Step 11 Workshop – Part 2 of 3 – 2025 – Peter M.

Reese, 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 Ms. Mildred, who's I see up there, one of my heroes, and this is just great to be out here. June 23rd, 1988 was my separation from alcohol. I'm very grateful to be a recovered member of a sacred fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous. And if anyone's new out there or perhaps, you know, around here a while and kind of 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 Alcoholic 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 and Alcoholics Anonymous. It all belongs to the members, the brothers and sisters in AA and a loving God who brought sought enough in me to bring me into Alcoholics Anonymous, 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 in the way of money, property, and prestige. The great thing about Alcoholics Anonymous, I don't need a PhD or any kind of degree or money, property, or 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 to do is seek the truth, which is God. Know the truth and the truth will set me free. I need to 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 over again God's greatest strength. And so there's 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. It was used to call it Alphabet City. And I took up residency in an abundant building with six treatment centers under my belt. I had about non-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. AndI 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 what 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% hopeless 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 there wasn't there the day before and I saw this line 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 23rd, 1988, where I was brought to by a 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'm going to get sober. I'll 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 Houston 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 were 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 in here, which if you work in a program, it's butterflies and rainbows 24 seven. I'm going to be rich and famous because I'm working at 12 steps. Working 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're just kind of tight that I get back in the saddle. I write the inventory, 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 you know everyone would get it and I would you know it was going to be me against every I mean 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 him it's on awakening. 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. We'll 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 there's 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 arms of a living 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 of it had to be removed as long as i'm in the way i have a less chance of experience the fullness of this God. And by the time I get to step 11, I better have a oneness with God and experience with God, a reliance and dependence upon God. Again, I said earlier that a lot of young'uns come to me and tell me, I'm really working the steps. I'm working so hard. And my advice to them is, you know, 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 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 contemplative 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 inventory. 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 being and the doing, and thedoing is what I'm about to go out and do, hopefully carry a vision of God's and 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. I'm undisciplined. My own book tells me that. But when I first got sober in 1988, 89. 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 the 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, enlighten him a little bit. And as well, what I do is I wake up, you know, I have coffee, I read the newspaper. I I didn't have a computer or a cell phone back then. Read the newspaper and, you know, take a shower, get dressed, 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 and 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 on awakening starts at 5am almost every day. Sometimes, I will share this, there's been times where I've awakened at three and 330 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 today. 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 again, I would just go with it and come in here and pray and meditate. Maybe it's 315 or 330 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 Shaker who said, okay, so you know the quote. 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 sacredness 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 in a carton of cigarettes and they'll 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 mediate. Look at me. I don'T 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 leaf in the door jam, the door is going to close fine. If I put three or four sheets, the door's going to closed fine. If I Put 100 sheets of loose Leaf in that door jam the doors not closing and it's exactly what happens to me by accumulating nonsense. And I failed to see the all of God and 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 start 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 the day, it's usually 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 To mold me, 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 palatable. And it just goes on and on and on. It becomes a transaction or 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 CO, and I go into the sacred moment, the most sacred moment of my day, the most important event of my Day, playing a 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 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 how to carry the 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 You 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 covert thing hits what do I do then when she says, honey, I'm leaving you? Oh, God forbid you lose a loved one. When the wall, when you're confronted with that brick wall, that's when I need to be the living prayer. It's easy to be spiritual in an AA 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と be, and I go to God, allow me to be the best example of you i can be to carry the vision of your own to 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 had 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 will confirm this we're going to hit those spots it's i need to be really mindful of this am i being guided 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 ever 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 and over 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 the 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 there's 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 warts and all brokenness and all 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 ollie and pete's my sponsor he his inventory and ollie 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're going to achieve this goal. I am going to make something out of myself, and I'm going to do all that stuff. The money, property, and prestige is very seductive. And I'm on this road, and I'm walking and I're knocking down walls, and I wake up to find out I've been on the wrong road. That's not 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 the more up-to-date I am with the men's and the more up-todate I am 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 of 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 in here on awakening and I get quiet and I make a Lord's prayer. I love a third and seventh step prayer. I say the serenity prayer.I'm a Catholic. I'm a cradle Catholic.I work with something called rosary beads, and I say those in the morning. That takes some time, but that's what I do when Marian does it, and sometimes we pray together. We always share what came to us in prayer, if anything, or meditation, and when I'm done with the 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, Ali 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 needto commune with God to go into sacred silence 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 they lock myself in my office I go sit outside. But for me on awakening is vital. It is a precious time for me. I've gotten in touch with my sponsor has always asked where does it hurt. And sometimes on awakening and going into sacred sounds 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 through 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 in a lot of the conferences not all 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 just negotiating mine this 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 realized 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 neighbors, 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 alone. They month he there he is again he's talking to someone no one else isn't that you know but for me I get excited about going in to 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 i by the way i don't know how much time i have so just wave when i'm coming up on time um there wasa time when i got into the contest you know it happens sometimes when you get a bunch of new guys together and it's like i meditated for 10 minutes i medicated for 20 minutes i've been meditating for two weeks i haven't even gone to work i get up at five i get off before 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 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 praying but I'm not praying who's praying is ego yeah 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 a lot heartbreak a lot financial hardship all of it life happens we live in a world of impermanence it's problematic but somehow because of prayer because of meditation because of my trust and 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 just know he's goingto show up and it may not be to what I want carrying out the vision of his will is not carrying out division of my will and i need to surrender to that my god has removed many many things for 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 happen now. 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 and tell were 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 and started shaking my hand and basically telling me thank you so much for being here we love you we listen to your cds now i see this for this reason most people feel pretty good about this going to on this trip 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 he's telling me how much He loves what I do in recovery and went on 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 then next thing I look at myself and I got to get out of there because I am a loser. This is what my mind tells me, huh? 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. I call my sponsor, who's Mickey Musset out of Colorado. And I told him what was going on. He says, this is alcoholism. There's nothing wrong with you. Circumstances happen. This is alcohol and 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 intuitive thought because I was holding a wheel too tight. And so did one of my partners, and so did married we begin to let go and here comes intuitives you know what happened it got worse but we kept chopping wood and carrying one I kept going back to God back to God wherever you want me I will go I will go where you want 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 I began we all did begin to feel freedom and everything has churned professionally has turned it's the 180 but i remember not to take over i'm an owner it's a role to play but i know who's in charge of everything 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 do 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, but I chop wood and carry water. I said, okay, God, we're going in, and sometimes he says just stay on the sidelines and do nothing that's even more frustrating than taking action so for me uh on awakening allows me not to uh live my story anymore i get to live my life i tell my story but i have to be stuck in it anymore i have 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 backing count 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 brokenness 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're going to tell me and you'll say, here's my number, give me a call. Only in Alcoholics Anonymous. I love all of you, Ali, Teresa, Ms. Mildred, my heart to yours. I love you all. That's all I got. Peace.