is. Used to be mine. It's in great condition. That's living in the sunlight of the Spirit, not being a brat saying I need more, but being totally grateful for the little thing God gave me and my dad being open enough to say I'll give you something and the counselor sending people to go with me that's living in God's spirit I don't need to take the power ball to experience God it could be little things like that and none of that came from me, it all came to me we start to sound the wholeness of mind one with God, living in the truth I can't get drunk on that I'll never get drunk in God spirit living inthe truth one with god, can'tgetdrunkonthat got gods armor all over you You won't get drunk on that. It's when I'm full of me and have my armor on and I'm trying to go about life in self-reliance, I'm in deep water. It's just a matter of time, not when. Not if, but when. So step two is to point her out. And what we get to do next week, I won't be here next week but the following week, is talk about our decision in three. The real big turning point for all of us. Anyway, that's all I got. Peace. recovery inspiration is sitting right there waiting for you rocketed.org a speaker recordings brings real voices and real stories straight to your ears subscribe now so you never miss a new recording dropping keep that motivation on tap and help spread the word hit subscribe and let recovery find you every single day