Steps 7, 8 & 9 at the Spiritual Awakenings group in Bernardsville, NJ

And for most of you that have been here over the last couple weeks, know that we have been having a workshop with Chris and Peter M.

Over the several weeks, and they've been kind of trading on and off.

And so I'm going to tonight turn the meeting over to Pete.

How everybody, I'm Peter and Recovered Alcoholic.

And before we get going tonight...

A.A. lost a giant and Alcoholics Anonymous last night, a teacher to many of us, a trailblazer out here carrying this message.

He was one man with a book under Rizam and changed the lives of many.

And he really demonstrated the power of God working in our lives.

And so Howard G. from the Berkeley Heights Interaction Group passed away last night.

And many of us were fortunate enough to be there before and it happened in afterwards.

And someone said it best last night.

Everyone showing up to say goodbye showed up to say thank you for the work he's done.

And a few of us were fortunate to talk to him while he was in the hospital and at home and quite ill.

And yet he was always looking to do service even in his last moments and remind us what we're about.

So on behalf of the group, if we can just take a moment of silence and make prayer and remember Howard for all the great works, God allowed him to do.

If anyone knew Howard well, he's probably up there telling Bill and Bob, we need to talk about this book for a few minutes.

I found a few loopholes.

And when's the next workshop?

I'm Peter and Recovered Alcoholic.

I'm grateful to be back here and alive and sober at a sacred place called Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I thank Chris and the group for allowing me to be here again and participate the last few weeks and over the next few weeks on my experience with this book.

And I've said it so many times during these workshops that I encourage everyone to seek experience.

to have the transformation needed to recover from alcoholism.

We can quickly get into worshipping the mind,

worshiping intellect, worshipping the knowledge that we acquire,

using our mind to recover with,

and we get some beliefs and we get some faith,

and that'll give us some relief,

but the true liberation is in an experience with this power called God.

So I encourage you to seek experience.

Loving God separated me from alcohol, June 23rd, 1988,

recovered alcoholic. I thank the good Lord for that. My home group is called a Vision for You group.

We're in Union, New Jersey, and we meet Thursday nights at 7.30 to 8.45, and we do our best to talk about the solution to alcoholism,

and not be a second column meeting, talk about dramas of life, and walk out more confused than when you walked in.

And like any meeting that talks about a solution to alcoholism, we experience great resistance in our town.

and then some hit a bottom and they come looking for us and take to this work and start sponsoring other people.

So it's an experience. I'm very glad that my God has allowed me to see and to witness and create the fellowship I crave.

We talked about the problem and one, the solution, looking at step two,

where God was going to restore me to wholeness of mind and a decision to get there.

And how do I get there four through nine where I'll experience this power,

the transformation needed to recover from alcoholism.

And I have to write and get to look at resentments and fears and sex inventory and principles,

institutions, all the things that are blocking me from this power to have the experience with God.

And I sit down with a person or persons in five and discuss this and get clearer,

get to see more truth, get to experience more truth in five.

Because if I just wrote inventory and tucked it in a drawer, I may not recover from alcoholism.

So we need to sit with someone and get that force feeding of humility and insight from someone else who's on this path.

And we kind of wake up more and we experience whether it's in five or somewhere between five through nine the fifth step promises.

Where we may have spiritual beliefs, we now begin to have a spiritual experience.

Very important piece of information our book offers to us from belief to experience.

Where I can talk to you, others can talk to you about God from a place of experience, not language of knowledge, not talking about God with the lips without an experience.

But coming at you, this is what my God has done for me, and now I can move you from point A to point B.

And then when we clean up with five, we get to take a look at what's still in the way.

These defects are character, or shortcomings, all manifestations of self, all words that are

interchangeable.

Am I clinging to any of these things that are blocking me from moving on?

Am I still holding on because something's keeping me from moving forward?

Maybe I don't really believe God's everything.

Maybe I need to revisit the first five proposals.

But do I show up to step six?

with a willingness to have God take them all.

A teacher in my life had me read, page 76, where I asked one of the questions,

can he now take them all every one?

And some of us may say, well, he'd probably do it for you, but is he going to do it for me?

And he had me work with that to read this way.

Will you, Father, take them all every one?

Will you please take these things that are blocking me from experiencing you?

I got a little bit clearer with that statement.

Thank you.

My God became even more personal to me, and I showed up as a student to the master saying,

please take this from me because I need to experience all of you.

Will you take this from me?

Another step in, that was the humility I experienced in that step.

So it's really, the 12 and 12 says it's where rubber hits the road in six and seven,

separates the men from the boys, the woman from the girls, to experience this change.

My seven, six and seven step became, if you will, my first step for life.

I got to take a look at this is what's in the way.

This is my current unmanageability.

If I had to bullet, all the things that are in a way of standing between me and experiencing God, this was it.

And step six and seven became my first step for life.

And I had to take a look at these defects of character.

Where did they come from?

All action is born in thought.

These defects are shortcomings come from a thinking mind.

And I would lay awesome here to Vegas and I speak for myself and you can sit with this if it works with you.

The current problems, the current unmanageability I may be experiencing today.

If I rely on mind and do nothing about it, if I revisit in about five years, in a year in six months,

The same problems will be there. I will create the same problems.

It may be different relationships, different people, they may be wearing different hats,

they may be in a different place of living, but the same problems will still show up again.

Because I've never gotten down to the root cause. I've never experienced a transformation.

And too many times in contemporary, you know, we look at the person with 30 years as to think,

well, they must be truly experienced with God.

And some of those people are just as sick as a person with a week in, Alcoholics Anonymous.

And so we use time as a barometer for how spiritually awake we are,

rather than just looking at how spiritually awake we are,

regardless of how long we're in here.

So if we don't have an experience with God, what simply happens, and it happened to me is my mind starts to be my God.

My mind starts to determine what's right and wrong.

I start to rely upon my mind, my thinking mind to make all my decisions for me, and I start recreating new problems.

I start reliving the same old problems in different places with different people, wondering how come I can't get past me.

Well, I showed up for a spirit of willingness in six.

I did my seven-step prayer, but how was my intent in showing up to that work?

Was I really willing to let God take everything without any reservations, no matter where it may land me?

Because lots of times I'm willing to have this spiritual experience, but in my mind I got an idea what I want to look like at the end of it.

And I pay great attention to becoming rather than being present.

Right.

I can see to the end of this room and I can't see any further than that.

I can see the end to the left and end to the right and what's behind me.

And I use that to determine all my actions in life.

I use my thinking mind as far as it can see to make all my decisions.

And my Heavenly Father sees way beyond that.

And I start to worship intellect and I start to worship my mind.

All action is born in thought.

My defects of character come from a thinking mind.

So why do I behave the way I do?

I don't want to be dishonest anymore. I don't want to be dishonest. I need to be more honest. I need to be more honest. And I'm still being dishonest. You know why? How many times do my belief systems justify my dishonesty? I had to take a look at a lot of belief systems. My belief systems will allow me to perform a certain way. My sponsor gave me a great example.

He's a smoker, wants to quit smoking.

Somewhere, his mind tells him what his belief system

that he will not suffer the consequences of long-term smoking,

so he justifies it and keeps smoking.

I'm not going to behave in this way.

I'm going to live up to the sexual goal ideal I prayed for.

And something happens between that prayer and the time we hit the fresh air

where my mind says, but you can do it, it's different.

My belief systems justify inappropriate behavior

and makes it acceptable, and the defects continue to breathe.

And so I showed up to this seven-step prayer really on my knees humbly asking God, can you take this from me?

Will you take this from me?

Whatever it may be.

I was beaten down enough not knowing where I was going to land, but it had to be better than where I stood at that moment.

One of the very first assignments going through this work, my sponsor had giving me was after looking at me in five and getting an idea of what's in the way.

I made a list of defects of character that kept showing up, kept showing up, kept showing up.

Which, by the way, I had to examine how many of these defects were fueled by fear.

For me, if I got all the defects and dropped them into a funnel, you know what would come out on the other end?

One word, fear.

But I listed them anyway.

On one sheet of paper, on the other side of the sheet of paper, I listed what I thought the opposites were.

And I turned back to God to take these from me, and I thanked them for the opposites.

What a clear understanding that this was a simple offering, I was not demanding or petitioning God.

Father, this is what revealed to me, and I offer this to you.

And he's going to do what he needs to do with me, to build me as he sees fit, not as I see fit.

We go back to the third step. Am I willing to live on terms other than my own right here?

Again, it's about more removal.

The work is about removal, subtraction, not addition,

to further remove things in me, the manifestations of self that are killing me

so I can experience more of this God.

The more self, the less God.

The less self, the more God I will experience.

I got to digest and swallow some big chunks of truth about me in five, right?

And when I get to see that, do I still want to be that person?

Or if I've moved to a place where I'm willing to surrender everything to this power.

There's a great piece of information on top of page 76.

It says if we can answer to our satisfaction, not the sponsor satisfaction, not the home groups, my satisfaction.

What do you think? Where are you with this?

Is the question I asked me, which implies a shift in consciousness here.

I've begun to wake up. I've begun to experience some power.

I went through to work. It was the second or third time, and I got to the seven-step prayer.

And I always share this because I experienced the emptying out in order to be made full again.

We need to empty out in order to be filled up with this God's spirit or wake up to it.

And I remember getting my instructions for six and seven and doing my seven-step prayer.

And what came over me was a complete void within it.

I remember feeling like I was vibrating.

I felt like I was back in AA for the very first time.

Like I never made a meeting, never opened up the big book, never sat with a sponsor.

I was as raw as can be.

And I was scared to death.

And I remember moving into meditation.

And I sat in meditation in this feeling.

It was the only thing I can turn back to was, if you're there, I need you right now

because I feel like I'm on shaky ground and there was no thought of drinking.

I just felt...

completely void within you.

I never experienced anything like this before.

And I sit in meditation and what came out of the meditation

with simple words, Father saved me from me

because I will do me and faster than anyone.

And then I called my sponsor.

And what he shared with me was exactly what was going on.

I was being made new as an experience.

Everything was removed and there was nothing left

and was about to be filled up with God again.

But in that removal, I felt like I was dying because I was.

I was experiencing death of self before the physical death, which is what this work does.

We experience the death of self and it feels like we're done and it's exactly what's happening to me.

Everything was being removed.

And for some of us, it's incredibly uncomfortable.

For some of us, it's painful.

But we walked through the archway free, and that's what I got to experience, not knowing what was going on at the moment, but my intent was, Father, if you're out there, remove these things from me, and they were getting removed. They were going to get removed. Because if I don't turn to this power to deal with these defects, believe me, they will deal with me. And so God removed them.

Now I can rest on my laurels here after my seventh step prayer and maybe make a couple of amends and kick back and say,

I feel good and get attached to the second half for the first step that my life was manageable,

start worshiping my emotions, start worshipping my feelings, everything seems to be okay, all my ducks in a row,

and I feel great and not go out and continue to make amends.

Believe me, the defects will breathe again.

And I go back to what I was saying earlier.

Am I having a transformation?

Am I having a spiritual revolution?

Am I experiencing this power?

Because if not, I will recreate the problems again.

In a relationship, the relationship ends.

I get into the next relationship, and the same stuff happens again.

It's her fault.

I go into another relationship.

It happens again.

I met the wrong woman.

Get into another relationship.

It's really her fault.

Is it possible?

I'm bringing the same stuff to every relationship?

regardless of their behavior, is it possible?

I'm still not free of the wreckage of my past.

Is it possible the defects are just changing seats on the Titanic?

And I say it looks pretty smooth sailing to me, and then they start to breathe.

And as long as I'm using my thinking mind, this is what has happened to me over and over and over again.

My defects live and breathe there, and then they justify the inappropriate behavior because of belief systems that I walk with.

And every time I've gone through this work, I've experienced new belief systems that it wasn't even aware of, unconscious, sound asleep too,

and go through this work and get completely turned upside down, and what I'm left with is new belief systems and defects of character that have changed seats on a Titanic.

I've shared this so many times. My current insanity is always listening to my mind. My mindset, it must be true, so let's go.

Am I really clear of my thought life being placed on a much higher plane today? Maybe not. Maybe I need to seek counsel.

My seven step prayer says when ready.

Am I truly ready to have God remove these things?

Root and branch.

A lot of our contemporary AA talks about the dramas of life

and what to do to trim the branches.

Prune the branches a little bit.

You know, let's work on this defect,

not looking at the root cause of the defect.

Let's feel good.

Let's leave here feeling good.

Never really getting in there and ripping out root and branch.

The whole thing has to be pulled out.

And our contemporary meetings are about trimming the branches, trimming the branches.

They're like weeds. They grow back and we're wondering how come it's always on me.

Am I truly ready to have God remove everything from me no matter where I land?

My mind demands, my mind demands that I pay attention to where I'm going.

My mind demands I pay attention to what I'm going to become.

Rather than doing that, let me be present with God wherever I get moved.

Am I willing to do that?

Rubber hits the road.

Right.

My sponsor told me going through the work with him the first time.

Are you ready to have your life turned completely upside down?

And I thought he did a new sponsor and he needed to go to work.

And that's exactly what happened.

And many times I felt like I was dying through the work because I was.

And we shed this stuff.

And we get reborn. We recreate our life.

We can continually do that.

When ready, we say something like this, my creator,

I am now willing right now that you should have all of me good and bad.

We offer stuff to this power.

That's what I did.

But getting real clear is I'm not telling God, you take this and leave that.

We're offering up everything.

It's kind of like parallels our third step prayer.

We're offering everything.

God will determine what's right for me and what needs to be changed, what needs to be tweaked.

I just offer in a state of, in a place of humility, Father, I'm offering everything to you once again.

And you build with me as you see fit, not as I see fit.

For some of us, that's what an order. I can't go through with it.

Because we're so attached to who we think we'd be at that moment.

And I had to take a look at my sponsor, had me work with when ready.

Am I ready?

Am I truly ready with pure intent to have everything removed?

And I says, he better remove them.

It says, I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in a way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.

Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Amen.

We have then completed step seven.

And the seven step prayer has very little to do with me.

It has a whole lot in this prayer about being of maximum service to God and people around us to go out, strength to do his bidding, go out and clean up the wreckage of our past.

Willing an eight, go make amends a nine, enter the world of the spirit in ten,

and continually seek this power to grow in understanding and effectiveness.

My book uses words like next, vigorous, commence now at once,

never telling me you did enough work, you can take it easy for a while,

you can rest on your laurels.

You can replay an old spiritual experience for the next 10 years, not to worry about it.

My book is always moving me, always moving me, and we get to step eight and tells me,

now we need more action without which we find our faith, without works, is dead,

and I can claim faith with you, to you, with my lips, with my words, but what do my actions say?

Because if my actions aren't carrying the vision of God's will into all my activities, trust me,

faith is dead indeed.

What I'm doing is what we hear a lot of in AA is lip service.

So my life is like an open book, and God has allowed me to do that and allowed me to share with you.

I invite you into my life.

It says we have a list of all persons we have harmed into whom we were willing to make amends.

We made it when we took inventory, and that was from our fourth step.

We got to look at the harm's cause, and we create this list in step eight, right?

But knowing that the list that I'm currently looking at,

is not the beginning and end of it all, that more will be revealed.

And as I access more power, as I get more integrated with God, as I start to wake up, more

will be revealed.

And that list may get increased.

Not to go into the list, well, there's 100 names here, and that's the beginning and end

of all, and I'm done.

Because many, many times going through the work, as I started to clean up the wreckage

of my past, more names came up.

And back to praying for willingness to go make amends.

What was I clear on?

What was my harm to this person?

constantly getting moved.

It says we've subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal step four.

Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past.

We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort

to live life on self-will and run to show ourselves.

If we haven't the will to do this, we ask until it comes, and that's a prayer of willingness,

which I've been working with for almost as long as I'm sober,

turn into God for the willingness to continue to do this work.

Then they bring us right back to the first step again.

It says, remember it was agreed at the beginning.

We would go to any lens for victory over alcohol.

They bring us right back to where we started this whole deal, right back to the first step.

So I created this list the first time going through this work,

and I will tell you, I made direct approaches, over 200 direct approaches the first time going through the work.

I had this really large list of people I had caused harm to.

And I prayed for the willingness to go see these people.

Because I knew without making amends, without a spirit and a willingness given to me by my God,

I was going to pick up a drink again.

My track record proved that.

And I wasn't about to play games with something so vital.

And I prayed to this list for the willingness to go out and make amends to these people.

And little by slowly, I started to make approaches and make appointments and see people on the street.

And the willingness was given to me and the courage, strengthened the direction to go see these people was given to me.

I'll share with you what happened to me not too long ago.

The importance of being awake, the importance of paying attention from moment to moment to moment.

First time I went through the work, there was a gentleman on the list who worked at a treatment center.

I went through seven times.

Somewhere in that stay, I decided to go over the wall and ran away.

And we were on away from the facility to this gymnasium.

which was a trip in itself.

If you could imagine about 10 drunks, 10 junkies,

and about 20 crackheads trying to get a game of basketball together.

It didn't look good.

So we're on away to the gymnasium and I get the brainstorm.

I'm going over the wall and I start taking this 100-yard dash to Sunrise Highway.

And this guy who I found out as a long-distance runner anyway is giving chase.

And he's pleading with me not to leave and he catches me at the end right before I'm ready to go.

And he pleads with me, Peter, don't leave.

We can help you. Don't go.

And I cursed him, cursed him, cursed the hospital, cursed everyone, and over the wall I went, and got onto Long Island Railroad, and was back to my shenanigans again and living a life of hell.

And so I go through this work and this guy, I'll call him, Bill was on my list and I need to go see Bill to make amends.

Because when I went back to treatment after hitting another bottom, they told me, you know, Bill got an awful lot of trouble for what you did.

His supervisors really gave it to him that one of his clients left, one of his patients left.

And that's not supposed to happen.

So when the men's was owed, and I called the hospital, they told me he didn't work there anymore.

We can't locate him.

We don't know where he is.

I left messages.

I wrote letters, and nothing came about.

And I just continue to pray.

When the timing is right, God, you put this person in my path.

With amends timing is critical.

I have no right to go out and make amends to you because I want to get an amends notch on my belt

and may cause more harm and going to make amends so I can go back to my home group and say that I made my amends

and harm 20 people on the way there.

The timing is critical.

The timing is God's timing.

And I need to pay attention to that.

And if you speak to people who are current with amends and making amends, they will tell you the same thing.

This is God's timing.

And I kept praying, Father, you show me when for the willingness.

I got a job in the treatment center business, and one day I had to go pay a visit on this treatment center.

And I wind up getting there through circumstances about two hours earlier than my appointment.

And my mind said...

Well, let's go for lunch, have a cup of coffee, and then we'll go back, and we'll go in for our appointment and make presentation.

And Spirit said, go in now, and I don't know why, but I paid attention to that, and I went in now.

And as I'm getting out of the truck, I grab my duffel bag with all my papers, and I start to walk in, and who's walking out of the building is this guy will call Bill.

If I had gone to the diner, I would have missed that.

But Spirit connected the dots again.

And so I went up to him, and he knew immediately who I was.

And I made my amends to this guy.

And he was really happy that I was on this path.

And we got to talk and I was able to put closure on that stuff.

If I was sound asleep, that would have never happened.

We can make amends.

We can have our list.

We've heard people talk about having them on index cards.

We can have them on a sheet of paper.

We can work right off our fourth step.

I've heard many different things, and I've tried many different approaches.

But I will tell you experientially, when I'm sitting down with someone,

they don't care what I show up with except the amends in the intent of what I'm trying to do.

They don't care if my amends is written on an index card or not.

My job is to repair the damage done out of my effort to live life on self-will.

and your faults are not discussed.

And so I would show up to someone and get clear,

be clear on the harms I've caused and sit with them.

And if there was financial restitution,

I had to be prepared to do that also

and arrange the best deal I could.

And that wasn't always on my terms either.

And I was instructed to tell these people,

ask these people,

there's anything I've missed that, you need to tell me.

I don't show up and say,

here's what I did, have a nice life, see you.

Anything you need to tell me and then I'd be quiet and listen.

And I don't say, well, if you would have done that, I wouldn't have done this.

My job is to listen because maybe I'm not completely clear.

I need to hear what they're saying.

And in that, in that spirit, I give that person the respect that they do.

Because what we do is we rip people off.

Not only with materialistic things, we rip people off emotionally.

And I suit up and show up to clear this up.

And in listening, and if they have anything to tell me, just in the amends alone,

I give them back the respect that I ripped off from them.

If you can see that kind of happening.

Not showing up when I was supposed to.

Talking when I should have been silent, silent when I should have been talking,

completely irresponsible, ripping people off emotionally.

With my family, the money they didn't care about.

They cared more about me.

But the harmful things, the real hurtful things, the deep rooted things

was the emotional things I did to them, the ripping them off emotionally.

causing them pain and suffering that way.

And I had to get really clear that years of living with an alcoholic

will make any wife or child neurotic to hold families to some extent ill.

So I will never buy into contemporary AA when they tell you,

or you'll hear share from the floor,

I'm not drinking, that's amends enough.

My book is really clear.

We feel a man is unthinking when he says sobriety is enough.

That's arrogant and selfish.

That's untreated.

That's living sound asleep.

We get this precious gift, we wake up, and now we go back.

We go back.

The other thing I like to challenge is how many times we'll hear an Alcoholics Anonymous.

Well, I've annoyed more people than I've harmed.

And my comment to them is go back and ask the people you think you annoyed if you annoyed them or you harm them.

They're on the list something needs to be done.

And God will give me whatever is needed to go there and make amends.

And God will also instruct me in going may cause more harm in going there.

I have no right to save my skin at someone else's expense.

And there were a handful of amends I had to deal with like that.

We're going to knock on someone's door

was going to cause a whole lot more harm.

She was married with children that need to bring up that affair.

I worked on the waterfront for about 23 years.

I was a long showman.

And there were a lot of things that I did that weren't legal.

And if I showed up to my employer and says,

hey, this is what I did, I may implicate

a whole bunch of people who would lose their livelihood because of me.

I had no right to do that unless I consent with each person first and they say,

go. But if they don't, I can't. And that's what happened to me.

It would cause tremendous harm. These people would be unemployed and their families would suffer

because I had to go to my employer and say, hey, I ripped you off. So what do I do with that?

Well, God always provides, doesn't he? And he allowed me to become a really good worker

He allowed me not to steal anymore, to give time even when I wasn't paid for it, to stay to the foreman said it's time to go home and not when I thought it was time to go home.

I became a really good worker.

And as I started to walk this walk, people started to come out of the woodwork and say, hey, I have a nephew, I have a son, I have a daughter, I have this, I have that, a relative who needs help with drugs or alcohol.

Can you help me?

And I realized what my purpose was the last two or three years working on the waterfront.

It was that, simply that after I cleaned up the men's with all of those people,

now my purpose was to serve God and be of service to these men who had relatives who needed our help.

This was a great thing I experienced because I was the last person they would turn to at one point.

There were many, many truck drivers I ripped off.

I came in contact with just hundreds of truck drivers working on the waterfront.

And I would stand outside this little diner where we all used to go for breakfast.

And I would see them come out and ask them for their time, and one after the other, make amends, financial restitution and amends.

And a few times on my mind said, don't do it.

It's too embarrassing.

You're going to lose the reputation as our book talks about.

We may lose our reputation.

You know, my sponsor told me, who created the reputation?

Me.

You can lose it.

And I thought about that many times.

This was some of my any lengths.

There was one gentleman.

I've always shared this story.

A giant of a man could have crushed me with his hands.

I spoke horribly to him.

I tried to humiliate him in front of about 50 other workers.

I was trying to rip the guy off, and he wasn't too happy about it.

And I verbally abused the guy, and he just walked away.

And I had to make amends. I didn't see this man for a long time. And then one day he showed up and you could hear him talking two blocks away. Big, strong, loud guy. And there he is. And my mind said, don't do this. There's too many people around. Ego was getting a little breath. Pride and ego. Fear. I prayed and I showed up to this guy. And I began my approach and he gave me this big bear hug. And he said something like, your dad is so proud of you.