The Meditation Guide for Men from Brooklyn – Peter M.

Okay, I'm Peter. I'm a recovered alcoholic and before we get going, first things first, thank all of you this weekend for putting up with me and giving me permission to share freely as i have uh so i thank you for being here for me also um the other thing i'd like to do is if we can give it up for joe and the rest of the guys who put this deal together I'm sitting with a lot of folks this weekend, and I must tell you, I apologize if I couldn't get to everyone I'd like to I was sharing with someone earlier spirits moving me to go sit and talk with somebody in the body saying you need to go to bed sometimes I just don't get to everyone, I forget sometimes I want to give more attention and I'm getting pulled in some direction so if I didn't get to everyone there will be another time and another place we can sit and visit but the questions that were given to me along with the very kind words and comments were wonderful. The Q&A is one of my favorite parts of doing these things, whether they're from a podium or sitting over a cup of tea or something. It's the neat thing because you get to see some people having experiences firsthand and some of their concerns and new levels of awareness. And it's really all God moments as to what's going on. You know, pull the cover back and someone gets something revealed to them that they perhaps need to go further with, where they got a little bit stagnant for a while and there was no one around to kind of shake it up, to wake it up. And that's the great things about these conferences or big book workshops. We get to do things like that. And my intent is never to get anyone upset. I'll challenge, I'll always challenge. My intent is not to just get someone angry or upset or come at them with a condescending kind of tone. That's not an example of this book or how God would want me to work, but to share my truth and to share truth with another drunk and not be fearful of getting someone upset because the truth delivered isn't always embraced on the front end, but it's loved on the back end. Some of my greatest teachers annoy the heck out of me I don't want to hear go home and read page 449 and call me in the morning and they would get right up in my face about certain things when I was new Bobby was talking about respect to women I'm new, I'm coming in off the street and I remember seeing a woman at my first home group the free spirit group and my sponsor caught the look in my eye and he says leave it alone so I thought he wanted to and he sat me down after that meeting what were your intentions and he went on to tell me about bringing the spirit of God into here and this is sacred ground and he said I got it I got great lessons I learned on the way in we use the term sponsor and sponsee. My favorite thing is, it's just the philosophy I work with, is teacher and student. You know, I show up to the teacher for my lessons in a very sacred way, and I get my lessons and I gets experiences and then I teach someone else. I hope to always be a student. Occasionally I teach, but always come at it as a student, a beginner's mind. I can learn much with an expert's mind, I can learn little so I try to keep that getting back to some of the questions in the comments it was last night I talked about you know some of the folks looking to how do I get past me and bondage past my personal bondage and this ease and discomfort and the other group of questions were about 10 and 11 some of us just don't know what to do with 10 and eleven how to approach ten eleven what am I supposed to do one at once I'm here so one of the things I'll throw out is who's the sponsor and how come the lessons haven't been taught to you about 10 and 11. It's okay to hold your sponsor accountable if he drops you in the ocean but just remember with God there's no gravity so perhaps it's time to seek out a new teacher and that's okay because we can go past our teachers, we can't go past our sponsors if they're not growing in understanding and effectiveness this, and we're on. We're getting moved to continue to grow. Well, we'll go past the teacher, and then we just look for a new one. It's okay to do it. It happened to me. Happened to me a couple of times. My practice with 10 and 11 has evolved from the first time in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, and getting into working our 12 steps to where I am this morning, in fact. I remember the first time I went to meditate, I had a woman who wasn't a member of Alcoholics Anonymous but was working with meditations and lived at this retreat center for years. And she sat me down and she taught me some lessons on how to meditate. And what she did at the beginning, she gave me a timer. She said start with two minutes and she showed me how to work with breath for two minutes. I was new in AA two minutes of silence I could have done 20 years in Attica for Christ's sake. It was just two minutes. It was like eternity, and my head is spinning, and I'm thinking of things, and when is this going to end? And every once in a while, my eyes close. I peek and look at the timer. Another minute? Jesus, God. And I work with two minutes, and I work with breath, and two minutes change to five minutes, and then five minutes change to seven minutes into eight minutes, and then I didn't need the timer anymore because there's a rhythm to that. And there was a time in meditation where I got attached to the time where if I didn't meditate for 20 minutes I did something wrong. I'm not spiritual because I'm not sitting in there for 20 minutes or a half hour. And then I got rid of that because with God, there is no clock. With God there is No Gravity. God just wants me to give attention to Him and not the time that says on the clock. Right? And so I got read of the time and I meditate as long as I meditate. And it averages out about 20 minutes in the morning, about 20 minuets in the evening and about 20minutes in the afternoon. Sometimes it's a lot longer than that. Sometimes it is shorter than that but I give attention to this power. Attention rather than going in with intention to get something I want. Attention. There was a time where in meditation I would start off my morning practice with prayer and I would read step 10 and 11 out of my big book then they have these daily meditation guides for men, they have the ones for women they have if you're from Brooklyn they have from New York they have Italian from Brooklyn it's a complete blank it's the meditation for men from Brooklyn opening page how you doing and then it continues so I would read all these books and I'd have to read this book and I have to read that book I got into the upper room and I got into this one oh the 24 hour day book that's an A book gotta read that and I was becoming neurotic in the morning and it was like 6.30 in the moring and I had 55 books in front of me trying to get a little piece of everything and when I closed it I didn't remember a thing I just read I was exhausted then I'm thinking now I have to meditate are they out of their minds I was starting to worship methodology and what we can easily get into is the very things that take us to God can be the very thing that block us from God because we worship the books or the methodology rather than the power I got rid of all of that I read when I move to read and when I don't read I don' t read I always work with prayer and meditation though. And how long I'm sitting in silence is how long I'm sitting in science. God's God. He's going to say, I need you in here for this long. And sometimes when I'm meditating there's traffic too. You know people will come to me and say uh, you know, you never, you never get like distracted when you meditate. Well yeah I do. There's mornings where it's like I'm working with breath and there's a couple of techniques I work with and the head is like in 80 different directions. The difference between then and now is I don't let that bother me anymore. Okay? It's got some activity going on. I'm not gonna give it any attention, I'm gonna get unhooked from it. It's a thinking mind. I can watch the thinking mind right now. I am gonna get a floor show. Let's see what this alcoholic mind has got for me today. It is like Ripley's Believe It or Not. Let us see what is going on. You know? And it plays out all these scenarios and I watch it and I just come back to breath. Because if I try to fight that, I create struggle in trying to be still. In step 10 there's some neat things and I'll talk more about 11 in a moment but I think it's important we talk about step 10 because this is where we get a lot of the splitting in Alcoholics Anonymous. They talk about inventory in step 10 which says this thought brings us to step 10. The thought they're talking about is the promises materializing in our life. It says, we vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past and we continue to set right any new mistakes. There's amends going on while we work in step 10. It should continue for a lifetime. If we look at our big book, the only time they tell us to rest up, by the way, and it's not even a rest up. It's some work we have to do is one hour after step five. But there's reflection on what we've done. We thank God from the bottom of our heart. We know him better. There's reviewing the first five proposals. There's a whole lot of work to be done. there's some meditation time. The rest of my book uses words like next, vigorous, commenced, at once, now, turn, moving, moving, moving, moving. In step 10 there's some tremendous promises and here's where you'll experience resistance if you share from experience about this at an AA meeting. it says we cease fighting anything or anyone as an afterthought even alcohol see what we can do is who am I fighting in my head who am i arguing what kind of dialogue i got going on in my head who am up against at an a.a meeting who ami up against that work they may not know it but i know it my book says we seize fighting anything or any one oh by the way even alcohol we came in here alcohol was this monster they're now telling us oh by the way even alcohol. There's no fight going on with that, which means I don't have to think the drink through, which mean I have to play the tape to the end, which means I got it, don't have to watch my triggers, my issues, worry about my inner child, my dysfunctional family. I just, I'm free, go, right? It says I'll be seldom interested in liquor. If tempted, I recoil from it as from a hot flame. I react sanely and normally and I find that this has happened automatically. I will see that my new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part, it just comes. That's the miracle of it. I'm recovered. Step two, we talk about came to believe that power of grain and self could restore us to sanity. This arrival point, this point that we're going to get to this place. They deliver the contract here. Here it is. Wholeness of mind now. You're not thinking about a drink. You've got wholeness in mind. You have other things I need you to do. if the thought does happen to come by it's like putting your hand on a hot flame you ever do that? right back and then you're careful get away from it we don't hang over a hot flaming well I used to do this when I was drunk to see how tough I was remember the cigarette lighter I'm really tough I did that for two minutes look at me and I swore I was having a blast doing it what a night but we recoil we don't hang around that and see what we can do and if we do get perhaps a thought of maybe we're looking at a bottle sanity is given to us God working for us we don't have the luxury of playing the tape through because with an alcoholic mind if I'm not spiritually fit what I'm going to get to is well it's not that bad, what could one beer do I haven't gotten drunk in X amount of years, what's one beer going to do it's Super Bowl Sunday for Christ's sake, come on, that's alcoholic thinking God says no, no, we're not going to keep you safe and protected because I have other work for you to do, more important things to do to get into trenches and be an agent for me. He says this is the miracle of it. We're not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. I feel as though I've been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. I haven't even sworn off booze. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. A book couldn't get any bolder or clearer than that. The problem of drinking has been removed. It doesn't exist for me If something doesn't exist, it's no longer a problem. If I break my arm, they keep it in a cast for, I don't know, maybe eight weeks. I go to therapy. Five years later, I'm not walking around with a cast anymore because it's no longer the problem. Make sense? It's been removed. The problem is no longer problem. I'm now in a solution. Drinking, the problem of drinking has been removed from the equation. Why? Because of a spiritual experience that I've had. because step 10 says we've entered the world of the spirit. You've had an awakening by now. Now we're going to tell you in step 11 on how to grow with that, how to enhance that experience and then take all of that into step 12. Go work with drunks and take this into your home, occupations and affairs. Get the spiritual wings and go. We don't have time. We don'T have time hanging around dealing with I got drink issues today. If you knew, we get it. We understand that. But by this time, there's other work for us to do. We can't be bogged down with more manifestations of self. There's great work for me to do and there's work for others to go do. We'll get back to our home group this week and we'll probably meet a couple of newcomers or a couple OF folks who have bottomed out and need some guidance, need some teachers. That's what we do. We get home, we have the children, the wife, the family. That's What We Do. I don't need a drink separating me and them or the thought of a drink and obsession of a drinking. God has other work for us to do. But there's a hook to this, because step 10 says this will happen as long as I keep in fit spiritual condition, but I can't rest on my accomplishments of yesterday. You know, I can'T go back home now tonight after this conference and had some fun and kick back for the next six months saying, wow, that was some conference. I got to speak there. I don't ever have to do anything again because way back when I spoke somewhere and had some fun. My illness really don't care. It don't care I get to do this, it doesn't care how many people I sponsor, it doesn't haven't had a drink in almost 20 years, it don't care because it's like the FBI, it'll wait and just lay around and wait. Go ahead, do that, go ahead steal a little bit more with film and you don't worry oh you want to kill someone? Go ahead go we'll wait and then one day it shows up and you know when they show up you're You're not going home. My illness will let me go out and do what I, go ahead, go. It'll endorse it. Oh, you want to cheat on your wife? That's okay. Go do that. You don't want to make a meeting for a month? Go. You got my okay on that. And then it shows up with a drink and I can't stop it. I'm loaded and it's got ya. And I don't go home. The cunning, baffling, powerful and incredibly patient. it's not impressed by a linear thing. 20 years, 30 years, 15 years, it doesn't care about that. The only defense must come from God and then it runs. Spiritually fit, illness doesn't have a shot. Nothing's greater than God. Talks about step 11 here. Well let me tell you this also. My step 10, I think I touched on this last night. My step 10 is pretty much if things are going on during the day and I have an opportunity, pen goes to paper. I work with words like turn, turn in in order to go out. Turn into God immediately in order to go up. If I don't turn in, I'll go without. Words like watch, aware, observe. Put pen to paper, seek counsel, make some prayer, and go out and see where I can be of service to others. Watch, aware, observ. What's going on in front of me? What's my thinking mind like? It allows me to be still. It allowsme to pause, turn, watch, aware, observe. It allowed me to pause rather than to knee-jerk into saying something I'm going to wish I could have pulled back. It allowsm to see people. It allows m to listen to the silence between the words you're speaking and not have an answer for you in the middle of your question because I'm so consumed with what do I have to say. Sometimes I haveto say nothing. Sometimes all I need to do is nod and say good morning. I don't need to say anything else other than that. It was always a need to be talking, be still, listen to the silence between the words someone speaks. It's a great way to slow the train down a little bit. My current practice with Step 11 is pretty neat. I work with prayer. I work without third step prayer, seventh step prayer or Lord's Prayer. There's a couple of prayers I've incorporated and that is just what I do in the morning. I work with something called intent, offering things to God. Each month I work with that. Sometimes in the morning I'll read, sometimes I won't. I'm currently not reading anything in the morning. I've read lots of things. I'm currently just working with prayer and then going into meditation. That'll probably stay with me for a while and then I'll decide, hey you know what, in morning I would like to read a little bit of this. I was reading not too long ago and then that stopped in the morning. My meditation, you know, I like to watch when I go to home groups, my home group or go to different workshops and they offer a couple of minutes of meditation before they start the meeting. And I love to watch the posture of folks who are meditating in a room. Now two or three minutes prior to a meeting is, we shouldn't be dependent upon that for my meditation for the but it's interesting to watch the different postures you know some folks are like this and some folks are like and some folks are liked this and so you know and I'm wondering if that's their posture or no one has taught them a posture for meditation and it's incredibly important so I open up with prayer in the morning and I sit with my Heavenly Father and I offer some words and the words in the prayer are just words to convey your thought but my intent is to get to experience more of my god and that's what i get excited about because i look over the last almost 20 years in alcoholics anonymous i had this conversation with my dad the other day about some business that i was some business folks i was dealing with in the treatment center business by the way not everyone's honest and upright and you know forthright it's like dealing on the water like long showing on the Waterfront sometimes it's I'm amazed. And I was telling my dad, I said, Dad, you know, I'm sober almost 20 years this coming June. And in the last 20 years, I can really say, honestly say, that I have never screwed anyone over. I have ever stole from anyone. I've never done anything illegal. I've been up front with everyone. No one can say, That kid Pete Marinelli, you know, he really screwed me around. He did the wrong thing. No one can say that about me. And I realized as I was sharing that with my dad, that that was a truth for me. It just came to me at that moment. Now, prior to me getting sober, you could have said everything about me and it was probably true because I would steal your eyes out of your head if I could. All for the price of a drink. I wasn't a tough guy, but I would take in order to keep the drunk going and I didn't care who I took from. In the last 20 years that has changed and I thank my God for allowing me to walk with that sort of dignity nowadays Dignity, I had none. It was always daily humiliation daily degradation, embarrassment, shame, guilt, remorse and I stand at this podium this morning with dignity and not wondering oh my God if they ever find out or if you know, I get caught. None of that has gone on. I've had my challenges by the dozens, but none of that type of stuff. And that was such a neat thing to share with my dad because I realized it in that moment that, my Lord, the last 20 years, with all my mistakes, with All My Challenges, no one can say, hey, this kid really, this guy really did this or he did that. Nobody can say that. My life is pretty much an open book. with meditation I found different postures and one of the postures I like working with is I have a place in my home it's my sacred place whenever I move by the way, I pray to meditate in literally every single room in the house to bring that energy there and it's my way of blessing my home but I have one place in my basement that I have my meditation mat and I have what I call my altar and my girlfriend knows when she's cleaning up the basement to leave that where it is everyone knows just leave that space and I have some things that display my higher power and some other folks, some teachers that I've studied and it's this sacred place with some candles and I visit there every day and it is almost an invitation waiting for me, we ought to have these places. I don't care what room it is in the house because God doesn't care if I have a really nice room or an ugly room. The point is I'm giving attention to this power and it's my intent that counts. It's pure intent to experience my God, nothing else. So I don'T care what Room you have but get a spot and give it the respectability and dignity it deserves. And you will suddenly experience some sort of energy that's there in your meditation place. Posture is important. It shouldn't be uncomfortable where you're in pain, but it shouldn't mean so much where you are going to not out. But a posture, back somewhat straight, a simple posture to work with. If I'm preaching to the choir, I hope not, but perhaps someone's here tonight and maybe just doesn't know. But if your simple posture, if you're right-handed, place it under your left hand. And if you are left-handed the opposite and keep it right about here with your thumbs like so. and sit comfortable. If you're not able to sit on a mat in a posture, then sit on the chair. No shoes, comfortable clothes and sit. And you can count off breaths in the morning because it's difficult. You've got noise going on but a good way to get centered is work with a breath. Easy breathing of breath one, two, three. Just get still. I went to see a gentleman. I work with this gentleman and he wrote a book that I brought this weekend and I've studied this gentleman's material for a long time. He said, I'd love to meet him one day and I got an opportunity to go see him in Manhattan and I was sharing yesterday, it was a raining, horrible day on a Sunday. My wife and I were in a... She had told me a short time before that we're getting divorced and she... I was living in this house alone because I don't know where she was. It was me and my cats and I had gotten laid off from work and my external world had collapsed and I got in my car most people said don't drive out on a day like today and your world's falling apart you know go to a meeting and dump it for two hours and I was like and off I went to see this gentleman and it was a tremendous experience for me and he took about four or five hundred people in this theater through a meditation so he comes out and we're sitting in the chairs I'm waiting for this gentleman to come up with words like I wish I had a notepad and pen because I'm ready to roll because he's going to come out with some pearls of wisdom on meditation and I'm ready at the hip let's go and he sits down and he bangs the gong and he went something like this breathing in God I know I'm alive breathing out God I know him alive breathe in God breathe out God that was it big book says most good ideas are simple I was looking for him to start talking in tongues or something and me to understand it and he led us through about a 30-40 minute meditation it was powerful, 300-400 people in this theater and he worked with that and as he was bringing us out of the meditation he hit the gong some more and then he went on to talk more about meditation but it was about getting into the silence I started working with this a long time ago and I realized, I shared this the other day that I can't create that which already exists which is silence it was there before there was everything and it will be there when everything is gone it's the only constant thing is silence and if we listen to it you'll hear it you'll here the silence the thunder ring silence and it's always present So I work with this posture, and I sit on my meditation mat in a posture, and I work mit breath. And there's things, there's times where I will take a word into meditation, a mantra into meditation. I've taken questions into meditation and what do I mean by that? Father, I'm not sure what to do about my marriage is ending. Where do I go? That was one of the questions, and I wept for a long time when this thing ended. and I came home one day and knew things weren't good my wife was drinking really heavily and my ex-wife and I knew she should be here and I tried to get her here and the treatment and it wasn't having any of it and she had enough of my sobriety and I was off for this and I wept everything collapsed on me and I would offer Father, where do I go? And I would sit in silence like a student waiting for the teacher or a child waiting for his father to guide him where do i go? and I had tremendous experiences in meditation I would read something out of a book you know when you work with books and you get to page 3 and that paragraph just why am I paying so much attention to this something's connecting pay attention to that I would take that, read it and go silent with it and see where it would take me I work with page 62 into 63 right before the third step prayer this is the how and why of it up to where we are reborn I would work with that and go into silence with it. I work with meditations where they used to do this in the early days where I would keep a pad and pen in front of me and see what came to me and write down what came for me. Love, guidance, consideration all God inspired things the other things like hate, vengefulness that was me inspired I would dump them and walk with that other stuff for the day it was a direction it was practice I got to work with but of all the experience I've had and I've had a handful of them some incredible things that I always hesitate to talk about some I don't hesitate to talk about one of them I shared yesterday that came out of a meditation of me visiting downtown Brooklyn one of them I get asked to speak about often because some of us have had loved ones move on and go home to God and I remember when I was in you know when you're not in a blackout, and you're in that place where you just kind of have these audio hallucinations, and you're just mumbling and talking, and you're crying jags, and you're juste in this god-awful place. And I remember right before I got thrown out of the apartment I was living in, I remember one night sitting on the edge of the bed, and I was rocking, and I was weeping, andI was blind drunk, and it was just in this condition, and Iwas addicted to some other chemicals, and I'm looking at my arms, and I'm going, oh, what a mess I am. And I was 50 pounds underweight. It was just a real... If I lived to be 100, I'll never be as old as the day I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous. And so I remember looking up at the ceiling and having a conversation with God and it was ugly language, but I was begging him, make my mom show up for me. I just want to hold her. I never got a chance to do that and I will stop this. I was bargaining with God. you know just do that for me and obviously that didn't happen and I would do this every so often you know if you didn't take my mom I wouldn't be like this and just let her show up in this one particular incident I do remember clearly um well I God separates me uh in June of 88 uh June 23rd 1988 and uh I get into treatment my seventh and God willing last treatment sent they send me out to, just for me, God's country. And I don't mean God's Country like it's far off, but it was touched for me. Teachers were put in my life. It's sacred ground to me, AA in Minnesota, and some wonderful folks. And I was counting days in a halfway house, and I got moved early on to go to my religious community and light candles. One was for the sick and suffering in and out of the rooms, and the other candle was from my mom. Now, what selfish, self-centered, self seeking, self deluded alcoholic is going to be worried about another sick and suffering alcoholic? So it was a God thing that suddenly I got concerned about the rest of us. I couldn't care about anybody up until that point. And I'm going to church and lighting these candles and making a prayer for sick and sufferings drunks in and out of rooms, right? And the other one was for my mom, wherever you are, because I had no idea. go through the steps i start working with prayer meditation and again the benefits of going into silence the sacred silence experiencing presence and getting direction from god and how god gets to know us we get we get to know that god knows us he hears our heart he hears the soul he reads us he knows what's going on see a lot of times that would be just lip service from me to others because that was the right thing to say well yeah god loves me but did i really do i really know that in here is that tangible for me and once that clicks once we get that suddenly the doors open up and we walk never fearing again never feeling alone again because i know my creator walks with me and has won this with me as with you this is a great thing that gets to happen to us in alcoholics anonymous and we start off like i did as innocent blind i don't know i'm telling being told to do this what are the alternatives i'm going to be a good student and follow direction. And God gives the whole thing away without restrictions. Would we deny any of our children anything? Of course not, unless he was going to hurt them. So I start working with meditation. And I have this tremendous experience. The very first most profound thing that ever happened to me only to be followed by more of things like this. But my mom's my mom passing, the way she took our life, I was completely devastated. She walked with me for a long time. I was sharing with someone over the weekend. There's some times on Christmas or Mother's Day where I still weep. When I got married, you know, you do that dance with your mom. There was a hole in my wedding that night. I danced with my grandmother which was wonderful. And there's times on Christmas or mother's day or holiday where you just kind of move along. but there's always that thing and God knows that that this was a big hurt for me so he delivers as he would only deliver to make right so I'm in meditation one morning and I love the beach I love it I love that I feel safe there to me it's just an expression of God and so I find myself meditating on this beach in the meditation, I see myself meditating on a beach and off on the horizon where the ocean meets the sky, where it kind of looks like one line across appears my conception of God walking towards me, my higher power and the carpenter, he's walking towards me and as he gets close to me, out of his chest literally out of His chest appears my mom and I remember standing up and as I stood up I became this little eight-year-old boy and in this meditation there were no words spoken through the whole thing but I kind of knew what was being told to me and in his meditation I remember standing up and being a little eight year old boy and my mom kneeling down and she was weeping they were tears of joy and she hugged me she held on to me and then I stood up and I was an adult again and I remember my higher power was standing to my left in this meditation and he put his right arm around me around my shoulder and eyeball to eyeball I never experienced this type of feeling before or this type of love or safety ever and what he told me without words being spoke was she's okay she's with me and I was okay with that so I remember my mom at that point in this meditation pointing off to the horizon and off to the horizon were all these hundreds of flickering lights and I always share, it looked like a Manhattan skyline or a big city skyline at night when all the buildings are lit up it looked something like that hundreds of lights my mom pointed off to the other side it was the same thing just hundreds of light lights like this and she held on to me once more and her and my high power walked away became one and I came out of meditation and I remember coming out of the meditation and moved and weeping but confused I didn't get it I didn' t get the lights I didn''t get why I was a little kid in this thing and I called up my sponsor and bless him because he was wide awake and he didn't miss a beat and I shared with him my experience and he said, haven't you been lighting candles for your mom for the last eight or nine years? This was about nine years into sobriety. And I said, yeah. He says, she let you know she got them. Those were the lights. And you made peace with your past, the little kid that was so damaged at eight years old. Everything's okay. And when he told me this, I remember pretty much crumbling on the phone. I mean, I had that rush you get like, oh my God. Because another dimension I had visited, when our book says we've developed this vital sixth sense and we've been rocketed into a fourth dimension, this was beyond me. This was beyond the five senses I came here with. This is beyond the three dimensions I've lived in. This has got stuff. And the words, as adequately as I can try to describe it to you, the words don't adequately describe it. But they just point to that which is truth. because when we have God experiences you can't really describe it you can talk about it but you can not really describe if I went to Niagara Falls and I brought back pictures and a bucket of water from Niagara Falls I would say here it is you would say oh the water nice pictures but you really did not experience it no matter how much I try to tell you about Niagara Falls it does not do you any good until you get in a car and drive up there and say wow Niagara Falls The same thing with God. This is the greatness of God and what he's done for me, and why not continue to grow in understanding and effectiveness and give this away to another person? I started working on a religious practice not too long ago in prayer and meditation. The other thing about the 11th step that gets overlooked so much, and I don't want to miss this, is the nightly review. it says when we retire at night we constructively review our day and ask me some questions where I resentful self with dishonest afraid do I know an apology etc have I kept something to myself I should be discussing another with another person at one sins of omission there's a nightly review that I get to do at night any resentments any fears that seems to be this thing that's lost out there in Alcoholics Anonymous you know it's for other people to do if I'm disturbed I sit down at night and I write out a little inventory make some prayer if I need to discuss something immediately I make a phone call call up a sponsor, a prospect, another AA member I have an interview tomorrow I'm a little fearful about it what do I do? I love us, we do this come to a meeting, oh my god I'm out of work I don't know what I'm going to do so much fear, I'm not at work, what am I going to be able to do coming the next day, I got a job interview I don't know what I'm going to do. Oh my God, I got a job interview. They hired me. Now I have to go to work. Oh, my God. What am I going to do? I mean, we love drama. It gives us a sense of being. It gives us a senseless self. You know, let me drama. I need drama. Give me drama on. Oh no, I don' t have drama. I'll make up drama. Can't make up jump. I've got drama. Get involved in yours. You don't have drama? Let's talk about somebody else's drama. Let's gossip. We'll make drama. Need drama because it gives the mind something to do oh I got drama I got something to do don't worry about inventory don't worry about prayer we got drama to work with and it gives me a sense of being you know my concern for another human being is a little bit my sense of getting involved in his drama is the bigger thing it gives me something a false sense of self oh I have drama this is me this is my story You don't know how tough it's been for me. I mean, you can hear it. Listen to some folks at the podium. Their story will not change. The pauses are the same way, the same exact story. Now our story is our story, but every time over 20 years, nothing has happened to them other than that story because that's them. That's their sense of self in that story. Nothing added, nothing taken away, the Same Exact Story. For 20 years or 30 years you almost can tell when the guy's gonna say this or when she's gonna do that It's a false sense of self. They will not bring anything new to the podium because this is my story and They wear it like a badge of courage What I listen for when I'm out there is okay. Tell me you're an alcoholic Let me hear some so I can identify with you But what are you doing currently to grow an understanding effect? And what's your life like now? What kind of how have you evolved what sort of solution he could present to this group? What new things are you doing? What's your life like now? What's the current practice now? Not attached to a story But drama we just did drama. I mean, it's great, you know my girlfriend has like four sisters three sisters and Her side of family are all woman my side of families all men. This is a treat when we get together And it's comical because you listen to drama, constant drama, just drama all over the place. Oh my God, I'm so thirsty. Please give me a drink of water before I die. Take it easy. There's plenty of water. I got water for you. In closing, I hope to always be teachable and a student with a beginner's mind and give this away with the same love and gratitude that has been given to me so freely every time I walk into a meeting of All Ex-Anonymous. Joe, I have the privilege of knowing you and your lovely wife, and both you guys are credits to our glorious fellowship, and thank you for being my friend. Bobby, it's an absolute joy spending the weekend with you, and to all of you, I thank you for this weekend. That's all I got. Peace.