The Mental Obsession, the Physical Allergy, and the Malady That Drives Both – Peter M.
About This Speaker Tape
Peter M. walked into AA in 1988 from a hallway in lower Manhattan — homeless, panhandling, willing to do anything for the next drink. He'd been through six rehabs, forged his father's checks, stolen from his grandparents, and swallowed a bottle of pills with Jack Daniels because dying looked like the only exit. That's the tape.
What makes this talk different from a standard drunk-a-log is Peter's insistence on precision. He draws a hard line between the hard drinker, the moderate drinker, and the real alcoholic — and explains exactly why telling a real alcoholic to "just don't drink and go to meetings" is, in his words, probably killing them. He names the three things that made him a real alcoholic: the mental obsession, the physical allergy with its phenomenon of craving, and the spiritual malady. He traces all three through his own story — the first Colt 45 at a Brooklyn church feast that hit like a solution to every fear on page 62, and the slow, total collapse that followed.
Peter's message is rooted in the Big Book from the first sentence. He references the Doctor's Opinion, page 24 on the powerlessness of desire, the "tornado" passage, and the distinction between being separated from alcohol and actually being recovered. He's blunt about bad AA advice — skipping amends, avoiding the Higher Power word with newcomers, stopping at Step 3 — and equally blunt about what the steps actually did: freed him from a childhood trauma he'd carried for decades, rebuilt a relationship with a father who'd watched all of it, and gave him a life he calls better than the best he'd ever known.
If you've been in the rooms a while and quietly started managing your own life again — what Peter calls "current agnosticism" — this tape will name what's happening to you before you name it yourself.
Topics
Timestamps
Full Transcript
I'll just introduce myself. Peter M. from New York, please.
First things first, I'd like to thank Peter for inviting me and Chris and Myers down here this weekend.
And I'd really like to just openly thank Peter, all of us. We...
First things first, I'd like to thank Peter for inviting me and Chris and Myers down here this weekend.
And I'd really like to just openly thank Peter, all of us. We...
I'll just introduce myself. Peter M. from New York, please.
First things first, I'd like to thank Peter for inviting me and Chris and Myers down here this weekend.
And I'd really like to just openly thank Peter, all of us. We can't for a minute for this great weekend.
I'm very grateful to be here. I'm very grateful to be a recovered member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I was telling someone on the way here.
This is a really long way from my last drink.
My last drink took me to living in a hallway, in the back of a hallway in lower Manhattan in New York,
dying at the hands of alcoholism, willing to do anything to get money for the next drink.
I was homeless, I was unemployable, and I was dying of untreated alcoholism.
And I got here in 1988 begging for a drink, and I showed up in Alcoholics Anonymous begging for a solution.
And very good people came.
Very good people gave me a solution from the big book Alcoholics Anonymous.
And little by slowly awakened my spirit and has put people in my life a day at a time.
Put wonderful people in my life a day at a time.
And I stand here tonight, a recovered member, free of alcoholism.
And that's really a long way from where I left off in 1988.
And I am so just grateful for my sobriety.
And there are a lot of other people who are very grateful for my sobriety also.
God separated me from alcohol.
June 23, 1988.
And I feel very blessed to be here.
As a recovered member, I say recovered because I no longer suffer from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
I've been set free of that.
And I'll say this right from the get-go.
If anyone's new or just coming back, if you are here and you are working with the sponsor through the big book Alcoholics Anonymous
and follow the directions that are lined out for us, clear-cut, specific, precise, and exact,
you will not experience relief here.
What you will experience is freedom.
Freedom from alcoholism and freedom from the other isms.
We get free here once we wake up and take this information and have an experience with it.
So if you knew when someone's telling you just don't drink and go to meetings, they're probably killing you if you're a real alcoholic.
Because as a real alcoholic, I have no power, choice, and control.
Statements like that kill people.
Might as well get this out of the way, too.
There's a lot of hard drinkers in Alcoholics Anonymous.
They have choice.
A lot of moderate drinkers in Alcoholics Anonymous, they have choice.
Now, when they're sponsoring the real alcoholic, you know what happens?
Someone dies.
Because the real alcoholic needs the information in our big book to have an experience with, to awaken the spirit, to get free.
He can't, like me, put the plug in the jug.
Because if you're like me, a real alcoholic, the plug comes out of the jug and I go get fired up.
You know, don't drink and go to meetings.
I was told that for a long time.
And I haven't.
I've held on for dear life trying to not drink and go to meetings.
All I wanted to do was drink and not go to meetings.
I mean, I was in Alcoholics Anonymous for six months, dying of untreated alcoholism.
And I was doing things in Alcoholics Anonymous, making meetings physically separated from alcohol that I'm ashamed to talk about on certain days.
Making meetings separated from alcohol.
My spirit was not yet awakened.
So as an alcoholic, I needed this experience.
This vital spiritual experience.
Because some wonderful people told me when I was living in Minnesota that I was suffering from an illness which only your spiritual experience would conquer.
That I had to recover with this spirit, get right with this spirit or else.
And I know what the or else is about.
The or else took me to panhandling, living in the streets, dying of untreated alcoholism.
And I'll say this too.
What about the or else right now, currently in Alcoholics Anonymous?
Where are we?
If you've been in here a little while, how are you doing right now, currently?
Are you experiencing current unmanageability?
How's your health?
How's your money?
How's your sex life?
How's your behavior outside here?
Because our big book tells us a much more important demonstration of these principles lies us where?
In our homes, occupations and affairs.
It doesn't say about being an AA angel.
By taking this here, taking this experience and going back out there.
My home group is the Free Spirit Group over in Brooklyn, New York.
And I'm very grateful to be a recovered member and part of that home group.
People there embraced me when I got here in 1988.
And they didn't care about where I had been and what I had done and what I had looked like.
They just knew I was another drunk walking in the door and let's go help them.
I wish I can say that about a lot of other AA halls.
When a new AA walks in and some of us are more interested about 13-step than the new girl in the corner.
Or more worried about what's on TV tonight than the new drunk who's walking in the door dying.
Very good people.
Very good people in my group, Free Spirit, were interested about the next drunk walking in the door.
And I happened to be him.
It wasn't because Peter Marinelli walked in the door.
It was a new drunk and let's go pass this on because our recovery depends on passing this message on.
As a recovered member, I'm very grateful to all three sides of our triangle.
Which I mean in order to stay recovered and continue to seek new experiences with this power.
I'm very grateful to the fellowship that embraced me like a band-aid on an open wound when I first walked in here.
They just said, welcome.
And they gave me some information.
I'm very grateful to the recovery I found in the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous.
Which as I said, awakened my spirit and set me free.
Brought me to a God of my understanding.
I was brought to this fellowship, broken.
This fellowship, people in this fellowship took me to this program.
Which took me to a God.
Which allows me to do the other legacy, service.
Comes the basis, the basic service AA provides us carrying this message and the action we take is at the heart of it.
I feel very blessed and privileged to be able to pass this message on to someone who cares to have it.
Our book is very clear on warning us we can't transmit something we haven't got.
So I can't talk on something I don't have experience with because I may be killing you with that.
I'll share with you my experience because I've done it.
And I have a lot of experience with this power.
I have a lot of experience with this book and I will pass that on to anyone who cares to have it.
Working with others, believe me, has been one of the many, many blessings.
I've seen bright spots in my life.
Seeing people come in here like I did with nothing.
And slowly awaken.
To see loneliness vanish in their life.
To see a fellowship grow up around these new people as well as me.
To see fear fall from their eyes.
Like a veil dropping.
And then the great thing is when they start sponsoring people and passing this message on.
Little clusters of big book enthusiasm starts to happen all over.
I've seen it happening in Staten Island where I currently live.
It's a great thing.
As a recovering member I'm also responsible not only to be an awakened member but to also be an informed member.
To study our literature.
To talk to our old timers.
To understand what it was like before I got here in 1988.
There was a whole humble legacy that preceded my entrance into Alcoholics Anonymous.
AA didn't start June 23, 1988 when I got here.
There was a whole lot of things that went on prior to that.
And I need to know about that stuff.
And I study our literature not just to know more but to understand more.
Because when I understand what it is I belong to I become a better member.
This is a sacred place, Alcoholics Anonymous.
I need to bring it every day.
I need to bring it here every day.
And then take it out.
To tell you in a general way what it was like, what happened and what it's like now and what I'm trying to be like today.
And where I am currently seeking current experiences with this power.
My first drink came when I was about 14 years old.
I grew up in Brooklyn.
And I remember my first drink like it happened a week ago.
And my life has never been the same as I stand here tonight from my very first drink.
Everything changed.
My drinking, as Bill says, was to turn on me like a boomerang.
And all but cut me to ribbons at the very end.
I didn't know that on the first drunk.
But my first drunk was a Saturday night over in Brooklyn.
There was a church feast happening that night.
My friends were drinking cold 45 beer.
And they were passing around the court.
And as they were drinking they seemed to be joyous, happy and free.
Drinking cold 45 beer.
They were in the moment.
They were like part of life at last.
And they were having a really good time.
And what I was experiencing up until that first drunk was quite the opposite.
What I experienced up until that first drunk was what our book talks about.
I think on page 62 where we're driven by a hundred forms of fear.
That's what my life was about.
I was driven.
Driven, driven by fear.
I never felt good enough to fit in.
Always felt inadequate and insecure about myself.
Why should this night be any different?
I always wanted to pack into the mainstream with the rest of my friends.
And I just couldn't.
Because what I had up here was this judge that was always screaming at me about what a loser I was.
There were things going on in my house that weren't very pretty.
This was spring summer time.
And January 23rd of that year I lost my mom.
Who I believe should be in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous with us celebrating life like we do a day at a time.
But she didn't get this answer.
What she experienced was...
What our third chapter talks about is that incomprehensible demoralization too many times.
I had no idea that I was going to experience that also down the road.
And I lost her to this illness.
And here I am on the corner hanging out with this memory.
My dad who was home who was cunning, baffling and powerful.
I was just really afraid of this man.
I mean if he walked in the door back then I'd jump out the window.
And he had warned me many times about hanging out with these bums on the corner.
Don't bring any of those girls around the house.
I watched my friends drink whole 45 beer and I desperately wanted to get in there and mix it up.
And I don't know why till this very moment.
But I put my hand in there and took a few pops off that quart.
And the beer went past my throat and hit my gut and nothing happened to me at all.
And on that I took a few more and I took a few more and I took a few more.
And then something happened to me that was indescribably wonderful.
For the first time in my life I experienced what doctor's opinion talks about.
A sense of ease and comfort.
I got to a place out there that was indescribably wonderful.
It was perfect.
As I continued to drink I noticed my dad wasn't driving up and looking for me on the corner.
The cops weren't turning the corner and looking to arrest me for drinking beer on the corner.
As I continued to drink I started to pack into the mainstream.
I got to be about six foot two.
I had muscles.
I had hair on my chest.
A few tattoos.
And every girl in the corner wanted me in the worst way.
It was great.
What are you laughing at?
Trust me, God's got a sense of humor.
A few times when I was drinking she looked just like Bo Derek.
And the next morning she looked like Bo Diddley and I wondered how that happened.
But, you know, the first time out was great, man.
I loved every minute of it.
I remembered every minute of it.
The next morning I got up I still had teeth in my mouth.
I hadn't soiled my clothes.
No black and blues.
I hadn't gotten arrested.
No blackouts.
I went down to the park.
That morning to play Sunday morning basketball.
And I remember walking into the park and my shoulders were a little bit wider.
See, I found my solution.
It was called Colt 45B.
And I will tell you this.
That alcoholism helped me deal with my alcoholism for a long time.
It was a solution for me.
For all my bedevilments that our book talks about.
All the things I was experiencing driven by fear, trouble with personal relationships.
I could never control my emotional nature.
All of it was taken away.
All of it was taken care of with some Colt 45 beer.
So that was the solution for me.
And I remember playing Sunday morning basketball thinking that following Saturday night is going to roll around, man.
And I'm going to get fired up and captured.
I had a lucid feeling I'm going to get to that place out there again.
And everything is going to be okay.
I had no idea I just stepped onto a road paved right to alcoholism.
You know, which brings me to another thing.
What makes me a real alcoholic?
Because our book is really clear.
It says alcoholics of our type in this class.
The real alcoholic.
And they talk about the moderate drinker.
They talk about the hard drinker.
But what about us?
Three things make me a real alcoholic and I didn't know it back then.
That one, the first one was the mental obsession to alcohol.
You know, I would get in terrible trouble on a Monday and Tuesday and my mind would tell me Monday wasn't that bad.
When I was drinking all I could think about was the next drink.
It dominated everything.
Drink.
And I would go to any lengths for the next drink.
To keep the drunk going.
The other thing that makes me a real alcoholic.
The other thing that makes me a real alcoholic is this physical allergy.
They talk about the phenomenon called craving that separates me.
And this craving never happens in the average tempered drinker.
See, I can take someone through this book if they're unsure.
And I'll take them to the first 43 pages and they will find their truth in that.
Because the first 23 talk about the physical part.
And 23 to 43 talk about the mental part.
And they will find out.
And I was experiencing that phenomenon called craving where it was always intensified.
Never satisfied when I drank.
That's what separates me.
I have family members, man, who can drink, feel it and stop.
I feel it and let's keep going.
More was my drink.
Let's keep going.
I remember when my friends would head out.
You know, break up tonight.
Last call at a bar.
It was instant sobriety.
I was in a place called fear because I did not want it to end.
I couldn't end.
And the third thing that makes me a real alcoholic is what they talk about in our book.
The spiritual malady.
There's a lot of people out there with a spiritual malady.
But they don't have this other thing called the obsession and the compulsion.
I got all three.
And that's what separates me.
And the only way to get well, the only way to awaken is by having this spiritual awakening.
Because once the spiritual malady is overcome, I straighten out mentally and physically.
I'm set free.
And then my next function is to continue to grow in understanding and effectiveness.
I knew none of that back then, man.
I just knew I drank.
I like it.
I'll take more.
I had no idea it was going to happen to me.
I just stepped onto a road paved right to hell.
It was called alcoholism.
Today I'm free.
I remember I was drinking on the weekends and it became like Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Then I got the idea, well, maybe I can start drinking during the week.
I was a wannabe musician.
I remember my hero went from Mickey Mantle to Keith Richards and I wanted to be like Keith.
And so you get fired up to make music.
And then I was drinking during the week.
And little by slowly I was drinking all the time.
And what I started to experience were consequences as a direct result of my drinking.
They would be little things like me leaving the house sober and coming home drunk.
I had two kid brothers at home wondering what walked in the door because I was not always a pleasant drunk.
Most often I had a lot of earthy, ugly language to dump on them about the terrible deck of cards God gave me.
I got a guy I called dad who was cunning, baffling, and powerful and I had no idea how to get around this man.
And if you only knew what I was experiencing, you would understand.
I would walk in the door drunk and my kid brothers would be really frightened.
And they would tell my dad about it the next day and I'd usually get the riot act.
See, for me to tell you tonight, you know, just don't drink and go to meetings and you're a winner, I'm lying to you.
Because what about all the people I harmed?
And it wasn't because I was that powerful, but alcoholism certainly is.
A book uses words like tornado and leaving damage and debris.
We roar through the lives of others.
What about my kid brothers who didn't do anything yet were experiencing my alcoholism?
You think it's really fair for me to stand here tonight and say to a newcomer, just don't drink, go to meetings, and you're a winner?
When they got in here and God knows what, they left the wreckage behind them.
First of all, I tell you this, if you leave that wreckage out there, real alcoholic, you're going to go drink again with unfinished amends.
I hear it all the time in Alcoholics Anonymous.
You know, we get really bad information like, well, do the first three steps.
Where in my big book does it say do the first three steps?
And don't worry about the amends part.
Don't talk about God to a newcomer because you may scare him out.
Really.
Anyone who's gotten right with God has gotten free.
That's been my experience.
So I will never tell that to a newcomer, just don't drink and go to meetings.
First of all, let's look at it this way.
If you had the power just to not drink, why would you come to meetings?
You would stay home and not drink, right?
I mean, the first time I got in trouble at the hands of alcoholism, I would have said,
this is too hard.
I'm leaving it alone.
I can never pull it off.
Why?
Because when alcohol was involved, I was strangely insane.
My mind kept taking me back over and over and over again.
So I needed all these disciplines to go out and repair the damage.
My dad started to experience my alcoholism, and he didn't do anything.
I remember after getting into some trouble, I was drinking regularly during the week,
and what I started to do is awaken what Bill talks about in his story,
when the morning terror and madness run.
I was experiencing that on me.
And what alcoholism turned me into was a coward, not a tough guy.
And like a coward, what I would do is steal from my family.
So I would wake up in the morning needing to get fired up,
feeling the ills of untreated alcoholism.
I needed a drink to go down.
And so what I would do is start to steal from my family.
So, you know, alcoholic arithmetic, if there's 50 in a drawer, 30 is half,
and it comes with me, and out the door I would go.
And I would even help you look for the money, too.
I would go through drawers and take money, or I would take jewelry.
My dad would go down for breakfast.
I'd sneak into his bedroom, and I'd go into his pants pocket and take money out of his pants.
And he would ask me, like any caring parent,
do you have enough money on you for today?
And I'd say I could use a few bucks, Dad,
and he would go back upstairs and come down and give me some money.
One morning I woke up, and I couldn't find anything in the house except my dad's checkbook.
I'll never forget this.
And what I did was I got the brainstorm that if I forged his name,
I can go down to the bodega, I can go down to the liquor store and cash the check.
And I get fired up.
And that's what I did for just a short time.
I knew nothing about checking statements.
All that stuff came back to him, and he saw all these Ford signatures,
and he came looking for me.
And he caught me in Lower Manhattan.
And I'll never forget when he drove up and he jumped out of the car.
I was sitting in the car with a girl I was dating at the time.
And I left her in the car, and I started running away.
And he caught me.
And I, like any coward would do, started to cry and came up with these fake tears
and blamed the girl in the car and the guys downtown Manhattan and poor me.
He wasn't buying any of it.
What he did was he sent me to my first rehab, and I did 28 days in this rehab.
I'm not here to knock rehabs, but I'll tell you what happened to me.
They talked about my dysfunctional family, my enablers,
and something else called an inner child, which I still haven't figured out yet.
These are great words to keep me drunk, to keep me sick, and to blame others.
How dare I stand at a podium and give you a talk and tell you about enablers in my family
when my family was doing the very best they could with what they had.
And if they gave me money or denied me money, took me in or threw me out, that's all they knew.
They were trying to get me well.
Dysfunctional family.
I'm in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous tonight.
They're home watching TV.
Who's dysfunctional?
I'll share this about dysfunction.
Not to make too much fun of it, but I've had things happen to me as a young kid
by an older member of my family that were not pleasant.
I was a young boy.
And I'm sure a lot of us here tonight have those types of stories
that happen behind closed doors.
And you can say, well, Pete, it's easy for you to say, you know,
you don't come from a dysfunctional family, but you don't know what it was like for me growing up.
And that's the last thing alcoholism needs is for me or any of us to be attached to that type of stuff,
because what it does, it separates me.
What it does, it separates me from you.
I'm a real alcoholic, but I had this stuff happen to me.
You know, I had an adult do things to me as a young kid.
That separates me from you.
That's the last thing my alcoholism needs is more fuel.
And I'll tell you this, and this is a promise from my own experience.
By going through this work and having that deep and effective spiritual experience,
I was able to put that incident in its proper place and move on.
And that gentleman I'm not looking to have a relationship with.
I don't even love the guy.
But I'm not in a place of hate anymore.
I've been moved past that.
This is really important.
If you're sitting here and you're having those type of experiences,
this deep, dark secret in the closet,
you can get free of that because I'm here to tell you I have.
See, that's the great news this book offers to us after being separated from alcohol,
because we know being separated is really just the beginning.
I tell you, I was separated from alcohol for nine weeks in my fifth rehab.
Nine weeks separated from alcohol.
I was out on a Saturday, and I was drunk on a Monday again.
So being separated just means we're separated.
It has very little to do with being a recovered alcoholic.
We can get free here.
Anyway, I went off to my first rehab, and I did the 28-day deal,
and I also did a lot of push-ups and sit-ups, and I was looking great.
I was eating great.
I remember speakers would come in, and I couldn't wait for them to leave.
There was a hot shot.
There was a hot show on a TV in one of these rehabs.
I don't know if maybe you guys remember a show called Miami Vice,
and Don Johnson was my higher power.
And the speakers would come in, and I would write on the chalkboard,
you know, Miami Vice, 9 p.m., speakers, please leave promptly.
I mean, that's how important this was to me.
I just was in there to get the heat off, and I did this a few times,
second rehab, third rehab.
My dad got me a job in downtown Brooklyn working on the docks.
Loading ships and things like that.
It was hard work.
The pay was great, and I was always broke.
And there's a type of element of people that are associated with that type of industry
that really I shouldn't even be in the same neighborhood with.
But I was going to these people to borrow money off of them,
and they wanted to get paid back every week a little bit of their money.
And if not, I was in a lot of trouble, and my dad would have to go in there
and take care of things like that.
I became a thief, and I started to steal from my employer.
I mean, on paid day, I would leave at coffee break and come back three days later,
looking for overtime in my check, and my boss wasn't too pleased with that.
And many, many times, my dad would have to save my job.
Many, many times, my dad would have to go in there and take care of some of my bad behavior.
And what he started to experience was my alcoholism.
Alcohol is like a tornado roaring through the lives of others that left damage and debris.
And my family started to experience this stuff over and over and over again.
I remember hitting my fourth rehab.
And I went to live with my grandparents.
And in a short time, I got thrown out of there for the same type of nonsense.
I was stealing from my grandparents, never coming home.
I was bringing my untreated alcoholism into their house.
And one morning, my grandmother said that, you know,
I can't let you in the house because I don't know what kind of diseases
you're going to bring into this house anymore.
And I hated her for saying it, and I realized how she said it with a broken heart,
to throw her oldest grandson out because of the life I was living.
And that's where it brought her to.
It leveled everything in its path over and over and over again.
And I would bounce from house to house to house, from girlfriend to girlfriend.
And I remember hitting my fifth rehab.
And my dad got me this apartment over in Brooklyn.
He furnished the place, put toiletries in the bathroom, filled up the refrigerator,
put money in my pocket, got me a TV, a clock radio to get up in the morning to go back to work,
got me some dress clothes, some work clothes, you name it,
things I should have been doing on my own, he was doing for me.
With the hope of maybe I would get better.
And what I did with this apartment was bring like the worst element in New York City into this apartment.
It was like the Bowery.
I was living in a Bowery in this little apartment.
And I'll share this not for shock value but for where my illness took me.
I wasn't making it to the bathroom at night, nor did I care because my bed was soiled.
I was experiencing blackouts all the time.
I was getting sick all over myself.
I got addicted to some other things along the way.
And I lived for the next drink.
I had laundry piled up all over the floor and garbage all over the floor.
Bathing was the last thing on my mind.
Drinking was the first.
And if I didn't, I would get violently ill.
And paying rent was like a foreign topic to me.
And in a short time, I got bounced out of this apartment.
And I went to live on the streets.
I spent about a day and a half for my sixth rehab.
And I remember being in there and telling the counselors I had to get out of here.
I assigned myself out of this rehab after a day and a half.
Because the obsession to drink alcohol was that powerful.
And I have no power, choice, or control in the first drink.
I had to go.
See, if I think I have a say in the thinking, the thought process of me picking up a drink,
that's delusional because I don't.
See, page 24 says the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail.
The almost certain consequences that I'm going to experience don't come into my mind to deter me.
They're pushed aside, easily pushed aside.
So over and over and over again, I would try to do this stuff and I could never pull it off.
I got thrown out of this apartment.
I got thrown out of this rehab.
I assigned myself out of this rehab and I went to live on the streets.
Before I signed out, these counselors, as I was saying, pleaded with me not to leave.
But I had to go.
They said, you're going to drink and you're going to die.
But I had to go.
I could not stop.
If there was a crack in the wall, I was going to go through.
And that's been my experience.
I tried, you know, think the drink through.
I would get to, oh, this is great, and go.
I would never get to that place.
I never tell a newcomer just think it through because that may kill him.
It never worked for me.
Because you may be able to think it through like three or four times.
And what about the one time you don't?
You know.
We may think it through, well, I'm going to get sick and I'm not going to do this.
But there's going to come a time where we can't.
Step one tells me, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol.
My life was unmanageable.
Step one tells me, I'm drinking.
Step one ain't my solution.
It tells me I'm drinking.
Part of my unmanageability was knowing I was going to pick up a drink and not knowing when.
I just knew it was going to happen.
And once I drank, all bets were off.
I couldn't stop.
I went to live on the streets after I signed myself out of the six rehab.
And I experienced that incomprehensible demoralization.
My mom took a life with this illness.
And as a kid growing up, I always wondered, how do you get to that place?
What brings someone to a place where taking a life looks like the only solution?
How does that happen?
And I remember getting bounced out of this rehab.
And I'm living in this motel over in Staten Island.
One of these motels above a nightclub.
You know, one of these really high class joints where people are always getting arrested and locked up.
And I'm paying, living with this girl and paying room and board up there.
And she was a barmaid downstairs.
And she would bring me drinks.
She would bring me drinks through the back entrance every so often.
I was basically living to die.
And praying for death all the time.
And I hit a place where our book talks about the bitter end.
The courage to do battle, as Bill says, was not there.
I couldn't do it anymore.
And dying looked like the only way out of this.
And I remember going into her purse to steal some money from her.
And when I came up, it was left of a bottle of Allium.
And there was no thought process.
They went down.
And I washed it down with Jack Daniels because I wanted to die at that point.
And I remember thinking.
This is what my mom experienced.
This is exactly what she experienced.
Alcoholism brings me to a place where dying looks like a good solution.
And you want me to tell a newcomer, just don't drink and go to meetings and you're a winner.
Because alcoholism wants me dead, will settle for me drunk, and will take me there any which way it can.
It's a subtle foe.
I didn't go to college.
I had to look up the word subtle.
Sly, clever, devious, difficult to detect.
And a foe is a personal enemy.
It sounds like my illness called alcoholism.
It will lay in wait.
It will lay in wait.
And if I don't keep active in all three sides of this triangle and continue to seek new experiences with my God,
guess what's waiting for me somewhere out there?
A drink with my name on it.
I remember taking those pills and washing it down with Jack Daniels and saying,
This is what she experienced.
What's the sense anyway?
I hope never to wake up.
And alcoholism was loving every minute of it.
That didn't happen.
I wound up, God willing, my seventh and last rehab.
It was a series of circumstances.
Let me say this.
You know, I wound up homeless and panhandling and living in the streets.
That's my story.
And I tell you, it's the worst story in the whole world because I lived it.
And your story is the worst story in the whole world because you lived it.
But if you're from Park Avenue or Park Bench, don't compare.
Identify.
Pain is pain.
You don't have to be eating out of a dumpster or living like I did.
Panhandling on the streets.
Living in the back of a hallway.
To be here.
To be one of us.
But that's just my story.
And that's where it took me.
Your story, again, is the worst story in the whole world because you lived it.
You experienced your alcoholism.
So as I talk about my story, I hope no one is saying,
Geez, I never wound up in the street.
I guess I don't belong here.
Well, maybe you do.
The first 43 pages will reveal that to you.
But here I was.
You know, in a place.
You know, in a place of really looking to die.
And I wound up through a series of circumstances in my seventh rehab.
God willing, the last one.
What happened to me was I wound up outside the Port Authority over in Manhattan.
It's a big bus terminal.
And I don't know how I got there.
And I don't know what happened afterwards.
But I do remember this one moment.
And what God did in his infinite mercy was serve me my truth.
And I had a moment of clarity where I knew deep down in here,
deep down in here, conceding to my innermost self what I was,
a real alcoholic, and I was going to die.
And what I thought of was my mom, my dad, who I hadn't seen for quite some time,
my kid brothers who I hadn't seen, the terrible life I was living.
And I knew what I was.
And what I did with that moment of clarity was curse God for doing this to me.
I hated God.
And I don't know what happened afterwards.
But I do know this.
I was in another hallway.
And God didn't say, You know what?
You have six rehabs behind you.
You've cursed me.
And you've burned every bridge I put in front of you.
What he did was offer a flimsy reed that proved to be his loving, powerful hand.
And in that moment of clarity, I remember begging, Father, if you're out there,
please take me from this because I don't want to die like this.
And what he did was take me from that to a level of life better than the best I've ever known.
I don't give that lip service.
I wound up in my seventh rehab.
I was in a place in New York.
And after about ten days being in there, what I was experiencing,
was the insidious insanity of the first drink again.
Alcoholism was galloping back to me, trying to get me to go pick up another drink.
Already forgetting.
They sent me out to Minnesota.
And some really wonderful people were put out there.
God has put people in my life that I can never ever choose.
From sponsors to friends.
Because anytime I would try to choose friends, they were usually as bad as me or worse.
But since I've been in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, God kept putting appointed teachers in my life.
Instruments. People for me to walk through.
People for me to help.
Over and over and over again.
And when I went to Minnesota, he put some really terrific people in my life.
Who told me about, I was suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience would conquer.
They told me that the solution was in a big book, Alcoholics Anonymous.
After about ten months or so, I came home and was brought to my home group.
And my first appointed teacher was put in my life.
And had an experience with this book.
And he didn't tell me, go home and read page 449.
Go home and read how it works.
Or work the slogans. I love this one.
How am I supposed to work the slogans with no other information?
I heard the slogans are like banisters for the steps.
So in other words, if you don't have the steps, the banisters are useless, aren't they?
I need to have an experience with this big book in order to have an experience with my God.
And that's what this guy did for me.
And I worked with this man for a long time.
And I cleaned up a whole lot of amends.
And relationships that I thought were dead,
were once again awake.
They were reassembled with my family.
My dad, who kept me alive long enough to get here,
and you gave me my life,
saw all of my alcoholism.
All of it.
I remember being at an airport heading out to Minnesota.
And he took me to the airport.
And as I walked into the area to take me to the plane,
I remember turning around and looking at my dad.
And he was trying to fight back tears.
And my kid brother was there.
And all he told me was, please get better.
And as I got onto the plane,
I realized the damage I had caused to a family that I loved so much.
And how can I make it back?
And I showed up to this work,
and this work brought me to a God that has allowed me to do certain things in my family,
which have been wonderful.
About a year or so ago, a new teacher was put in my life,
and I went through these steps again.
Because what happened to me after a few years of being in here,
is I started to, little by slowly, manage my own life.
I started to experience some current agnosticism,
and I didn't even know it until I went through this work again.
I started to put God here, and I'll take care of this problem.
And if I'm experiencing any kind of self in any area of my life,
I have to experience some sort of unmanageability,
if I'm wrapped up with self.
And we know we must be rid of self.
The death of self is successful living.
And I was able to see some of these things.
I was able to see my current unmanageability,
my current agnosticism,
and why my life was kind of getting unmanageable in certain areas.
It was made clear to me through this work.
Again, I've been set free.
Not deserving anything.
All the wonderful gifts I've been given here.
I've been asked to speak at some wonderful places over the years,
and it's been a thrill for me to be here tonight with you.
I've had some wonderful experiences working through this work.
Experiences with Step 11.
I've always shared this thing that happened to me in a meditation with my mom,
being able to visit my mom in a meditation.
But not too long ago, a friend of mine was in from California,
and I was having this experience in a meditation,
and I was able to follow up on it.
And I was able to revisit something that happened to me as a young boy.
And wonderful things happened out of this.
I was able to go back to my past and clean it up,
and put closure on a very painful part of my past
because of what I've been given here by loving God.
And once again, my spirit was set free.
All the wonderful gifts I've gotten here,
I certainly don't deserve.
But I'm so grateful I stuck around to experience some of it.
When I walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous,
I walked into a room filled with the living grace of God.
And each and every one of you represent His love.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you.
First things first, I'd like to thank Peter for inviting me and Chris and Myers down here this weekend.
And I'd really like to just openly thank Peter, all of us. We can't for a minute for this great weekend.
I'm very grateful to be here. I'm very grateful to be a recovered member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I was telling someone on the way here.
This is a really long way from my last drink.
My last drink took me to living in a hallway, in the back of a hallway in lower Manhattan in New York,
dying at the hands of alcoholism, willing to do anything to get money for the next drink.
I was homeless, I was unemployable, and I was dying of untreated alcoholism.
And I got here in 1988 begging for a drink, and I showed up in Alcoholics Anonymous begging for a solution.
And very good people came.
Very good people gave me a solution from the big book Alcoholics Anonymous.
And little by slowly awakened my spirit and has put people in my life a day at a time.
Put wonderful people in my life a day at a time.
And I stand here tonight, a recovered member, free of alcoholism.
And that's really a long way from where I left off in 1988.
And I am so just grateful for my sobriety.
And there are a lot of other people who are very grateful for my sobriety also.
God separated me from alcohol.
June 23, 1988.
And I feel very blessed to be here.
As a recovered member, I say recovered because I no longer suffer from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
I've been set free of that.
And I'll say this right from the get-go.
If anyone's new or just coming back, if you are here and you are working with the sponsor through the big book Alcoholics Anonymous
and follow the directions that are lined out for us, clear-cut, specific, precise, and exact,
you will not experience relief here.
What you will experience is freedom.
Freedom from alcoholism and freedom from the other isms.
We get free here once we wake up and take this information and have an experience with it.
So if you knew when someone's telling you just don't drink and go to meetings, they're probably killing you if you're a real alcoholic.
Because as a real alcoholic, I have no power, choice, and control.
Statements like that kill people.
Might as well get this out of the way, too.
There's a lot of hard drinkers in Alcoholics Anonymous.
They have choice.
A lot of moderate drinkers in Alcoholics Anonymous, they have choice.
Now, when they're sponsoring the real alcoholic, you know what happens?
Someone dies.
Because the real alcoholic needs the information in our big book to have an experience with, to awaken the spirit, to get free.
He can't, like me, put the plug in the jug.
Because if you're like me, a real alcoholic, the plug comes out of the jug and I go get fired up.
You know, don't drink and go to meetings.
I was told that for a long time.
And I haven't.
I've held on for dear life trying to not drink and go to meetings.
All I wanted to do was drink and not go to meetings.
I mean, I was in Alcoholics Anonymous for six months, dying of untreated alcoholism.
And I was doing things in Alcoholics Anonymous, making meetings physically separated from alcohol that I'm ashamed to talk about on certain days.
Making meetings separated from alcohol.
My spirit was not yet awakened.
So as an alcoholic, I needed this experience.
This vital spiritual experience.
Because some wonderful people told me when I was living in Minnesota that I was suffering from an illness which only your spiritual experience would conquer.
That I had to recover with this spirit, get right with this spirit or else.
And I know what the or else is about.
The or else took me to panhandling, living in the streets, dying of untreated alcoholism.
And I'll say this too.
What about the or else right now, currently in Alcoholics Anonymous?
Where are we?
If you've been in here a little while, how are you doing right now, currently?
Are you experiencing current unmanageability?
How's your health?
How's your money?
How's your sex life?
How's your behavior outside here?
Because our big book tells us a much more important demonstration of these principles lies us where?
In our homes, occupations and affairs.
It doesn't say about being an AA angel.
By taking this here, taking this experience and going back out there.
My home group is the Free Spirit Group over in Brooklyn, New York.
And I'm very grateful to be a recovered member and part of that home group.
People there embraced me when I got here in 1988.
And they didn't care about where I had been and what I had done and what I had looked like.
They just knew I was another drunk walking in the door and let's go help them.
I wish I can say that about a lot of other AA halls.
When a new AA walks in and some of us are more interested about 13-step than the new girl in the corner.
Or more worried about what's on TV tonight than the new drunk who's walking in the door dying.
Very good people.
Very good people in my group, Free Spirit, were interested about the next drunk walking in the door.
And I happened to be him.
It wasn't because Peter Marinelli walked in the door.
It was a new drunk and let's go pass this on because our recovery depends on passing this message on.
As a recovered member, I'm very grateful to all three sides of our triangle.
Which I mean in order to stay recovered and continue to seek new experiences with this power.
I'm very grateful to the fellowship that embraced me like a band-aid on an open wound when I first walked in here.
They just said, welcome.
And they gave me some information.
I'm very grateful to the recovery I found in the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous.
Which as I said, awakened my spirit and set me free.
Brought me to a God of my understanding.
I was brought to this fellowship, broken.
This fellowship, people in this fellowship took me to this program.
Which took me to a God.
Which allows me to do the other legacy, service.
Comes the basis, the basic service AA provides us carrying this message and the action we take is at the heart of it.
I feel very blessed and privileged to be able to pass this message on to someone who cares to have it.
Our book is very clear on warning us we can't transmit something we haven't got.
So I can't talk on something I don't have experience with because I may be killing you with that.
I'll share with you my experience because I've done it.
And I have a lot of experience with this power.
I have a lot of experience with this book and I will pass that on to anyone who cares to have it.
Working with others, believe me, has been one of the many, many blessings.
I've seen bright spots in my life.
Seeing people come in here like I did with nothing.
And slowly awaken.
To see loneliness vanish in their life.
To see a fellowship grow up around these new people as well as me.
To see fear fall from their eyes.
Like a veil dropping.
And then the great thing is when they start sponsoring people and passing this message on.
Little clusters of big book enthusiasm starts to happen all over.
I've seen it happening in Staten Island where I currently live.
It's a great thing.
As a recovering member I'm also responsible not only to be an awakened member but to also be an informed member.
To study our literature.
To talk to our old timers.
To understand what it was like before I got here in 1988.
There was a whole humble legacy that preceded my entrance into Alcoholics Anonymous.
AA didn't start June 23, 1988 when I got here.
There was a whole lot of things that went on prior to that.
And I need to know about that stuff.
And I study our literature not just to know more but to understand more.
Because when I understand what it is I belong to I become a better member.
This is a sacred place, Alcoholics Anonymous.
I need to bring it every day.
I need to bring it here every day.
And then take it out.
To tell you in a general way what it was like, what happened and what it's like now and what I'm trying to be like today.
And where I am currently seeking current experiences with this power.
My first drink came when I was about 14 years old.
I grew up in Brooklyn.
And I remember my first drink like it happened a week ago.
And my life has never been the same as I stand here tonight from my very first drink.
Everything changed.
My drinking, as Bill says, was to turn on me like a boomerang.
And all but cut me to ribbons at the very end.
I didn't know that on the first drunk.
But my first drunk was a Saturday night over in Brooklyn.
There was a church feast happening that night.
My friends were drinking cold 45 beer.
And they were passing around the court.
And as they were drinking they seemed to be joyous, happy and free.
Drinking cold 45 beer.
They were in the moment.
They were like part of life at last.
And they were having a really good time.
And what I was experiencing up until that first drunk was quite the opposite.
What I experienced up until that first drunk was what our book talks about.
I think on page 62 where we're driven by a hundred forms of fear.
That's what my life was about.
I was driven.
Driven, driven by fear.
I never felt good enough to fit in.
Always felt inadequate and insecure about myself.
Why should this night be any different?
I always wanted to pack into the mainstream with the rest of my friends.
And I just couldn't.
Because what I had up here was this judge that was always screaming at me about what a loser I was.
There were things going on in my house that weren't very pretty.
This was spring summer time.
And January 23rd of that year I lost my mom.
Who I believe should be in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous with us celebrating life like we do a day at a time.
But she didn't get this answer.
What she experienced was...
What our third chapter talks about is that incomprehensible demoralization too many times.
I had no idea that I was going to experience that also down the road.
And I lost her to this illness.
And here I am on the corner hanging out with this memory.
My dad who was home who was cunning, baffling and powerful.
I was just really afraid of this man.
I mean if he walked in the door back then I'd jump out the window.
And he had warned me many times about hanging out with these bums on the corner.
Don't bring any of those girls around the house.
I watched my friends drink whole 45 beer and I desperately wanted to get in there and mix it up.
And I don't know why till this very moment.
But I put my hand in there and took a few pops off that quart.
And the beer went past my throat and hit my gut and nothing happened to me at all.
And on that I took a few more and I took a few more and I took a few more.
And then something happened to me that was indescribably wonderful.
For the first time in my life I experienced what doctor's opinion talks about.
A sense of ease and comfort.
I got to a place out there that was indescribably wonderful.
It was perfect.
As I continued to drink I noticed my dad wasn't driving up and looking for me on the corner.
The cops weren't turning the corner and looking to arrest me for drinking beer on the corner.
As I continued to drink I started to pack into the mainstream.
I got to be about six foot two.
I had muscles.
I had hair on my chest.
A few tattoos.
And every girl in the corner wanted me in the worst way.
It was great.
What are you laughing at?
Trust me, God's got a sense of humor.
A few times when I was drinking she looked just like Bo Derek.
And the next morning she looked like Bo Diddley and I wondered how that happened.
But, you know, the first time out was great, man.
I loved every minute of it.
I remembered every minute of it.
The next morning I got up I still had teeth in my mouth.
I hadn't soiled my clothes.
No black and blues.
I hadn't gotten arrested.
No blackouts.
I went down to the park.
That morning to play Sunday morning basketball.
And I remember walking into the park and my shoulders were a little bit wider.
See, I found my solution.
It was called Colt 45B.
And I will tell you this.
That alcoholism helped me deal with my alcoholism for a long time.
It was a solution for me.
For all my bedevilments that our book talks about.
All the things I was experiencing driven by fear, trouble with personal relationships.
I could never control my emotional nature.
All of it was taken away.
All of it was taken care of with some Colt 45 beer.
So that was the solution for me.
And I remember playing Sunday morning basketball thinking that following Saturday night is going to roll around, man.
And I'm going to get fired up and captured.
I had a lucid feeling I'm going to get to that place out there again.
And everything is going to be okay.
I had no idea I just stepped onto a road paved right to alcoholism.
You know, which brings me to another thing.
What makes me a real alcoholic?
Because our book is really clear.
It says alcoholics of our type in this class.
The real alcoholic.
And they talk about the moderate drinker.
They talk about the hard drinker.
But what about us?
Three things make me a real alcoholic and I didn't know it back then.
That one, the first one was the mental obsession to alcohol.
You know, I would get in terrible trouble on a Monday and Tuesday and my mind would tell me Monday wasn't that bad.
When I was drinking all I could think about was the next drink.
It dominated everything.
Drink.
And I would go to any lengths for the next drink.
To keep the drunk going.
The other thing that makes me a real alcoholic.
The other thing that makes me a real alcoholic is this physical allergy.
They talk about the phenomenon called craving that separates me.
And this craving never happens in the average tempered drinker.
See, I can take someone through this book if they're unsure.
And I'll take them to the first 43 pages and they will find their truth in that.
Because the first 23 talk about the physical part.
And 23 to 43 talk about the mental part.
And they will find out.
And I was experiencing that phenomenon called craving where it was always intensified.
Never satisfied when I drank.
That's what separates me.
I have family members, man, who can drink, feel it and stop.
I feel it and let's keep going.
More was my drink.
Let's keep going.
I remember when my friends would head out.
You know, break up tonight.
Last call at a bar.
It was instant sobriety.
I was in a place called fear because I did not want it to end.
I couldn't end.
And the third thing that makes me a real alcoholic is what they talk about in our book.
The spiritual malady.
There's a lot of people out there with a spiritual malady.
But they don't have this other thing called the obsession and the compulsion.
I got all three.
And that's what separates me.
And the only way to get well, the only way to awaken is by having this spiritual awakening.
Because once the spiritual malady is overcome, I straighten out mentally and physically.
I'm set free.
And then my next function is to continue to grow in understanding and effectiveness.
I knew none of that back then, man.
I just knew I drank.
I like it.
I'll take more.
I had no idea it was going to happen to me.
I just stepped onto a road paved right to hell.
It was called alcoholism.
Today I'm free.
I remember I was drinking on the weekends and it became like Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Then I got the idea, well, maybe I can start drinking during the week.
I was a wannabe musician.
I remember my hero went from Mickey Mantle to Keith Richards and I wanted to be like Keith.
And so you get fired up to make music.
And then I was drinking during the week.
And little by slowly I was drinking all the time.
And what I started to experience were consequences as a direct result of my drinking.
They would be little things like me leaving the house sober and coming home drunk.
I had two kid brothers at home wondering what walked in the door because I was not always a pleasant drunk.
Most often I had a lot of earthy, ugly language to dump on them about the terrible deck of cards God gave me.
I got a guy I called dad who was cunning, baffling, and powerful and I had no idea how to get around this man.
And if you only knew what I was experiencing, you would understand.
I would walk in the door drunk and my kid brothers would be really frightened.
And they would tell my dad about it the next day and I'd usually get the riot act.
See, for me to tell you tonight, you know, just don't drink and go to meetings and you're a winner, I'm lying to you.
Because what about all the people I harmed?
And it wasn't because I was that powerful, but alcoholism certainly is.
A book uses words like tornado and leaving damage and debris.
We roar through the lives of others.
What about my kid brothers who didn't do anything yet were experiencing my alcoholism?
You think it's really fair for me to stand here tonight and say to a newcomer, just don't drink, go to meetings, and you're a winner?
When they got in here and God knows what, they left the wreckage behind them.
First of all, I tell you this, if you leave that wreckage out there, real alcoholic, you're going to go drink again with unfinished amends.
I hear it all the time in Alcoholics Anonymous.
You know, we get really bad information like, well, do the first three steps.
Where in my big book does it say do the first three steps?
And don't worry about the amends part.
Don't talk about God to a newcomer because you may scare him out.
Really.
Anyone who's gotten right with God has gotten free.
That's been my experience.
So I will never tell that to a newcomer, just don't drink and go to meetings.
First of all, let's look at it this way.
If you had the power just to not drink, why would you come to meetings?
You would stay home and not drink, right?
I mean, the first time I got in trouble at the hands of alcoholism, I would have said,
this is too hard.
I'm leaving it alone.
I can never pull it off.
Why?
Because when alcohol was involved, I was strangely insane.
My mind kept taking me back over and over and over again.
So I needed all these disciplines to go out and repair the damage.
My dad started to experience my alcoholism, and he didn't do anything.
I remember after getting into some trouble, I was drinking regularly during the week,
and what I started to do is awaken what Bill talks about in his story,
when the morning terror and madness run.
I was experiencing that on me.
And what alcoholism turned me into was a coward, not a tough guy.
And like a coward, what I would do is steal from my family.
So I would wake up in the morning needing to get fired up,
feeling the ills of untreated alcoholism.
I needed a drink to go down.
And so what I would do is start to steal from my family.
So, you know, alcoholic arithmetic, if there's 50 in a drawer, 30 is half,
and it comes with me, and out the door I would go.
And I would even help you look for the money, too.
I would go through drawers and take money, or I would take jewelry.
My dad would go down for breakfast.
I'd sneak into his bedroom, and I'd go into his pants pocket and take money out of his pants.
And he would ask me, like any caring parent,
do you have enough money on you for today?
And I'd say I could use a few bucks, Dad,
and he would go back upstairs and come down and give me some money.
One morning I woke up, and I couldn't find anything in the house except my dad's checkbook.
I'll never forget this.
And what I did was I got the brainstorm that if I forged his name,
I can go down to the bodega, I can go down to the liquor store and cash the check.
And I get fired up.
And that's what I did for just a short time.
I knew nothing about checking statements.
All that stuff came back to him, and he saw all these Ford signatures,
and he came looking for me.
And he caught me in Lower Manhattan.
And I'll never forget when he drove up and he jumped out of the car.
I was sitting in the car with a girl I was dating at the time.
And I left her in the car, and I started running away.
And he caught me.
And I, like any coward would do, started to cry and came up with these fake tears
and blamed the girl in the car and the guys downtown Manhattan and poor me.
He wasn't buying any of it.
What he did was he sent me to my first rehab, and I did 28 days in this rehab.
I'm not here to knock rehabs, but I'll tell you what happened to me.
They talked about my dysfunctional family, my enablers,
and something else called an inner child, which I still haven't figured out yet.
These are great words to keep me drunk, to keep me sick, and to blame others.
How dare I stand at a podium and give you a talk and tell you about enablers in my family
when my family was doing the very best they could with what they had.
And if they gave me money or denied me money, took me in or threw me out, that's all they knew.
They were trying to get me well.
Dysfunctional family.
I'm in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous tonight.
They're home watching TV.
Who's dysfunctional?
I'll share this about dysfunction.
Not to make too much fun of it, but I've had things happen to me as a young kid
by an older member of my family that were not pleasant.
I was a young boy.
And I'm sure a lot of us here tonight have those types of stories
that happen behind closed doors.
And you can say, well, Pete, it's easy for you to say, you know,
you don't come from a dysfunctional family, but you don't know what it was like for me growing up.
And that's the last thing alcoholism needs is for me or any of us to be attached to that type of stuff,
because what it does, it separates me.
What it does, it separates me from you.
I'm a real alcoholic, but I had this stuff happen to me.
You know, I had an adult do things to me as a young kid.
That separates me from you.
That's the last thing my alcoholism needs is more fuel.
And I'll tell you this, and this is a promise from my own experience.
By going through this work and having that deep and effective spiritual experience,
I was able to put that incident in its proper place and move on.
And that gentleman I'm not looking to have a relationship with.
I don't even love the guy.
But I'm not in a place of hate anymore.
I've been moved past that.
This is really important.
If you're sitting here and you're having those type of experiences,
this deep, dark secret in the closet,
you can get free of that because I'm here to tell you I have.
See, that's the great news this book offers to us after being separated from alcohol,
because we know being separated is really just the beginning.
I tell you, I was separated from alcohol for nine weeks in my fifth rehab.
Nine weeks separated from alcohol.
I was out on a Saturday, and I was drunk on a Monday again.
So being separated just means we're separated.
It has very little to do with being a recovered alcoholic.
We can get free here.
Anyway, I went off to my first rehab, and I did the 28-day deal,
and I also did a lot of push-ups and sit-ups, and I was looking great.
I was eating great.
I remember speakers would come in, and I couldn't wait for them to leave.
There was a hot shot.
There was a hot show on a TV in one of these rehabs.
I don't know if maybe you guys remember a show called Miami Vice,
and Don Johnson was my higher power.
And the speakers would come in, and I would write on the chalkboard,
you know, Miami Vice, 9 p.m., speakers, please leave promptly.
I mean, that's how important this was to me.
I just was in there to get the heat off, and I did this a few times,
second rehab, third rehab.
My dad got me a job in downtown Brooklyn working on the docks.
Loading ships and things like that.
It was hard work.
The pay was great, and I was always broke.
And there's a type of element of people that are associated with that type of industry
that really I shouldn't even be in the same neighborhood with.
But I was going to these people to borrow money off of them,
and they wanted to get paid back every week a little bit of their money.
And if not, I was in a lot of trouble, and my dad would have to go in there
and take care of things like that.
I became a thief, and I started to steal from my employer.
I mean, on paid day, I would leave at coffee break and come back three days later,
looking for overtime in my check, and my boss wasn't too pleased with that.
And many, many times, my dad would have to save my job.
Many, many times, my dad would have to go in there and take care of some of my bad behavior.
And what he started to experience was my alcoholism.
Alcohol is like a tornado roaring through the lives of others that left damage and debris.
And my family started to experience this stuff over and over and over again.
I remember hitting my fourth rehab.
And I went to live with my grandparents.
And in a short time, I got thrown out of there for the same type of nonsense.
I was stealing from my grandparents, never coming home.
I was bringing my untreated alcoholism into their house.
And one morning, my grandmother said that, you know,
I can't let you in the house because I don't know what kind of diseases
you're going to bring into this house anymore.
And I hated her for saying it, and I realized how she said it with a broken heart,
to throw her oldest grandson out because of the life I was living.
And that's where it brought her to.
It leveled everything in its path over and over and over again.
And I would bounce from house to house to house, from girlfriend to girlfriend.
And I remember hitting my fifth rehab.
And my dad got me this apartment over in Brooklyn.
He furnished the place, put toiletries in the bathroom, filled up the refrigerator,
put money in my pocket, got me a TV, a clock radio to get up in the morning to go back to work,
got me some dress clothes, some work clothes, you name it,
things I should have been doing on my own, he was doing for me.
With the hope of maybe I would get better.
And what I did with this apartment was bring like the worst element in New York City into this apartment.
It was like the Bowery.
I was living in a Bowery in this little apartment.
And I'll share this not for shock value but for where my illness took me.
I wasn't making it to the bathroom at night, nor did I care because my bed was soiled.
I was experiencing blackouts all the time.
I was getting sick all over myself.
I got addicted to some other things along the way.
And I lived for the next drink.
I had laundry piled up all over the floor and garbage all over the floor.
Bathing was the last thing on my mind.
Drinking was the first.
And if I didn't, I would get violently ill.
And paying rent was like a foreign topic to me.
And in a short time, I got bounced out of this apartment.
And I went to live on the streets.
I spent about a day and a half for my sixth rehab.
And I remember being in there and telling the counselors I had to get out of here.
I assigned myself out of this rehab after a day and a half.
Because the obsession to drink alcohol was that powerful.
And I have no power, choice, or control in the first drink.
I had to go.
See, if I think I have a say in the thinking, the thought process of me picking up a drink,
that's delusional because I don't.
See, page 24 says the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail.
The almost certain consequences that I'm going to experience don't come into my mind to deter me.
They're pushed aside, easily pushed aside.
So over and over and over again, I would try to do this stuff and I could never pull it off.
I got thrown out of this apartment.
I got thrown out of this rehab.
I assigned myself out of this rehab and I went to live on the streets.
Before I signed out, these counselors, as I was saying, pleaded with me not to leave.
But I had to go.
They said, you're going to drink and you're going to die.
But I had to go.
I could not stop.
If there was a crack in the wall, I was going to go through.
And that's been my experience.
I tried, you know, think the drink through.
I would get to, oh, this is great, and go.
I would never get to that place.
I never tell a newcomer just think it through because that may kill him.
It never worked for me.
Because you may be able to think it through like three or four times.
And what about the one time you don't?
You know.
We may think it through, well, I'm going to get sick and I'm not going to do this.
But there's going to come a time where we can't.
Step one tells me, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol.
My life was unmanageable.
Step one tells me, I'm drinking.
Step one ain't my solution.
It tells me I'm drinking.
Part of my unmanageability was knowing I was going to pick up a drink and not knowing when.
I just knew it was going to happen.
And once I drank, all bets were off.
I couldn't stop.
I went to live on the streets after I signed myself out of the six rehab.
And I experienced that incomprehensible demoralization.
My mom took a life with this illness.
And as a kid growing up, I always wondered, how do you get to that place?
What brings someone to a place where taking a life looks like the only solution?
How does that happen?
And I remember getting bounced out of this rehab.
And I'm living in this motel over in Staten Island.
One of these motels above a nightclub.
You know, one of these really high class joints where people are always getting arrested and locked up.
And I'm paying, living with this girl and paying room and board up there.
And she was a barmaid downstairs.
And she would bring me drinks.
She would bring me drinks through the back entrance every so often.
I was basically living to die.
And praying for death all the time.
And I hit a place where our book talks about the bitter end.
The courage to do battle, as Bill says, was not there.
I couldn't do it anymore.
And dying looked like the only way out of this.
And I remember going into her purse to steal some money from her.
And when I came up, it was left of a bottle of Allium.
And there was no thought process.
They went down.
And I washed it down with Jack Daniels because I wanted to die at that point.
And I remember thinking.
This is what my mom experienced.
This is exactly what she experienced.
Alcoholism brings me to a place where dying looks like a good solution.
And you want me to tell a newcomer, just don't drink and go to meetings and you're a winner.
Because alcoholism wants me dead, will settle for me drunk, and will take me there any which way it can.
It's a subtle foe.
I didn't go to college.
I had to look up the word subtle.
Sly, clever, devious, difficult to detect.
And a foe is a personal enemy.
It sounds like my illness called alcoholism.
It will lay in wait.
It will lay in wait.
And if I don't keep active in all three sides of this triangle and continue to seek new experiences with my God,
guess what's waiting for me somewhere out there?
A drink with my name on it.
I remember taking those pills and washing it down with Jack Daniels and saying,
This is what she experienced.
What's the sense anyway?
I hope never to wake up.
And alcoholism was loving every minute of it.
That didn't happen.
I wound up, God willing, my seventh and last rehab.
It was a series of circumstances.
Let me say this.
You know, I wound up homeless and panhandling and living in the streets.
That's my story.
And I tell you, it's the worst story in the whole world because I lived it.
And your story is the worst story in the whole world because you lived it.
But if you're from Park Avenue or Park Bench, don't compare.
Identify.
Pain is pain.
You don't have to be eating out of a dumpster or living like I did.
Panhandling on the streets.
Living in the back of a hallway.
To be here.
To be one of us.
But that's just my story.
And that's where it took me.
Your story, again, is the worst story in the whole world because you lived it.
You experienced your alcoholism.
So as I talk about my story, I hope no one is saying,
Geez, I never wound up in the street.
I guess I don't belong here.
Well, maybe you do.
The first 43 pages will reveal that to you.
But here I was.
You know, in a place.
You know, in a place of really looking to die.
And I wound up through a series of circumstances in my seventh rehab.
God willing, the last one.
What happened to me was I wound up outside the Port Authority over in Manhattan.
It's a big bus terminal.
And I don't know how I got there.
And I don't know what happened afterwards.
But I do remember this one moment.
And what God did in his infinite mercy was serve me my truth.
And I had a moment of clarity where I knew deep down in here,
deep down in here, conceding to my innermost self what I was,
a real alcoholic, and I was going to die.
And what I thought of was my mom, my dad, who I hadn't seen for quite some time,
my kid brothers who I hadn't seen, the terrible life I was living.
And I knew what I was.
And what I did with that moment of clarity was curse God for doing this to me.
I hated God.
And I don't know what happened afterwards.
But I do know this.
I was in another hallway.
And God didn't say, You know what?
You have six rehabs behind you.
You've cursed me.
And you've burned every bridge I put in front of you.
What he did was offer a flimsy reed that proved to be his loving, powerful hand.
And in that moment of clarity, I remember begging, Father, if you're out there,
please take me from this because I don't want to die like this.
And what he did was take me from that to a level of life better than the best I've ever known.
I don't give that lip service.
I wound up in my seventh rehab.
I was in a place in New York.
And after about ten days being in there, what I was experiencing,
was the insidious insanity of the first drink again.
Alcoholism was galloping back to me, trying to get me to go pick up another drink.
Already forgetting.
They sent me out to Minnesota.
And some really wonderful people were put out there.
God has put people in my life that I can never ever choose.
From sponsors to friends.
Because anytime I would try to choose friends, they were usually as bad as me or worse.
But since I've been in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, God kept putting appointed teachers in my life.
Instruments. People for me to walk through.
People for me to help.
Over and over and over again.
And when I went to Minnesota, he put some really terrific people in my life.
Who told me about, I was suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience would conquer.
They told me that the solution was in a big book, Alcoholics Anonymous.
After about ten months or so, I came home and was brought to my home group.
And my first appointed teacher was put in my life.
And had an experience with this book.
And he didn't tell me, go home and read page 449.
Go home and read how it works.
Or work the slogans. I love this one.
How am I supposed to work the slogans with no other information?
I heard the slogans are like banisters for the steps.
So in other words, if you don't have the steps, the banisters are useless, aren't they?
I need to have an experience with this big book in order to have an experience with my God.
And that's what this guy did for me.
And I worked with this man for a long time.
And I cleaned up a whole lot of amends.
And relationships that I thought were dead,
were once again awake.
They were reassembled with my family.
My dad, who kept me alive long enough to get here,
and you gave me my life,
saw all of my alcoholism.
All of it.
I remember being at an airport heading out to Minnesota.
And he took me to the airport.
And as I walked into the area to take me to the plane,
I remember turning around and looking at my dad.
And he was trying to fight back tears.
And my kid brother was there.
And all he told me was, please get better.
And as I got onto the plane,
I realized the damage I had caused to a family that I loved so much.
And how can I make it back?
And I showed up to this work,
and this work brought me to a God that has allowed me to do certain things in my family,
which have been wonderful.
About a year or so ago, a new teacher was put in my life,
and I went through these steps again.
Because what happened to me after a few years of being in here,
is I started to, little by slowly, manage my own life.
I started to experience some current agnosticism,
and I didn't even know it until I went through this work again.
I started to put God here, and I'll take care of this problem.
And if I'm experiencing any kind of self in any area of my life,
I have to experience some sort of unmanageability,
if I'm wrapped up with self.
And we know we must be rid of self.
The death of self is successful living.
And I was able to see some of these things.
I was able to see my current unmanageability,
my current agnosticism,
and why my life was kind of getting unmanageable in certain areas.
It was made clear to me through this work.
Again, I've been set free.
Not deserving anything.
All the wonderful gifts I've been given here.
I've been asked to speak at some wonderful places over the years,
and it's been a thrill for me to be here tonight with you.
I've had some wonderful experiences working through this work.
Experiences with Step 11.
I've always shared this thing that happened to me in a meditation with my mom,
being able to visit my mom in a meditation.
But not too long ago, a friend of mine was in from California,
and I was having this experience in a meditation,
and I was able to follow up on it.
And I was able to revisit something that happened to me as a young boy.
And wonderful things happened out of this.
I was able to go back to my past and clean it up,
and put closure on a very painful part of my past
because of what I've been given here by loving God.
And once again, my spirit was set free.
All the wonderful gifts I've gotten here,
I certainly don't deserve.
But I'm so grateful I stuck around to experience some of it.
When I walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous,
I walked into a room filled with the living grace of God.
And each and every one of you represent His love.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you.
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