The Fellowship Of The Spirit conference in Queens, NY

If I start sweating that's not because I'm nervous or anything, it's just because I'm from Iceland that it's cold.

Hi, my name is Peter and I'm an alcoholic.

You know, I was, I was thinking when,

you know, we came here yesterday and this is, I'm not going to try to describe this, you know, because words are insufficient. But I was sitting here last night and,

and I was connecting, I was identifying, I was nodding my head, going around. And I look over and there's this elderly

African American gentleman. He's nodding too. And I look at his name tag. He's from the Bronx, you know, I'm from Iceland. I, I was eight years old when I first saw a black, no, excuse me, African American person, you know, So talk about an internal condition. You know, it's got nothing to do with where you're from or anything. You know, I just wanted to make that point. You know,

I just want to say thank God for alcohol.

It saved my life. If I hadn't discovered the alcohol at the age of 14, I would have killed myself before committed suicide before 20. I'm convinced of that.

Ever since I can remember, I felt like an alien,

restless, irritable and discontent and out of place.

I come from a normal family. There's no alcoholism in my family. I had AI, had a good childhood. Iceland is a good country to grow up in. You know, There's, but still, you know,

that is,

I remember I was

my parents were having a dinner party and

I was beginning to watch people drink alcohol and I saw it do things to them. They were they became happy. They started singing. You know, we have dirty limericks in Iceland with people sing when they get drunk and they hug each other. You know, I didn't, I didn't see them when they were screaming or fighting or crying. You know, maybe it says something about my alcoholism. I don't know,

I just and I went into the kitchen, I poured some different kinds into a large glass, got it down. It,

it was, it was, it was great. It was undescribably wonderful. And

but it stopped working. So that's why I'm here. You know, it's too bad, you know?

You know, you know,

first time I came to the States, I went to New Orleans. Bourbon Street. I'd be there now with alcohol still working.

Now I'm going to qualify myself. We're talking about the first step. I I tell this story at my Home group. You know, it's Friday.

I'm at work. I'm restless, irritable and discontent,

but I make a decision. I am not going to get drunk this weekend. I am not going to drink

and I'm just going to stay home. I'm going to go to the video store, rent some a lot of videos, pull the curtains, lock my doors, just turn off the phone and sit there and watch videos. And I'm not going to drink

good night.

You know, Peter calls them Southern lease or something. That's a great word for it. You know, it's because on my way, you know, talk about on my way to the video store, I,

I'm walking to the video, video left video Susan. I did some other stuff, other stuff than alcohol. And, and I think to myself now, if I, if I get some what we call it goof grass and Iceland doesn't you know, you know, it's never any truffle trouble when I do that stuff, you know, just do that stuff, a lot of it. And I'll just, you know,

I'll enjoy the video better, you know what I mean? It's, it's going to be good, you know, and I, I won't leave the house or anything because whenever I drink, I end up

being places where I don't want to be.

And I, I do this brilliant idea. And as I'm sitting there watching videos,

tooling, I get that feeling, you know, that feeling, there's something missing. I'm just, I'm just not right. I'm on the words of

a couple of

huge couple of tall boys. Beer would fix that. So he run down to the pub because, you know, the coastal liquor store and I end up getting 2 liter bottles. I mean, just since I'm there and you know, I bring that back and I'm just going to sip it, you know, and watch video and, and I come to this is this is before midnight on a Friday.

And I when I come back, I come to in a another part of the city.

It's Sunday noon.

I'm in, in this Parkman. There's this 50 year old woman who has black eyes on both. Both eyes are black and she's hitting on me and her husband is dancing around the apartment in his underwear with a sword dancing on.

And that all started with a trip to the video store. So.

So yeah, you're laughing. So you're identifying you might be alcoholic. You know,

I, they asked me to talk a bit about AA in Iceland. AA and Iceland has changed a lot.

It's when I first came to AI, went to rehab. We have really good rehab hospitals in Iceland. They are really good. They are very professional. Minnesota treatment excellent and I went there in 93

and

they they helped me a lot and the information they gave me was go to a a meetings, get a sponsor and read the big book.

And like I remember on Saturdays at that rehab, they showed a video and it was that TV movie. Many maybe somebody who's seen it. It's I build W it's an excellent movie and I watched it or no, I was identifying and I I cried and Oh, this is AA and I can't wait to get out of here and I'm going to join AA. This is going to be great. And I came to a A and it was absolute crap.

OK, so I spent like

the information that I got was wait two years and get comfortable before you work the stats.

That is information that nearly killed me.

So

ya I still get resentment when someone says that you know? But anyway,

I did that because, you know, there was this one guy doing the steps. This old timer, crusty old guy, he's still there

and all the other guys told me no, you'd be careful of him. He's an extremist. He's

and OK, I just you know, I talked about my feelings, you know,

I, I went to a meeting a day and I, I discussed and I seared my feelings at nauseam. AA is on my 9 step of men's list because I abused it. I came into a meeting and I

swear, and you know,

well when I came back,

you know, I was in and out, in and out, in and out of a A.

But when something happened about six years ago,

couple of guys were in the States, They worked the stats. Somebody brought Joan Charlie over,

you know, I know Lono Club started Big Book sometimes, you know, I was scared of these people were crazy. They were extremists, you know,

They wouldn't even let me share at meetings, you know,

But I, I got to the point where I was so disgusted that

that

I was ready to do anything.

You know,

I lied to get into a halfway house. I told him I'd been sober for 10 days. I drank the night before because I couldn't not drink.

I used to say in a meetings, just because I heard some other

person say it, you know, I choose not to drink today.

And I found there I could not choose. I wanted not to drink. I was prepared to quit. I wanted so desperately not to drink, and I couldn't.

I could not. And I sat there at that halfway house. I smoked cigarettes, didn't talk to anyone. I just sat there in the living room. And I realized if I didn't do it something

I was going to drink again no matter what.

It didn't matter if I was gonna hurt my mom once again, my ex-girlfriend wife, we have a kid together. She she had told me to go ask myself, you know, couple months earlier, you know, I'm sick of you. You're disgusting. And I just, I knew it didn't matter. I was going to go drink again no matter what,

and I went to my munchkin, which which is much still my Home group, and

I'd been there before they were they were scary bunch. You know, they were happy and you know, just,

it felt. I laughed, though, because, you know,

I There was a revelation from the AAA Meetings can be fun really, you know, just

but like

and they were like they were saying different stuff because in the meetings in the back in the old times, I've been told it comes from Al Anon. It's a sign that says something like what you hear, hear, keep it to yourself something like what you hear and see here, keep it to yourself. That was on every a a meeting. If I find those now when I'm speaking somewhere, they

they disappear mystically somehow. I don't know how

and

and these guys came up to me and they said, are you willing to quit drinking? Are you finished? And I found I was ready to do anything. Are you willing to go to any lengths? And I said, yes, I am. You want to work the 12 steps? Yes, please. I want what you have. So you handed me a a prop brush. Start doing cops wash cups. And I did.

I was desperate enough. That's all I it's a simple program. It's not rocket science. Thank God, you know,

you can begin by doing work like that and he took me to the stats rapidly. He just

and about three months later I was sitting, you know, in my halfway house. It was I had my own room by now. I was moving up in the world, you know,

and I and I sat there on the bed and no,

I just, I was snowing a little outside and I just, I had my spiritual awakening.

You know, my friend Arnold, he says about these things like,

OK, I'm probably gonna offend someone out. But he says, you know, people asking newcomers, what's the spiritual experience like, you know, And he says, well, it's like describing an orgasm. If you haven't had one, there's no use in describing it. But but when you had one, you know, you know, you know,

you know, And I just started crying because I realized if I go on doing this, I'm never, ever, ever gonna have to drink again.

How cool is that? So that's why I keep on doing it. And,

and, and things started changing. You know, I was, I was nine days sober when the second conference in Iceland was held with American speakers. I'm sitting there nine days sober

and there's Mickey Boo screaming. You know, I've got to say that tells me I ain't got it. And I said

and everybody was laughing. And it was, it was fun. It was

and,

and, and I, you know, I belong to my men's group. Chris asked me to share about my group.

You know, there are like people in a who don't like big book thumpers and they call us the Talibani in Iceland.

But I looked the word up, it means he who studies. So there you go.

And

we're like, last meeting was about 174 guys. The format is our secretary for six months. I choose very carefully out of the core of the meeting who's going to cheer it. And I, every guy gets instructions and no matter how long he's been in that group, and I tell him you, you share what it was like, what happened, what it's like now in 15 to 20 minutes.

And you know, and then he points

at people he wants to share 5 minutes each and that's it. We ring the bell on them. And if you're talking about your feelings or something, you know, we go, I'll scream, there's the solution. If he still doesn't stop, we go and we just clapping down

and that's not to hurt his feelings. They hurt my feelings in the beginning by doing that,

but it's because we want to honor the 5th tradition.

That's what we do. We have like a line, a tunnel of greeters. You have to shake 15 hands because we can get into our meeting.

We pass you a speaker city.

There's a

you know information on anything you know

you better. Only requirement is if you shear, you shear stuff out of the pic book or

sit down and shut up. Let's say it basically. And there is another thing

there's there comes great responsibility with doing stuff like that

because we don't let them out either. We block the doors, they can't get out. They have to talk to at least four guys. That's what happened to me. So that's why I'm there every Monday, buddy, in a cheer. I'm responsible. I'm there. You know, I've been sober. My anniversary, I'll be two years on the 14th of August. If, if God will allow me, you know, Hey, not yet, you know.

Well, if I do the work, God wants me to be sober. I just have to do certain things. And I've sponsored like 20 guys.

I'm not saying that to, you know, impress you. It's just that's the way A is in Iceland now.

You know, I'm needed in the trenches. Like Chris says, you know, I just have to do it. I have the world's greatest sponsor because he doesn't. He's not the manager of my life. You know, you just go help others, you bum, just

pass it on and

you know, and stick to the winners. I hang out the optimum. I mean, he's the only guy, you know, He does a lot of 12 stuff. Work, consumers work, and I want what he has. So I hang out with him. You know, if I got nothing to do, I'll go over and see him and we end up doing something. You know, we go downtown and look for drugs at the midnight whining meeting or something. I don't know.

I know

you know, we had this, maybe some of you heard it on tape. We had this little 12 step happening thing in last March and and regularly and

I remember Peter saying you guys are so professional. You know, when we were like,

you know, I remember when we started it, we started discussing it and then I prayed some and we prayed some and then we sat down to organize it

and I'll, I'll quote the meeting. It was like,

uh, cheers now cheers are good. Yeah, we gotta get cheers, you know,

coffee, coffee. Yeah, coffee. Coffee is good

and what we did, we got this old, there's this book publisher has a huge storage room and you just move the crap to one side. And we rented 500 cheers off the Boy Scouts and so we could have it free admission. You know, we passed the basket. Arnold sold like millions of cities to fund it and it worked out. I mean, we didn't do it. We had like 4 1/2 years sobriety, the three of us together. A lot of people helped us out.

You know, Chris, he put put off coming here over there for a year. He thought he'd be speaking to

couple of Eskimos and three Penguins maybe.

I mean, he's from Texas. I mean, we all know what they're like. And, uh,

like on Saturday night, we have you can,

I'll get, I'll hook you up. Who you can buy it off Gwen that he has that conventional. I'll show you where it's on the Internet and you can hear it because

there's like, there were 430 people, but we didn't have enough. Cheers was screaming like a rock concert.

Big Book samples, all of them.

You know, I didn't do this.

And then one thing leads to another. I talk to Chris and say we want to come to Fox. Yeah, you buckaroos come on over to New York and, you know, and we met Mike and we started emailing with Mike and he got us hooked up with great couple lives out in New Jersey and we're staying with them. And just

in the beginning I just wanted not to drink.

No, but this is so cool. This is me beyond my wildest dreams. I got my Icelandic big book here. If anyone whatever it just

I'm just so grateful for this because

at last somebody had the guts to not

to respect my feelings that and tell me the truth.

You know, it hurt, but

but it works. No,

you know, my meeting is not a meeting. It's a pep rally.

We scream and we shout and we clap

because this is a gift from God.

It is not my right to share whatever I like in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's a quote, by the way.

Oh, it's just I'm pretty much done. It's great being here.

Absolutely. You know, I'm not going to try to describe it in words, so just.

I want to say hi to all of you and please come and let's chew the fat. And you know, this is overwhelming.