The 9th Fellowship of the Spirit NY in Queens, NY

I hope everybody enjoyed their smokes.

Umm. Without further ado, I'll give you Peter M from New Jersey.

Everybody, I'm Peter. I'm a recovered alcoholic,

grateful be alive and sober, and part of a sacred place called alcoholic synonymous. And First things first, on behalf of Chris and myself, thank this committee.

Sal and Sal sounds like the mob already. I'm in Queens

and Bart for extending this invitation to Chris and myself. My sponsor will be here tomorrow evening. Give a little talk. We have Mitch who's going to give a little talk. And when things like this happen,

very simply, I've shared this a million times from a podium. Your spirit has extended an invitation to ours. And we suit up and show for fun and for free. And we commend shoulder to shoulder upon a common journey. And we follow a few simple rules in a big book. Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank you.

We get to experience this power call God. We get to experience God

and when we first get here, we really need to,

and that for some of us that becomes a chore and we find other ways to do this. But for many of us, we realize that we get to experience God and get to experience the sunlight of the Spirit and we get to experience bliss in Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's a great thing. And we get to pass this message on to those who haven't heard it yet, even though they're making a, a meetings. So you know, your spirit extends an invitation to mine. And we commend shoulder to shoulder upon a common journey, not the fellow

journey, which has a lot of different programs. They don't resemble any kind of program, but there are a lot of different programs and a lot of us are dying or staying sick in Alcoholics Anonymous

because the majority of Alcoholics Anonymous is top heavy and fellowship and a minority who is staying sober, getting recovered and staying free or doing the deal in a big book Alcoholics Anonymous.

And that's why we meet

seeing many of us here tonight and some or some of us here tonight

get to a workshop like this or get to a sponsor's door or get to an AA meeting because what we're looking to do is die.

Now that sounds radical and very radical in a contemporary a, a meeting that I came here to die. But that's exactly what's going on even for some of us here tonight for this little weekend that we're going to do and go through this book, we're looking to die. What we're looking to do is experience the death of self before the actual physical death.

See, we need the less self, the more God. The more God, the less self

and self needs to go little. By solely by going through this work, self will dissolve. And as the manifestations of self start to dissolve, we will be filled up with the Spirit of God. And I will tell you this on the front end of this workshop,

if you haven't found out that this whole deal in Alcoholics Anonymous is about experiencing the glory of God, please do. Because that's what this is about. Nothing less than that great fact. All the all the things we get to do in alcohol synonymous to fellowshipping 1 drunk work with another in service getting recovered through the big book Alcoholics Anonymous

that are all simply pointers to experience God and nothing less than that great fact now contemporary a a will tell me don't come back here Pete. We don't want to talk about God.

They find workshops like this controversial,

going through the book with maybe, you know, a week separated from alcohol. Radical

and bless them.

But when we study our big book and we look at a chapter called A Vision for You or alcoholic #3 we see how Bill and Bob paid a visit on a guy still detoxing in this hospital bed and gave him the deal. And they weren't interested in, hey, Bill D, get 90 and 91st and then we'll talk about your issues, your triggers, right, Right.

They said we got a guy, he was dying of alcoholism. Let's talk about the obsession. Let's talk about how it deteriorates the body. Let's talk about the solution we found. It's called God. And how we got there and the guy still laying in bed. How many of our home groups do that? How many of our meetings do that? How many of us are still on the firing line passing out that and not apologizing for God. Alcoholics Anonymous,

right? So when Chris and I got this invitation, which let's go have some fun

because this is really fun

because we talk about and things like this, we talk about in some of our pockets of enthusiasm about truly waking up. And the question I'll throw out, which is kind of be our theme for the weekend, is

if we're experiencing freedom tonight, do we want to get freer? If we're not experiencing freedom at all, Ego is telling me, oh, you're free, you're free. But I'm attached to everything with a pulse, right?

If you're not experiencing freedom, do you want to? If you're experiencing what Chris talked about, the bondage of self, and that bondage can be anything. Her, him, money, the car, whatever it may be. The external conditions are going to be a remedy for my internal condition called alcoholism and just give me more of it

because that's what I need to breathe. That's what I need to get a sense of self. That's what I need. It's vital to me moving from moment to moment. And that's delusional. And that's what we're going to talk about. We're going to challenge all of that to see how free do we want to be because the freer we get, then we sit down with another drunk and we can pass that on.

See, we talk about alcohol and how we can't transmit something we haven't got right, but we can what we do, and that's sometimes that's untreated alcoholism. We look at a sick prospect. Let's go talk to the sponsor.

Play awesome here to Vegas. The sponsor was into doing too good either because if he would, why would he permit the prospect to behave the way he or she's doing and continue to sponsor them with me.

Just to let you know, God separated me from alcohol June 23rd, 1988. I'm a recovered alcoholic and I say recovered because I am and that's where God has brought me through from bondage yourself to a place called recovered and anything less than that would be falsely humble. Now, in some of our A a meetings saying you're recovered as awfully radical until we open up the big book Alcoholics Anonymous and it says the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism.

We recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of minded body. And once that's removed, we get to get recovered from alcoholism

to selfish and inconsiderate habits. Living all over Page 52, living with page 5062, right? Like a tornado rolling to the lives of others, that stuff gets removed. The sprees get removed. So I'll go to a meeting, say, yeah, I just celebrated, you know, five years sober, and I'm sponsoring 300 guys, and I make coffee at every meeting in Brooklyn and Queens, in Manhattan and Jersey. And I'm a guru,

right?

And when somebody asks how you doing? So I'm doing great because I'm in an A meeting. We're all doing great. I'm great. How you doing great? I'm great. Beautiful things. Great.

Then that guy writes inventory. You know, he was never doing great

because what we what we can experience in Alcoholics Anonymous are sprees,

you know, has my has my current thought life manifested in my own little reality.

And if I'm untreated and my mind is God, it will and it'll resemble it'll manifest in sprees. Even though I'm going to AA meetings, even though I'm sponsoring everyone, even though I'm a chairperson at every meeting, alcoholism doesn't care. And so I need to seek relief somewhere. What I'm really doing is running away from the discomfort that that's overwhelming sitting on my couch all alone trying to watch a ball game. It can't happen. I'll watch the ball game, have the radio smoker Syria get on the phone and write inventory all at the

because I can't be still, I can't be present with breath. It's called little red flags. So these this is untreated alcoholism.

I'm experiencing fear regularly. If I'm experiencing fear, there's a good possibility I'm not experiencing God, because if I was there'd be No Fear. I'm probably moved into a little current agnosticism, which means I'm self reliant, which means my life is unmanageable all over again.

Desperate show up in food sprees, they show up in money sprees, they show up in gambling sprees, they show up in sex sprees, they show up in fear sprees and Angus Breeze. Anything not to, to be present now because it's too painful.

So what we want to talk about is, you know, being an alcoholic synonymous like I was for my first six months, looking like a drunk without a drink in me because being here was too painful without a solution. Lack of power was my dilemma, and I had none with power. No dilemma. Where do I get it? And I'm running from meeting to meeting to meeting. You know that routine. 9:00 meeting, get there, hurry up, share. 12:00 meeting, hurry up, get there. 3:00 meeting, 6:00 meeting, dinner out the door for the 9:00 meeting. I tell everyone at every meeting I'm doing great

until it's between meetings and I'm not. And I was experiencing that with a lot of untreated stuff,

untreated alcoholism, until some really neat people who weren't afraid of disturbing me on a question of alcoholism and were armed with the facts gave me a solution to Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. And I wasn't too thrilled about some of the things I had to come face to face with

in the 12:00 and 12:00. When it says who cast to emit complete defeat in step one, I take that into our big book because it's over and over and over again we see how self is only out to destroy me, how the thinking mind is only out to destroy me. Who cares to emit defeat in those areas when I think my ego insists demands that I'm doing such a good job?

So if renew an alcoholic synonymous tonight, you know when I say new like under a year

and we haven't gone into the steps yet,

but there's that gentle nudging that maybe we ought to that's why you're here see those of you here tonight who are fairly new right and we're kind of on the fence about getting here, but maybe a sponsor of friend said get there, but you got here. That was your spirit getting you here. That's the part that's screaming for recovery all the other stuff she's going to miss me. He's going to miss me. There's a great game on tonight. I hate him from

Brooklyn and I hate this other guy from Jersey,

and so I'm going to go elsewhere, whatever it may be. That was the illness keeping you out of here.

And for those people, if do you want to experience freedom, do you want to experience a sunlight of the Spirit?

For those of us who've been around here a while, do you want to get past where we currently are, no matter how free we are? Why the need to experience power? I come to an AA mean there's certainly a lot of power in AA. Any AA meeting I walk into, I mean, you can feel it. When I was new, I'd walk into an AA meeting and sit next to the old timers, the guy with 30 and 40 years, because I'm hoping that would rub off on me.

And like Chris said, they had these great one liners.

They were worldly in Alcoholics Anonymous. They had a lot of experience. And so I would sit with them and, and, and, and go to the diner with them.

But that wasn't enough anymore.

Coming around to Alcoholics Anonymous

after six months of being in here and hanging around with the old timers and trying to get something. I completely bottom out in here. After six months, almost six months to the day, I'm looking to drink again. I was living in Minnesota. I'm driving down at, it was called Washington Ave. and I'm going to myself. Well, the first bar that comes first corner bar, I'm walking in. Or if Flacco and Paco were dealing over there, I'm going there

because I can't stand this.

Everyone knows Flacco and Paco,

and then I met a gentleman and we began this work.

So we're going to talk about the need for power in here while we're new. And why get power? Why resubmit myself to this work again and again and again?

See. Ego demands. Ego demands that I do none of this. My thinking mind wants no part of this. My thinking mind is a direct contradiction to my spirit. Until my thinking is clear of wrong motives, it will contradict everything spirit tells me. It will fight for its life because it needs to. It needs to breathe. My ego wants no part of this surrender,

and we'll look to acquire things to make it OK. That false sense of self and property, money and prestige acquire things.

We're not going to talk about acquiring anything. What we're going to be talking about over the weekend is getting rid of everything, because it's by subtraction, not addition, that we get to experience the glory of God

and nothing less than that. See, my deal was this. When she goes out with me, I'll feel good.

When I get that new car, I'll feel great. When I get that job and have enough money, I'll feel good. And so at the very beginning, because I had that hole in the soul where you all talk about that emptiness almost all of us have when we come in here, right? So the first thing we do is look to reach out and acquire. I need to get, I want, I need to have. I'm craving things. Give me more

until I get home. I'm sitting on the couch and none of that stuff's surrounded. It's on me again and I go out and I acquire. Some of us become workaholics because of that. Some of us need to go to Sex Anonymous because of that.

Some of us are constantly angry because of that and dealing with frustration and despair in here because I need I need to get

to fill up.

How does that

emptiness get filled by removal? The reason why I the reason why we feel so empty is because we've accumulated so much. A book talks about chapter tennostics, pomp, calamity, and worship of other things. The attachments that stuff in acquiring makes me feel even less full. It's empty, it's never satisfying. It's no nourishment for the soul, ever.

And we get into this attachment and all it brings on is pain and pleasure.

Pleasure when I achieve and back to pain because I need more. All of those strings of attachments need to go. All the belief systems need to go. All the attachments to external conditions need to go. Everything needs to go in order to be filled up with the Spirit of God.

This cup is almost filled with coffee. If I was to pour more coffee in there, it would just overflow. If I was to let that coffee sit for a week or two would get murky. That's my condition. When I got in here,

it was full what a lot of things that weren't good for me. Resentments, fears, belief systems, attachments, all of it. And I thought by acquiring more, this would be a good thing because I would get some relief

and we will experience relief. New relationship, you feel really happy about it, a new possession, a car or something if you're really nice about it. But it doesn't give me the true liberation that we need in Alcoholics Anonymous and that that comes from God.

And So what needed to be done was completely emptied out. That's why a lot of us bail, because in the emptying out, we feel like we're dying because we are. We're experiencing the death of self. And most of us bail. This is too drastic to revolutionary. I don't like how I'm feeling. I feel like I'm dying because we are. And I let every prospect I know who comes to me with that feeling say, well, you are, darn your experience is that the self. And this is a great thing.

This is a wide open channel to experience God in abundance.

And no matter how much we get to experience a heavenly Father says, well, hears more.

Go help my other children. I'm making you get sober. I'm separating from you, from alcohol. You didn't quit, you didn't stop. That implies power, choice of control. And if I have that, I probably should be watching a ball game here instead of being at this meeting tonight, right? But God's infinite mercy separates us and says, here's a solution. Get on with the facts. Experience all my glory and go help others. That's what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous

and when we stop doing that, we have untreated middle of the road contemporary A A meetings and they're an eyesore to Alcoholics Anonymous about the greatness of this fellowship,

the glory of this fellowship, where we get resurrected and reborn in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, if that sounds like foreign language to you, then check your Home group and the meetings you're going to. If you're not seeing that you with me,

I was just telling a friend from Connecticut who's going to be speaking at Chris's group. This is a great group. Chris belongs. I've been there. It's the firing line. I walk in there and I feel like I'm in an A, a mean. There's activity, there's workshops, there's people taking people through the work who are sponsoring other people. My who own group is called the vision for you group. We're at the the the beginning stages of what they are

my group of vision for you group. We want to be like this group or Into Action Group in Berkeley Heights or Jimmy'z group down in Spring Lake where things are happening.

You know, many meetings I've walked into,

meeting starts at 8:30, show up at 8:00.

That's what you hear.

Hi, I'm Peter. How you doing

to maybe? What if I was new?

What if I was new? Nobody greeting at the door. No big books laying around. The shades are buried in a closet somewhere. Leave those things in there,

you know. Umm,

and tonight the meeting is going to start with who has a joy. Oh, sorry, I like to talk about now and the meeting goes off the Cliff,

but we have other places we go to a pockets of enthusiasm and I feel very blessed because I got sent off to Minnesota in 1988 after my seven treatment center and I went into my seven treatment center by being homeless and panhandling and and alcohol was my God.

It owned me King Alcohol and I really, truly deep down in here, even though I made a sincere plea to God, I didn't think I really had a shot at this deal. You know, based on my track record,

I'll go to Minnesota, another treatment center and we'll see what happens. But people out there at a meeting called the three legacies mean they met on a Friday night much bigger than this group here tonight. They look like they were recovered and they talked about the message in a big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. And they told me I was not hopeless

and they presented the 12 steps to me. People got to the podium dressed not like they just committed a felony, right? There were greeters at the door. Looked like they were recovered.

They were in the sunlight of the spirit and they scared the heck out of me. But I wanted what they had to offer because based on where I had been living, this was a new, this was new for me. The people I was hanging around did not dress like this. They didn't talk like this. We certainly didn't talk about God. We didn't talk about hope. And that's what a A was offering at this one particular meeting. And I wanted what they had to offer. And those very same people opened their life to me and they would take me to the diners and even beyond that would take me into their homes.

And I never forget there was a Viking 49 a playoff game going on. And we had this Sunday afternoon a, a kind of house party, right? And they invited me. A gentleman says, come with us, we're going to have this get together. And I watched these folks, these a a sober recovered folks socialize outside of a a with no one watching. And they talked about their challenges with the children and their relationships and work and trying to make more money and job security and insecure, all of it. All the things we we meet out there

and they did it never once talking about a drink. And they did it with dignity. They did it walking with God. Now I know I want, I want what they had to offer. When I saw men, tough men, talking about God and very intimate things, this was new to me.

My shoulders were getting lighter by the day and I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous.

That's the great work we do. And it doesn't come, it doesn't get experience by just coming to an, a, a meeting or we'll find something in that fellowship because it's one side of our triangle. It's one part of our legacy. We'll find excitement in our fellowship. We'll even find some power. But the needed power to sustain, to continue getting recovered is in God. And that comes through working all three sides of the triangle. I can't expect the benefits of all three if I'm just living in one.

For those of us who have been around here a while,

20 years, 15 years. We also have 15 or 20 years of ego start up

and I mean this from the heart, and I know this may sound terribly arrogant but I mean this from the heart. Ego has bit rebuilt itself you see and some of our 152025 year members. It's really difficult to walk into a door like this and hear someone with three years on fire

and to ask for help.

I did a talk out in Minnesota thing called the Gulf of State Roundup, and gentlemen came up to me, which 25 years and he says I'm dying. I'm thinking about killing myself or drinking every day. And this big strappy Midwestern guy was about to weep in front of me. And it was a line of people. And can you help me

with 25 years sober?

It took a whole lot and I recognized for him to extend his hand, say, can you help me? Because ego was 25 years as we did 25 years without any of this. Keep doing what you're doing.

So for those of us who may be here this weekend who are afraid to ask for help, please don't.

Because that sort of thinking kills us.

The main prompt for us centers in the mind, not the body. And we're going to talk about that over the next couple of days. The main problem for people like us centers in the mind, not the body. The solution is not in the mind. The solution is in the spirit awakening of the spirit, where we kind of get a new mind, new perceptions. We experience God, we experience the great fact on page 25. And therefore there's no drinking going on. And we apply that to every other area of our life. But the thinking mind, where the main problem is once you know we'll we'll,

the drinking will be removed. What's the rest of our life look like? Trust me, the thinking mind is a troublemaking machine.

It wants to bring page 52 into my life. And we start to worship our mind. It's a subtle shift when that happens,

my mind said it must be true. OK, let's go. I thought of it.

A great exercise to work with over the weekend

is watch The Thinking Mind. Watch it.

Watch, it

goes my mind again.

I hate this guy.

I don't like the way he's talking about the footstep.

She looks pretty. I think I need more coffee.

Watch the Thinking Mind.

What a thinking mind does this.

If my mom and dad would have gave me what I wanted, I wouldn't be in Alcoholics Anonymous.

He wasn't married to my ex-wife. That's why I'm here.

Past, past, past mine. The mind cannot live in this present moment other than to catch its breath and move forward and back, forward and back. It used the present moment just to get its breath, and then it propels into the future. When they do this, when I do that, when I accomplish this, when I acquire more stuff, when my accidental conditions look better, then I will feel OK. Then I will be doing good. And we bypass this moment to get there. And when we get there, we're looking for the next future moment. Or when we get there, we're regretting the whole past.

Never ever present. That's thinking mind stuff.

It will endorse everything that doesn't resemble someone on a spiritual path. Every type of behavior. That's thinking mind stuff. That's why a book is so clear when it says we're not thinking is cleared of wrong motives. Our thought life is placed on a much higher plane. Wrong motives can change from moment to moment. A wrong motive I have found for me is anything that's taken me away from the sunlight of the spirit. It's usually selfish and inconsiderate. It's usually all about me and stroking my ego. Again,

anything that's taken me away from experience. Moral God is is a is a selfish and inconsiderate habit.

Why? Because if I'm moving away, in a sense from this power,

not physically moving away because we all get to know that God's closer than my own breath, but kind of turning from this power,

how can I be of service to anyone else if it's really all about me? How could I work with a newcomer if it's really all about me? Because I want you to get sober. Not so you get sober. So everyone says I'm his sponsor.

We've all done that one.

My prospect is speaking. He better do great. Why So I look good?

The neat thing about the opposite of all of that and experience God is that we get real present

living as someone I study calls the isness of this moment right now

how this Chris and I were hammering out a couple of things and both of us looked at each other says however God moves us, it'll move us

wherever we go.

You guys are going to determine how we move also,

and God is overlooking the whole thing, say, OK, go in this direction, go in that direction. No attachments to that stuff,

but just present with breath. This is a great way to live.

Having a prayer meditative life,

Have a life with inventory and amends and working with others. Truly being on the firing line with power. No dilemma, lack of power. I have many.

Some of the things we'll talk about over the weekend will be some considerations we'll throw out. And I ask you to do this, don't answer the question from the mind.

Have I experienced in current unmanageability? Mine says no,

it has to right

experientially. That's how we answer experientially. Have I experienced page 52 that that means I got to pause and think about this?

Yeah, I have experientially have I been work with anybody and taking them through to 12 proposals.

Ego says Oh yeah, you sponsored many experientially not in a long time. So I get to see truth, see Ego will bypass all that and give you an answer already has planned to protect right.

I'm very grateful for the people who got to me after my seven treatment center and set me on this path after being six months and you're completely untreated and they disturb me on a question of alcoholism. And I got to meet my first sponsor to a meeting called the Free Spirit Group in Brooklyn. And I work with this gentleman for a long time. And we went through the work once and moved into 1011 and 12. And I was from the school of thought that you go through the 12 steps once and you live in 1011 and 12 forever and you don't ever have to revisit the 1st 9:00. And that worked for a little while.

And then when it happened to me, when I heard people reworking the 1st 9 proposals to further rhythmselves of self, to further smash ego, I would get protective and defensive against them and protective of what I had done. But they're wrong and I'm right.

There was a problem,

and around 13 or 14 years sober, whatever it was, I hit a wall in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was writing tons of inventory, working with lots of guys, going to lots of meetings, doing some of this occasionally, and I put my head on a pillow at night and page 52 is knocking on a door. Fear was becoming a regular visit. And what do I do now? I've gone through the 12 steps. See, that's what I'm talking about earlier. Do we want to get freer? See my belief system that was instilled in me

protecting and defending and domesticated with that. No one around how to remind me of it. Went through the work once. That's all I have to do. Something must be wrong with me. We know that, but what? I didn't find a solution

then. I was listening to some new people

and they talked about reworking the 1st 9 proposals

and after much prayer, Father, I need a new teacher because our sponsors can get untreated and get sick too, and if we're following them, we're going to the ditch with them.

I was awake enough to see that and I made a prayer and my current sponsor was put in my life and there's a prayer. A lot of us work, we call the Lausai prayer to set aside prayer and I was experienced a lot of contempt prior to investigation. That was on the number one on the hit parade.

I would hear that prayer more than Bristol and antagonism. I hated the layer side prayer. Want to know part of it? The people who did it were in a cult. They weren't an alcoholic synonymous

contempt. Prime investigation. I was given people an opinion on a prayer with no experience. Right. So Mark shows up in my life and the first assignment he gives me is the lay aside prayer.

I said, I'm not doing that prayer.

And he explained to me what that prayer was about is are you willing to go to any lengths to get well? I says absolutely. And I said that prayer reluctantly because that was right off the bat one of my any lengths. I love that prayer today. It's a tremendous prayer, and I can say that now from experience.

So we answer our questions with experience experientially. Has it been this way from experientially? Has it looked like that for me, for those of us around here a while? Do we have a prayer life? In a meditative life,

that's a yes or no answer.

And my current on amends, that's a yes or no answer. See Ask an Alcoholic. How's your prayer life? Meditative life? I prayed yesterday.

I didn't get a chance to meditate this morning. Did you ever miss a day drinking? No. So you didn't. You know, what's the deal with that?

So those are some of the things we're going to look to talk about over the weekend. But really the thread that's going to run through This is why we need to have this power when we get in here, experience this power and why to grow with it. Why do we need to acquire more of this power

call God? Why do we need to get freer?

My experience has shown me just coming to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and not rework in the first nine proposals to move me further into 10 and 11

was getting me in a lot of trouble.

Working the first line proposal has been a great thing for me,

so that's all I got. Thanks.