Step 10 and 11 at the London Primary Purpose conference in London, UK

Good morning, everyone. I'm Peter. I'm a recovered alcoholic. Faith will be alive and sober and at a sick place called Alcoholics Anonymous. And, again, thank all of you for allowing me to be here this weekend and share, my experience, strength, and hope.

And, it's it also, and I'm not saying this because he's sitting next to me, but, it is truly, an honor for me to be sitting with my sponsor and my teacher and, and to share a little bit of our experiences, with this book and our god. So this is really a treat for me. I thank all of you for, what you've done thus far and what I'm sure you'll continue to do is give us the permission to speak. Give us the permission to speak from our experiences and embrace what we have to say. When I get to do things like this, what I tend to watch is some of the reactions to the information that's being put out.

And what I offer you is to be aware of any resistance you may experience. It's the ego's way of protecting itself and getting another breath because it don't want to die. And sometimes, you'll get some information from maybe Mark or myself or another speaker, maybe it happened last night, and the resistance is manifested in, I need to get another cup of coffee or have another smoke or I really don't like these these New Yorkers coming in to tell us how to do it or however it may be. But it'll get you out of here, and it'll allow neon light showing up, and just be aware, illness in neon light showing up, and just be aware. Just be here this weekend.

Just be with the information, and ego wants no part of that. Self doesn't want to die, and what this work will do will allow self to die and to experience God. Just wanna kick this off with something, a book that I've worked with. It reads, to breathe and to know you're alive is wonderful. Because you are alive, everything is possible.

Practice, continue, don't waste a single moment. Every moment is to experience God. Through your daily life, walk in mindfulness, making peaceful, happy steps on our planet. Breathe deeply and enjoy your breathing. Be aware.

Enjoy being alive. My big book says that most good ideas are simple, and that reading was as simple as you can possibly get. And when I first started out on this journey, I thought, like, if I was to wake up and experience God, it was gonna become incredibly complicated and incredibly deep. And it was only for people who lived in a cave or went up on a mountain or joined a monastery that can really grasp and comprehend this power called god, and I found it to to be just the opposite, that God doesn't make too hard terms. So it's very simply, today, with some of my 11 step practice, for example, it's really about paying attention to breath.

I've gotten to study lots of books, and everyone that I've worked with talks about the importance of breath. And I go into silence to hear and darkness to see and to experience presence with this power called God, being mindful of every moment. And at times, I get to hearing the silence between the words someone speaks and not worried about the answer I'm gonna give them in the middle of them speaking. And it takes me back to presence. I shared last night about paying attention and being integrated with silence even with the noise that's going on, the silence that underlies everything.

I used to think when I would go to meditate when I first started working with this practice, that when I would sit down to meditate, that I, because I'm an AA, was gonna create this space called silence. And I would get in there and try to create silence. And what I was simply doing was creating struggle and trying to be still. I was fighting and wrestling with myself, and no one was around. I was having a tremendous fight.

No one was around. I'm trying to get still and worship this power and give attention to this power. And then it came to me very simply, very clearly one day, having to do with silence, how can I create that which already exists? The silence is always present. And at that moment, my practice became that much more of an invitation to me because it's waiting for me all the time.

And can I take that can I take that presence? Can I take that silence into all I do, into my home's occupations and affairs? But we have a 10 step that allows spot check during the day. It talks about growing and understanding effectiveness, that we've entered the world with the spirit. And to truly enter the world with the spirit and to experience this power of call God, am I free of my past?

Have I made peace with my past? Because if I'm still troubled by the voices of yesterday, how can I be present today? Because one way or the other, those old belief systems, those old practices, those old voices will determine who I be and how I go out from here, and how I interact with you. And trust me, that was a hard lesson for me to learn. There was a lot of struggling that went on in trying too little by slowly get away from that.

And what I found out is what this work really does, it it we talk about, you know, gotta find God. Gotta find God. I have to find God, searching for God, and he ain't lost. And all I need to do is go in in order to go out and clear away the things that are blocking me from this power called god. Last night, I talked about the subtraction rather rather than addition.

It's about the removal. And as someone had taught me, not too long ago, what this work does, getting to experience the sunlight or the spirit, getting to experience god, getting to be free of self, freedom from the bondage of self, very simply, the destination is really about returning home. Because I have to believe a loving and infinite, merciful God didn't put me here spiritually blocked, spiritually sick. But somehow, somewhere, over the years, I've accumulated things. I've accumulated belief systems.

I've accumulated prejudice and contempt and resentment and fear. And little by slowly, it has if if you could see this happening, kinda moved away from this power, in a sense. What my work does, what my big book does is take a sledgehammer to all of that and removes it. That's why for some of us, this work is painful and uncomfortable because we are experiencing the depth of self. And going through the archway, there's a squeezing that goes on, but it goes from being a concept to where we can talk about it from a place of experience.

And in that waking up, we become integrated with this power and those belief systems and those systems and those prejudices and the contempt and the fear and the resentments, little by slowly, start to dissolve, and we, in a sense, return home. God ain't lost. In step 10, throughout my book, there are words that never tell me, 'Hey, Pete, you've done enough enough work. You can kinda kick back and relax. In fact, you know what?

Why don't you you're different. You can rest on your laurels. My big my big book uses words like next, commenced, now, vigorous, at once, turn. My sponsor has shown me to work with words like turn, watch, aware, observe. And in that, I get to disidentify or not get hooked into what my thinking mind is telling me.

You're looking at someone whose thinking mind wants truly for me to be not a part of this, but to re to be wrapped up in drama, to be wrapped up in self, to be consumed by fear, and then eventually drunk. My mind is always looking for drama. I'll create drama if there's no drama. If I can't create drama, do you have drama? I'll take your drama.

Just something to give me a sense of self. And I write inventory, and I share. Step 10 talks about continue continue to take personal inventory, and when we're wrong, promptly admit it. Promptly admit the wrong I've harmed, make amends quickly, and move on, see where I can be of help to other people. And I was brought up in Alcoholics Anonymous with writing, doing lots of writing.

And then I started to worship worship the writing. I started to worship the methodology rather than the power that's keeping me sober all along, and then my sponsor says, you're killing too many trees. Stop writing. But I learned a great lesson out of that that was shared with me. And my sponsor sat with me and says, a business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke.

That's what our big book says. And I was writing inventory all the time. He says, but a business which is always writing inventory will go broke too because they're never open for business. And I heard him. And I didn't realize how subtle it was.

There was a shift that went from worshiping God to worshiping the methodology. So I do the spot check inventory, and I'll just talk about mechanics for a little bit. There's questions in 10, there's questions in 11. And I don't have, you know, I'm not consumed with writing, but if I have fear going on with me at 10 o'clock in the morning, I'm not gonna wait for a nightly review and go through the whole day consumed with a piece of fear to decide to write inventory. I'll write inventory at the to write inventory.

I'll write inventory at the first opportunity. If I have a resentment that's got me, I'm not gonna wait till tonight to write the inventory. If I have an opportunity during the day, I'll share it with someone and put it into column inventory. It allows me to get free. I've seen lots of AAs claim to be in the world of the spirit with their lips, and yet, when we speak to them, they're wrapped up in need to write more inventory, need to go through the work again.

I have more drama. I have more things I just found out are not right with me. I need to do this. And they're always searching for some sort of defect, some sort of drama, and I'm wondering, if you're truly in the world of the spirit, won't we not be free and spread the spiritual wings and go fly and go work with others? What does it feel like?

What does it look like to be in the world of the spirit? What's that look like? Can we talk about that from a place of experience? We don't hear too many topic meetings like that back home because not enough people are really in the world of the spirit. We'll give it some lip service, but to come out of from a place of experience, the room gets awfully quiet I I I'll do a nightly review.

I'll make some prayer. I'll just do my meditation. And on awakening, Mark talked a little bit about this and we read it earlier. You know, there's a there's a part to my 11th step that sets up the day as to what I'm gonna do, where I'm gonna go. But there's another part to this 11th step as to how I be, who how am I gonna be through all those affairs?

Taking the kids to school, taking the kids to Little League practice, you know, making dinner, preparing things, doing doing my chores, my doing. But how do I be in those affairs? Do I understand that I get to do those things and I walk with the power of God in all those things? Even the job interview, which I'm not too thrilled about going to, or getting to go to a doctor, which I'm not too thrilled about going to, that I go with the power and I get to do that stuff rather than I gotta do this, I have to do this, which has been made abundantly clear to me that the alternative is drunk under a bridge somewhere, but I get to worship this power, I get to go into silence. I get to go into meditation.

I get to pray, and I get to take that wherever I go. Walking with that. A book talks about spiritual life and spiritual that there becomes spiritual life not only for me, but others who who come into my world, the people I touch through the power of God. And spiritual death for me when I don't, and possibly spiritual death for people who never get an opportunity to work with me, who God had assigned for me. What we get to experience is way beyond our AA meeting.

What I've gotten to experience is way beyond the big book. My big book don't keep me sober. My meetings don't keep me sober, but all these things point me to the power which keeps which does keep me me sober, and I get to do things like this and work with another alcoholic. My 1011 11 practice has revealed many things to me, and I've shared this many times with Mark, and he's given me some guidance on this. One of the things I found was this, how often my my perceptions of what's going on cause me pain and suffering rather than the reality of actually what's happening?

You know why? Because my mind has now gotten in the way. And what this book does, what a lot of the books I work with do, is they are aimed. They go at spirit rather than the thinking mind. They're aimed at spirit in order for me to wake up.

And I get to see an inventory when I wanna know how angry I was, I I experience some love and joy. When I wanna know how greedy I've been, I get to experience giving away what I have. When I wanna see how depressed I was, I experienced God, and I see God in other people. And when I wanna see how attached I was to all the noise in my head and out there, I get to experience some silence. And I see the difference, the dichotomy in how my mind wants me to live and how God is moving me.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Mark. I'm an alcoholic. I get to use the vital 6th sense as discussed in the 10th step because how do you condense a 24 year experience with steps 10, 11, and 15 minutes? I will do my best.

I will do my best. How do you get from a gurney at a detox unit the morning of October 19, 1982 dead to London, England, sitting here with all of you you in fellowship. Well, I can assure you, you don't do it on your power. It seems like my experience with steps 1011 is has 2 distinct periods of time. 1 is my first 10 years sober, and the second is from that point on, the last 14.

Steps 1011 are new language. Language. Completely new language that is not designed to be comprehended nor utilized nor experienced with your mind. It is to be practiced with an awakened spirit. The mind that put me on the gurney almost dead is not the organ I'm going to go into to get well.

The book addresses the issue of I stay sober based on fit spiritual condition. That implies that I awaken to something called called a spiritual condition. What I know about that based on my experience is without doing the work in 1 through 9, that is impossible. I have experience early on in AA reading the words on 10 and 11, not being able to practice any of them. Because I was completely blocked to an awakened spirit which is the organ that I used to work with 1011.

The way that I first experienced fit spiritual condition is I work the first 9 steps which are a launching pad into the spiritual dimension of 10 and 11. Dimension of 1011. Looking at the craving of the body, the obsession of the mind to arrive at the conclusion that I have no mental defense, that I commit the most insane act of my life, stone stone cold sober at certain times, and I don't know what the time looks like. And do I need power? And looking at the unmanageability of my life, my internal condition, my spirituality, my untreated alcoholism which was going on long before a drink and alcohol treated.

1 third of the first 164 pages devoted to that first half experience. Why? Because who in their right mind is gonna do 2 through 12 unless you need power? Spiritual living is not easy. If it was, there'd be 10,000 people here.

We get to decide. You go to the ocean with a thimble. You get a thimble full of water. How much of this you want? I get to take responsibility.

How much do I want? 1st step, experience. Come to believe in a power. Why? Because I need power.

I was brought to the second step somewhere between an atheist and an agnostic but I'm not a fool. I have never struggled with the god issue. Here's why. Because I needed power. The only people I see that ever struggle with the god issue are the ones who somehow must think they have power.

I had none. Therefore it was never a struggle. I just needed a bunch of it. 2nd step, come up with a concept that would work for me. Interesting idea I was introduced.

I will find the inner resource deep down within. Wow. That's a new idea, Isn't it? Come up against my 3rd step. Am I convinced my life friend or my will cannot and will not work?

Yes. Every time through the work, I look at that. Do I meet that requirement? It's a requirement to meet before I make my decision. 3rd step decision about this relationship with this power.

A power I cannot comprehend. I can only experience. What is the relationship? Father and child, employer, employee, director, actor. That relationship look those words up, know what they mean.

Keystone, make a decision to do what? Experience power. That's all it is. 3rd step is nothing more than that. I made that decision.

I said that incredible prayer which in hindsight, I had no idea what I was saying. I had no idea what I was unleashing into the universe. I had no idea that the universe would respond to those words. Think about them. God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and you do with me as you will.

On my own power, I would not be up here this morning. I assure you. Relieve me the bondage of self that I can better do thy will. Take away my difficulties so that victory will bear witness. See that's all I've ever done since I came to the rooms is bear witness of God's power, God's love, and God's way of life, and I will not back down off that.

Power. The program is about power. It's about the power of God to manifest through you to touch the lives of your families, your communities, other alcoholics. It's an amazing thing. And now I'm I'm gonna face and be rid of that which has me blocked from power that I need.

I'm gonna write the 3 inventories. Resem, fear, sex, all the manifestations of self when I'm living a life based on self wealth separated from everybody and everything. By then, the book has introduced me to my problem is and it's not alcohol. It does a real weird thing but it waits till I'm quite a ways into it. It tells me it's been a symptom.

That your trouble is you're selfish and you're self centered. But then it says, but my self will cannot defeat my self will so I'm in this horrible dilemma. That's why I write inventory. I stay clear on where I write inventory. Face to be rid of that which has me blocked from a power I need.

So I write the inventories and I do a 5th step. In the 5th step, I begin to disconnect from ego. Book says I begin to have this spiritual experience. That's important. If in fact, in the 10th step, I'm staying sober only today because I'm in fit spiritual condition.

Somewhere in there somewhere I something has to happen. I start I have to start awaken to this spirit. This divinity that dwells within and without. Step 6 and 7 is where I start to connect with God. Why?

Because a lot of things that it was blocking me got removed in that process of 4, 5, 6, and 7. And I begin to feel the nearness of my creator. I'm walking hand in hand. All those incredible 5th step promises. I make my list and I begin to make amends and if you don't make amends, my experience is you will not experience your oneness with your fellow human brothers and sisters.

See, there's nothing between me and any of you. I've had periods of time in AA where there's a wall, massive wall between me and you. That is not the case as I sit here today. There is nothing. You and I are 1.

You can only add to my life. You cannot take nothing from me. And I begin to make these amends and now I get catapulted into door, if you will, has been opened. I have entered the world of the spirit and you know it. See I quit trying to find God a long time ago.

If God if they if God is closer than breath, how it is impossible to find God? I begin to pursue a series of actions to wake up to that which is closer than breath. To experience god, not to find and not to seek. Some of you know the futility of seeking. Running around here at 97 books and 42 teachers, 96 sponsors.

Sponsors. One day, you just chuck it. You wake up. Oh, no. The 10th and 11th step to me are very distinct steps in terms of how I use them.

This morning, the 11th step is what I do in the morning before I walk out of my house and it is what I do in the evening when I do a written evening review or a review and I do prayer and meditation. The 10 step for me describes a set of tools that I work with the minute my hand hits the door and it's on. See, when I'm at home and I will wake up and I got my cat hobo and Bill. By the way, Bill's worked all the steps. He's a perfect piece and he's he's hobo refuses to write inventory.

So you can imagine the 2 of them every morning. It's very very interesting and amusing. I told Hobo when he gets enough pain, he'll write inventory. But, see, I'm in fit spirit condition in that setting and all is well. And the minute I hit the door, the voice starts.

Traffic. Phones are gonna start ringing. I don't know how I did what I did yesterday, but the world wants me to do it tomorrow. Right? See, Jill said something very important.

Very easy to be spiritually fit at a monastery or in the sanctuary of your home. Try it at Starbucks when you're waiting in a long line. Stuck in traffic. Someone hollering at you. See and then all through the day, the 10 step.

There's 4 paragraphs in this in the 10 step in the big book. I look at them today and they are like an abyss to me. A lifetime of practices. Line of the will. The 10 step for me is line of the will.

I walk out that door and I am aligned. And all the 10 step practices that I get to work with all day long are designed to keep me in alignment. Grow in understanding and effectiveness. Watch, ask, turn, cease. Powerful practices.

I'm driving. I get afraid. I'm off. Line of the will. Remove this fear.

Remind me what you'd have me be. Boom. I'm back. It's a practice. Doesn't happen automatically.

Practice. The way I practice is I write words on 3 by 5 cards and I put them in my car and I put them in my mirror and I put them at my desk. And I'll work with them 3, 6 months at a time. One word. Watch.

For what? Selfishness, dishonest, resentment, and fear. See, I came to steps 1011 to sleep dreaming I'm awake. I think because my eyes are open I'm awake. I'm on autopilot.

Got tired of living with the consequences of being on autopilot. Wake up. Wake up, Mark. Watch yourself. Ask.

What a great spiritual practice. Ask. You can't ask if you're consumed with selfishness, self centeredness because pride blocks. Heaven forbid I ask for directions. Right?

Turn. Turn what? Turn the force away from you. Turn to someone you can help. Didn't have to be an Elkie.

Anywhere. That ego's moving in. It's easy. The ego shows its face. How?

Fear, anxiety, stress. Take your pick. It moves in on you. See it turn. Smile.

Move the force away from you. See? Cease fighting anything or anyone without having done the work particularly in 4 through 9, there's absolutely no way I can practice that. Because in order to practice, cease fighting anything or anyone, you have to be free of judgment. You have to be in complete acceptance with no resistance to the isness of whatever is taking place without having done the work and forth to 9th.

That is impossible because parts of me have an agenda, and I have arrangements that I need met in order to be okay. It goes on and and it talks about I must carry the vision of God's will into all my activities. How can I best serve thee? Thy will not mine be done. These thoughts must go with me constantly and he use this verbiage.

I can exercise my will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will. Think of what the book is telling you at this point in time. The same will that you had to turn over in the second and the third step you now get to practice because it is the proper use of the will. And so I work with that all day long.

See, here's how I look at the 10th step. If you find yourself in the middle street. In your evening review. Get out of the street. That's really what the 10 step does all day long.

All day long. Someone comes in. They talk. I get short with them. I'm off.

Line of the will. Come back. Clean it up. I'm aligned again. All day long.

Practice. Practice. Vital 6th Sense. What does that mean? It means a vital 6th sense.

A sense of intuition. Mark, do this. Call this person. Do this. I've been in sales marketing for years.

You know how I do that? I pray and meditate in the morning and I I asked to be guided with the vital 6th sense about what to do and who to call on that day. And it works. Now you don't wanna tell your employer that's how you're doing your marketing agenda because they'll think you're a little wacko. But you see, that's what the 10 step is.

Incredible practices with so much, depth and so much weight to them. And if I work with them another 30 years, I will barely touch what they can give me, what they can do. Position of neutrality, I discovered is about far more than just alcohol. I could be moved to a position of a retail, of neutrality in many, many areas of my life. I can be at a middle of the road meeting or I can be at a big, at a big book thumper meeting and I'm in a position of neutrality.

Because for me, if anything speaks of separation, it is not of God. It is of ego. Hence, the position of neutrality. It's neither good nor it's bad. It just is.

The is ness. See I created so much of my own suffering through my selfishness and self centeredness because it would drive me to judge. Judge always leads to separation. Does it not? It would drive me to resist that which is.

That is the will of god and I want to resist that and then I wonder why I suffer. And my attachments. Oh. Much suffering through my attachments. My attachments today is the present moment Peter has talked about.

The only reality of my life right here, right now. And when I come back later this afternoon, I will be in a new moment. I will be in a new breath, and I have never been there before and that is incredibly exciting. I I spent most a lot of my life including my sober years doing Groundhog Day which meant repeating it over and over thinking, well, I'm going into the same workplace and I had another whole awakening and realized, Mark, you have you only experience one breath at a time. It's you've never been there before.

Remember one time hearing Chuck Chamberlain who was married to this woman forever saying, every morning when I wake up there's a new woman here. And I thought to myself, he must have done a lot of LSD. I know exactly what he meant because in that moment every morning sitting there looking at her, he had never been there with her before. Do you see how exciting your life is if you could live that? The word boredom would never enter your lips or your mind again.

10th 11th step. What incredible stuff. 11th step for me. I have an area in my home that I discovered over time. I burned incense.

I burned sage. It's where I do my meditation. It takes on its own level of energy. I began a daily meditation life in 1991, and the reason was between my 9th 10th year of sobriety, my mind drove me insane and into a nut house. I just throw that out for your consideration.

For those of you that are avoiding meditation, it is not in the big book. It is not in the big book. It is not in the big book. It is not in the big book. It is not in the big book.

It is not in the big book. It is not in the big book. It is not in the big book. It is not in the big it is not in the big book. And I realized I needed to lose my identification with my mind, and it was through the process of meditation I did that.

I got a timer and I begin to sit 2 times a day. So I've had a daily meditation life now for almost 15 years, and I did lose my identification with my mind. And that was a major major turning point in my in the way I experienced myself. To realize that my computer at home. It's got some software and it silently runs all the time.

And that does not mean I need to pay much attention to it. Matter of fact, a lot of the data that goes through, it it's ridiculous to even print it out. That was a very powerful moment for me because as long as I identified with my mind, I could not be present with you. Then I'm either attached to my story, my past, or I'm concerned about the future which is all about fear. That's how I live most of my life.

So I said in the morning, I like the timer because it imposes discipline. Discipline is the horse I ride. What do you do? Why do you think it's this book says this? I love to go to monasteries.

Those of you who've ever gone to a monastery will notice they will do everything at a set time. And the reason that they do that is is the the men who initially started monasteries realized that these men, primarily they were men and women who loved God, wanted to serve God without discipline failed miserably within the monastery. So they begin to set up certain times to do certain things. And so I model my life after that. Monday through Friday, I get up at 4:30 30 AM, and I spend an hour in prayer and meditation.

And I do it like clockwork. Again, you go to the ocean with a thimble. See, I had to reach a place in in in my program, in my spiritual life where I had to quit talking and telling you how important God was and I had to begin demonstrating how important God was by giving God time. I love to trap people sometimes. They'll say, well, what's the most important relationship in your life?

And they'll say, oh, with God. I say, really? How much time did you give God today? Well, I gotta go, Mark. See, if you wanna know what is the most important relationship in your life, look at how much time you devote to it.

But don't kid yourself. If you're giving God 5 minutes in the morning, you know. Again, you go to the ocean with a thimble, you get a thimble full of water. I'm ill equipped to to live in the world and my experience is I either gotta have a lot of booze or a lot of god. I can't do that in 5 minutes.

I don't do the things I do at 10:11 because I wanna be a neat guy and light. I do it because I'm ill equipped to deal in the world and I mean that. 14, 15 years sober one day sitting outside a grocery store paralyzed with fear to even walk in to buy food. See, I touched how ill equipped I am and how deeply I need to have that conscious contact. I can't do it in 5 minutes.

That's why I believe the big book has all these incredible pages and and things for us to do in 10 and 11. Because I I've never met an alky that isn't the same way. You are ill equipped to deal in the world too. That's all I got for now. Peter, recovered alcoholic.

Mark was talking about, you know, attending a lot of workshops and getting all these sponsors and reading all these books. We can attend workshop after workshop after workshop and feel real good for a few days and don't do anything else. And then we bottom out and look for the next workshop, next spiritual retreat, and we get all jacked up and we come back to home group. I've just been to a tremendous workshop. It's really good.

I feel God. I feel God. And 3 days later, I need a new sponsor. I'm bottling me out again. And I I, you know, work with, like, a truckload of books, put them on the shelf so the the the prospects, when they come over, say, wow, you're a guru.

Look at all the books you read. And I just they're collecting dust. But when I'm buying it, I'm feeling real spiritual for a moment, going to Barnes and Noble, look at the spiritual books I'm buying. I'm somebody. And my whole self worth, all I'd be is wrapped up in a book, or how you think about me, your perceptions of me.

What I'm really doing is seeking seeking happiness in an external condition, in a retreat, in a book, in the approval of others. And what my book what my 11 Step has allowed me to do with an experience with God, is little by slowly have that stuff dissolved. And I learned I learned from reading some of these books and and and sitting with the sponsor and having experiences with God after bottoming out in certain areas of my life that I was seeker, not of not of experience, but I was a seeker of happiness. Whatever that looked like to make me feel happy. Wanted to feel happy with her.

Wanted to feel happy with the new car. I got a new car. I feel so happy right now, and then I get the 1st car payment, and I'm not so happy anymore. You know? Read a new book, I feel happy, and I bought them out with the book, not so happy.

And then what I found out was there's a difference between seeking happiness and experiencing internal peace, which is what Mark just finished talking about. Moving from moment to moment to moment, with not trying to interpret everything that goes on, not trying to judge everything goes on that goes on, but being present, not dependent upon external things to make me feel okay and give me this false sense of self, but being integrated with this power, being having an experience with this power, and moving through all my affairs. And I may feel joy when I see a baby being born. I may feel sadness when I lose a loved one, but I'm in a place of acceptance of what is, and I move. Big difference.

1 is bondage of self, and one is being integrated with this power called God and getting free and being free. And it's not a it doesn't have to be a short lived thing. Like, you'll hear people, I'm I'm feeling really good. I've been doing this work. Things are okay.

Waiting for the shoe to drop, and god doesn't make too hard terms. What am I doing to suit up suit up and show up and continue to seek this power and grow in understanding and effectiveness? How free do we wanna be? We may be here this morning feeling free, but we can get freer. Are you telling me that this is it?

Isn't God greater than that? And all I can do is talk with a gentleman earlier about, you know, we try to share our experiences with this power of God, but the words are an injustice to the experiencing God because they fall short. And the best thing we could offer you I could offer you is have an experience with God yourself, and then your words will fall short, but the experience will be incredible to pass on to others. Our book talks about how we, wanna comprehend and define that power of God. And I thought there was a part of this journey early on that I thought, if I can comprehend and define my god, I must be doing something right.

And I set out to comprehend and define this power of god. And what I did what I did, there was a quick shift into putting god in a box by comprehending and defining my god. I knew my god. He's capable of doing this, which meant I'm coming at god again with my thinking mind, which meant that God isn't capable of doing many other things, and I'm wondering why I'm experiencing fear in certain areas of my life. Great exercise my sponsor had me do is write down where I believe God's working in my life while I'm clean and sober, haven't gotten arrested.

Then I had to write down where I believe God's not working in my life. An ego got in the middle of that and said, we don't put that down because we're a we're a prized pupil. But I got still without judgments to that, and I saw where I didn't believe God was working in my life, and that was the current agnosticism. This God by not knowing this power. You with me?

Once I think I know this power, I do what I did. Comprehend and define, and my god got real small in a hurry. This power just is. And it isn't only in an AA meeting or in a monastery or my house of worship. It's in the back of a hallway where some drunk is dying right now with a bottle.

It's in a treatment center. It's at work. Is that my time? Might they cut me out of here already? Was it?

My practice has evolved. My prayer meditation has evolved. The first time I sat to work with meditation, there was a woman who wasn't a member of AA, but had been working with this for a long time and knew about my interest and helped me. And she put me on a timer. She put me on a 2 minute timer.

And very first time I meditated, 2 minutes felt like I was in there for 25 years. And I was attached to, you know, the thinking minds running wild. I'm trying to get still, and I need to do this, and I need to be there, and I need to do this, and what about before? And if only that would happen later on, it was all over the place. And I was taught when those thing thoughts come, go with them and come back, not to get attached to them, pay attention to breath.

I heard a gentleman gave a great analogy. He said, talk about the sky and the clouds, how we are the sky, which is present, never moves, and the clouds just come and they go. Sky doesn't move, the clouds just come, they go. 2 minutes became 5 minutes, and somewhere in there, there was no timer, and I was meditating little by slowly. And there's a time I'm up in the morning.

I'm an early riser. I'm up in the morning. Something was brought to me early on, brought to me. I woke up one day, literally opening my eyes, and was overwhelmed with gratitude that I'm alive. I'm sober.

I'm not in some jail cell in the back of a hallway. I was overwhelmed with the spirit of gratitude, open, I thank God for another day, lying in bed. And then I go give, eyes open, I thank God for another day, lying in bed, and then I go give time of worship. And I've been shown how to set up a little altar in my home, and it's my private place, and that's where I go to each day. And I've read, I've worked with lots of inspirational books over the years, and we have, like, these these daily meditation books, meditation for men, meditation for women, meditation if you're from Brooklyn, New York.

The book is blank, by the way. There's nothing in it. You know, all these meditation books. And what I got into doing was, I had a stack of books in the morning that I had to read a page of everything, all these little pamphlets. And I would walk away saying, oh, no, I forgot this book.

I have to read a page. Oh, wait. I gotta read a page. That was becoming neurotic, trying to get still and worship God, and I was worshiping the books. And where I am currently is I read when I move to read, and I don't when I'm not, but I always give prayer and meditation, and I've worked with many things.

After I leave that place of meditation and I head out the door in the morning, can I take that with me? Or do I leave it? I was spiritual for a half hour and I'm out the door and I go. And I get in the car, and here comes internal dialogue. It's 7 o'clock in the morning, 8 o'clock in the morning, we're off to work, we're off doing our chores, we just left our place of meditation.

Right? And we're in the car going to wherever we're going, say we're on our way to work, and we've character assassinated everyone in the place. Right? Soon as that person calls, I'm gonna give them a piece of my mind. And when my boss doesn't give me a race today, boy, am I gonna get him.