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

Okay,

we're we're going to start moving into step one now, I believe. I think it's a good place to start.

I want to start off. I want to. I want to start off with a little story.

This drug comes walking into a bar

and I mean, he's really, he's really toasted and he goes up to the Bart's and he goes, bartender,

give me a whiskey. I'll tell you what, Buy everybody in the bar a drink, go all the way down a bar and come all the way back. Bartender goes all the way down a bar, comes all the way back and then he goes and bartender by by yourself a whiskey too. Buy yourself a drink too. Bartender makes himself a drink, drinks it down, goes over the cash register, rings it up, comes back and says that'll be 8250.

Drunk goes well, I'm a little, I'm a little light today. I'll catch up with you later next week

Barton their flips out jumps over the bar beats the crap out of the guy throws him out throws him out the front door. All right now the next night, you know everybody's back at that same bar and in walks this same drunk okay walks up to the bartender goes bartender, give me a whiskey. Tell you what buy everybody in a bar drink go all the way down come all the way back. Then he looks at the bartender united and he goes.

None for you though. You get nasty when you drink,

and I tell that story

to kind of emphasize how the alcoholic really doesn't see the truth from the faults, OK? We just don't see the truth from the faults.

We need help sometimes. I will tell you this though, I believe that every once in a while, the clouds of delusion part just long enough for us to get a kind of a glimpse of how much trouble we're in as far as as far as alcohol is concerned. Every once in a while, but for the most part, almost invariably, we're in way more trouble than we think we are.

Whenever I start working with somebody, I try to tell them that you know, if you have,

if you've, if you're a relapser or you just walk through the doors and you haven't gotten through the steps, you're not at the other side of the steps of the immense. And you're, you do not have an awakened spirit. You're in way more trouble than you think you could. You could have 10 years in AA and not have gone through the steps. And I will tell you this, you're in more trouble than you think you are. Alcoholism, the illness alcoholism is cunning, baffling and powerful

and inherent in the illness alcoholism is an almost utter inability to

perceive the truth about. How about the nature of your alcoholism and powerlessness and the seriousness of, you know, your, your malady, your problem. Now we're going to start a little bit on step one. I want to talk just for a few minutes and then turn it over to Peter, but I want to talk a few minutes about

my own truth about alcoholism. I, I truly believe when I'm working with somebody

with the book over at my house and we're going through it, I really try to allow the individual I'm working with to find their own truth as far as their alcoholism. Every once in a while we find out that the person that I'm working with is not an alcoholic. That's not unusual. It's happened three times for me that we've we've gotten to the other side of the considerations for step one and found out that the individual one, one time was a crack addict,

one time was a heavy drinker and one time was just a nut looking for a place to land. You know what I mean? That'll happen every once in a while. And I said Alcoholics Anonymous. I know it looks inviting to you, but it's, it's really you, you, it's, you know, it's not your seat, you know, go to go, go, go to the flight deck somewhere. They've got meetings. But anyway,

I think it's important for each of us to come to terms with our own powerlessness, our own alcoholism. And here here's kind of how I do it

in my head.

I let's consider the obsession of the mind. All right, I talked to you about buying the gallon of vodka and putting it into my body so it would improve my sobriety. Okay, It's a beautiful example of the obsession in the mind. Alcohol doesn't care what it has to convince you of to to alcohol to alcohol is going back into your body and

you know the ego again likes to likes to take credit for not only not drinking, but the Eagle likes to take credit for drinking. The ego likes to think it's in charge. I'm telling you, if you haven't gotten to the other side of the steps, you're not consistent with meetings, you're not working with others and you don't have a vital relationship with God going on, you may not have a choice. You may not even be there when you drink. It may, it may be a decision that comes from the

comes from the insanity. It talks in our book about banging on the bar, asking ourselves how the hell did this happen? Again, It talks about suddenly, suddenly the thought crossed my mind that I can put vodka in a little bit of milk and everything will be fine. It's not a big deal. I just got out of the lunatic asylum for drinking. But you know, this isn't going to hurt me none. And here's how or however the Big Book puts it. You know,

love some of the Big Book terminology anyway. I mean, you know,

put vodka in milk while you're having your sandwich. That's not a decision that comes from a place of sanity. So

all I need to do, all I need to do is look at buying that gallon of vodka to improve my sobriety and I'm all in, OK, I'm all in. I know the obsession of the mind is going to happen, can happen to me. I know I'm susceptible to it. I know that I need to embrace God with everything I have and practice a recovery program and do the do the work in Alcoholics Anonymous. Participate. My part is participation. God's part is the the the placing me in the position of neutrality,

offering me protection from from the first train. Now the second part of of of step one, the way I like to look at it in my own personal experiences, once alcohols in my body, I have little or no control over the amount I take. All right, that's pretty easy for me. I mean, once I start drinking, I'm committed. If you, if you ask me, you know, you, you want to, you want to come out drinking tonight. I have, I have to think about what's going on tomorrow that I'm going to miss

because I know it's, I know I'm in it. You know, I'm, I'm going down that road. I don't, I don't have 5 drinks and say, oh, I'm starting to feel it. I think. I think I got to go home to the little wifey, you know, I mean, Oh no, you know what I say, let's go to the city. That's what I said. Come on, what's the matter with you? You're going home.

It's a man who you let's go because I'm caught up. I'm caught up. I'm I'm drinking now I'm caught up. I'm going for the ride. I have to be I have to be rendered unconscious by the alcohol. All right, either arrested. I've I've quit, you know, in the middle of the deal by being arrested. But most of the time I'm tongue chewing, knee walking, not able to operate my own pants. Zipper drunk. You ever you ever that drunk?

You know, like 15 minutes in front of the urinal guys like

that's drunk. I gotta tell you. Well, that's what happened to me every single time. OK, and I'm not going to get into after the dash because there's after the dash deserves more than just a few minutes. But that's that's how I keep very crystal clear

the concession to my innermost self that I'm an alcoholic with a mind that's going to trick me back into drinking and a body that's going to ensure I continue drinking. That's Custers last stand and there's more Indians coming over to hell. You don't walk out of step one happy,

you walk out of step one going. I gotta do the whole 12 steps.

That's how you come out of step one. At least that's how I did. Peter, come on up.

Peter recovered alcoholic.

A couple of things to consider as we move through this work and look at step one,

what kept me drinking against my own will for so long

when everything inside of me said you need to stop, I need to stop. I'm losing everything. I need to stop. But I had a mind that takes me back to that which is killing me over and over and over again. That's an alcoholic mind. And we'll experience that in sobriety, too, with the sprees I was talking about earlier taking me back to that which is going to kill me.

What was going on within me when I would look at my dad right in the eye after getting out of jail because of drinking and doing some other things. And I would say, Dad, I swear to you, I'm never going to do this again.

And then I leave the kitchen, hit the fresh air and suddenly showed up and I was over. Suddenly that they'll cross my mind that Mister Boston BlackBerry Brandy would make that 3 days in jail go away and then I'll get sober.

Getting out of treatment center after treatment center

and swearing off alcohol forever. I'm never going to go back to that again. That detox was horrific. I've harmed too many people, had that little moment of clarity, and then get out of treatment, get out of another detox, take a breath of fresh air and suddenly shows up again

when our book talks about our lives had become unmanageable. Well, the lifestyle is certainly unmanageable. You can see that

the condition of our life, not going to work, showing up to work drunk, not paying bills, looking like a drunk, all of it. I mean, that's pretty obvious. But it goes beyond that in step one with unmanageability. What I just described a moment ago is that having a powerful desire to stop drinking as if absolutely no avail. This is real unmanageability. This is lack of power, choice and control. And then step on those words are interchangeable, like a power choice of control.

That's real unmanageability. When I really don't want to drink anymore, when I'm going to treatment center a hospital and tell the counselor, the doctor, I'm going to stop, I really don't want this anymore. And then suddenly shows up the obsession in the mind and I'm back doing it again.

The love of children, the love of a spouse, my job, money, reputation. I know it's all going to be lost

and then suddenly says, well, maybe not

don't worry about it or the consequences don't show up at all. And we experience a strange mental blank spot this and we go drink and destroy our lives again. And not only our lives now we're inflicting pain on people who are with us. Our book talks about years of living with alcoholic make any wife or child neurotic. The whole families to some extent deal with directly of hurting people who come in contact with us because of alcoholism.

So it I get the strange mental blank spot where there's no thought of a drink at all and I'm drunk again. Same thing currently in Alcoholics Anonymous. We get strange mental blank spots in a a sober the sprees. I'm never going to go on that sex spree again, ever. If I ever get caught, I'm in a lot of trouble

and we're in it again. How did this happen? I thought I wasn't going to do this. I'm in it again. I need to get out of here. Or the money spree. If she ever finds out I'm gambling she ever finds out I'm spending money like this, or if you ever find, Oh my God, I'm never going to do this again, make an oath, never spending my life in Marine again. And it goes on and on and on. That's real lack of power, choice of control when everything at stake is on the table

and I cast it aside for the foolish idea that I can have one more drink.

See what I had to get real clear on, and I got it. How to get this through experience is that the most powerful desire to stop drinking will not get me sober. It may work for a little bit of time, like coming into an AA meeting, maybe get me into a detox, maybe asking someone for help. But little by slowly, that powerful desire isn't so powerful anymore, or just gives way to the idea of drinking. That's how powerful alcoholism is, coming from a thinking mind. All because of the spiritual malady

we emitted a palace over alcohol life is unmanageable.

When I got to that place that was a spiritual event. The book talks about this is the first step in recovery when we concede to our innermost self deep down in here, we all get those moments of that concession where hey, I'm a drunk, I'm in serious trouble. That's a spiritual thing. When that happens spirits finally we can hear it. But even that alone is not to sustain get me through a place to a place called recovered. It may bring us to help and a lot of our contemporary a is is based around I have a powerful desire. I have a

stop drinking, get to a meeting. I'm done.

So we're making 30 meetings a week and still completely untreated.

What our book does in step one is talks about how circumstances make us willing. And for me, it wasn't till the circumstances made me very willing to go to any lens was I willing to listen to any teachers.

Everything up until that point, my mind was still running the show saying we can drink a little different, we can try it a little different way, we'll only drink on the weekends, we'll date different people, on and on and on to keep the drunk going.

My mind will take me back to that which is killing me. And once the drink goes in me, the phenomena called craving goes and it stops when it wants to body, mind and spirit.

When I had the spiritual revolution, I'm given a new mind, new perceptions, a new thought life, and that's not telling me to drink. So therefore, I'm not drinking. And I experience getting recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. Now, some of our meetings will talk about just don't drink and go to meetings, right? You know, put the plug in a jug. And the people who can stay sober on them, there's a good possibility, or let me put it this way, is it possible that they're not real Alcoholics

who have the power, choice and control to stop when they want to? And for the real alcoholic, that's a death sentence. What our book does over and over and over again is gives us some considerations and separates us from the pack. The 41st 43 pages in our book, Step one, you'll see how they separate us.

Real Alcoholics. Alcoholics of all type. In that class, They separate us.

Page 20 and 21 talks about the moderate drinker, the hard drinker.

What about us? The real alcoholic is a separate separation. Over and over and over again. They put us into this one little place,

no power, choice or control. And so I answer those questions from a place of experience, experientially. Did I have power, choice and control over the first drink?

When I wanted to stop, could I stay stop for good and all, or would suddenly show up and I go drink again? And while I was drinking, did I have little control of the amount that was taking? Well, Chris, let's go out. I'm only going to have two, and then I'm going to go home to the wife, right? I got work tomorrow morning. Usually they're pulling me out of some alleyway, right?

Or still at the bar in the back of a hallway or car crash because I couldn't stop even though I wanted to and I had sufficient reason to stop.

How do I answer those questions?

We'll listen to a lot of our messages in Alcoholics Anonymous having to do with step one,

which is rarely discussed.

You have a desire to stop shrinking? Welcome, put the plug in a jug, we're done with you. Have a desire to stop drinking? Put the plug in a jug. Done with you. I'm sponsoring 2 guys and they're doing great

and I was brought up on some of those belief systems in Alcoholics Anonymous and wondering after six months I was loony it and the day I came in

but some was awake. Who's on what? The facts will challenge every belief system will challenge AA belief systems and what we quickly wake up to is this. What we think is true is true until we find out it no longer isn't.

And that's disturbing. When that stuff happens

and Chris said it, great. You mean I have to do all 12. And for some of us, what gets in the way is the way, well, here's a solution. God gives us these 12 steps. I got a crew that called Alcoholics. I got to come up with something for these people because they are just driving me nuts. Oh, I know I'll invent Alcoholics and I'm just giving 12 steps and let them think that they're doing it themselves.

So he gives us 12 steps and we have a solution that works. And for many of us, look at it like I have to do all this and what simply gets in the way is the way to freedom. And we bow in the 3rd edition of the Big Book, and I'm working out of a third edition. In Doctor's opinion,

it says we believe in so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic Alcoholics, not the hard drinker, is a manifestation of analogy. It shows up in this abnormal reaction to alcohol,

allergy to alcohol, man, we can't. You know, if you break a leg and go to the hospital, they put you on an X-ray machine. They get the X-ray, say there's the brake located it.

We get wheeled in on a drunk, they say he's drunk but him dry out. There's no allergy in the X-ray machine,

but we see it all the time, this abnormal reaction to alcohol. Now most moderate and hard drinkers get really sick and go on the wagon for good and all, or regulate and control their drinking. With people like us, we have a mind that takes us back to that which is killing us over and over and over again. And unless we can experience our doctor's opinion says an entire psychic change, which for me, I interpret that as an entire psychic. Psychic change means a spiritual revolution, a spiritual experience by going through the 12 steps, not a handful of

and sort of making prayer, maybe a little meditation, kind of working with a few people. That doesn't bring me an entire psychic change. That's a half measure.

That's called untreated

doctor's opinion. He says he uses the words

plan of recovery described in this book. Plan of recovery described in this book.

I get the flu. I go to a doctor because I feel horrible and he gives me a plan of recovery and I follow it because I can't take having the flu anymore. Throat stuffiness, body ache, can't sleep, all of it. So I take the medicine as prescribed. I listen to what the doctor tells me. I don't tweak with it.

I don't have to do all of that

in Alcoholics Anonymous. We do that all the time.

We have an illness that wants me dead. We'll settle for me drunk. When it comes to a plan of recovery, we figured out how to do it. So we're using this sick mind to taking me back to a drink anyway to figure out how to get me better. The inmates are running the asylum in my little world,

and I worship all of them.

But my book says we believe in so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol in these chronic Alcoholics is a manifestation of analogy, that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average tempered drinker. It's the first question to consider if I'm not sure of my truth.

Did I experience the phenomenon of craving whenever I drank alcohol? Experientially, it's a yes or no answer. If it comes up with no, is it possible I'm looking at maybe I'm not a real alcoholic and for some of us, we think it's a horrible thing to come up with. That, in reality, may be a blessing because I'm a moderate or hard drinker in Alcoholics Anonymous trying to go to some of these any lengths. And I really

can't because I still have power, choice and control.

I have a dear friend of mine thought he was in a A, thought he was a California that he was in NA. Wanted to be an A somewhere, right?

Comes to one of these deals. And here's an Allen on speaker. And he realized where he finally belonged. And he's never been freer.

But my book in the 1st 43 pages will present truth over and over and over again.

I would get out of a treatment center

and swear off alcohol,

swear off some other things I was doing.

What a solemn oath. I'm never going to go back.

How come I kept going back?

I'll work with the guys and have them write out a little history of their drinking, the consequences, unmanageability of that, what that looked like. And the question I was asking was, well, how come you didn't stop when I got this bad? They always say couldn't. That's the lack of power chopping agnostics is talking about, because if I had power, I would stop. But I can't, so I don't stop.

Munir Palace Oracle lifestyle manageable. I can tell you from my own experience what that looked like over and over and over again.

Some of the things we need to consider as we're moving through this over you're moving through it with the sponsor.

Am I going through the 12 steps because I think the steps are going to keep me sober? Am I using a big because I think the big books going to keep me sober? Or am I use it going through the 12 steps to take me to that which is keeping me sober all along, right?

Do my meetings keep me sober? To my big book keeps keep me sober?

How's that looking?

This is a vehicle to take me to the power which was going to keep me sober. Step one, Chris said it best. We kind of get sick in step one. It disturbs us. It paints us into a corner. Step one, I ought to feel really screwed by now. By the time I get done with the 1st 43 pages, like I'm in serious trouble because I can't will myself out of this anymore. Experientially, I'm picking up a drink no matter what. Step one tells us, the real Alcoholics in this room tonight, that you are drinking, that I, me, Peter Marinelli is drinking.

It's not a solution. It's an admission to the problem. Yeah, that's me. Step one says I am drinking.

Contemporary A will tell us work the first three steps. They don't tell us just doing that. We get drunk and die. Step one tells me I'm drinking, not that I can't drink, I know I can't drink. Step once says no, but you're going to drink anyway.

That's lack of power, choice and control.

Lack of power is my dilemma. With power, no dilemma. And I don't know what that day is going to look like when it shows up.

Now, you know how I'm thinking like that. We move down to step 9. This happens all the time. Move down to Step 9 and we're gung ho and we're knocking out amends. Made three amends. Made five amends, Made 20 amends. I got a list of 100 and I'm moving along. And somewhere in there, I'll make the amends tomorrow.

I'll pray tomorrow, I'll meditate tomorrow. But that amends, it's not that important. I got Home group tonight, I'll make the amends tomorrow. And I haven't made amends in a few weeks.

What's going on is I'm moving away from step one,

the Yeti lenses on my terms,

and as I move down the shades I should be driven further into step one.

Reemergence of ego starts doing a thinking for me

like a power, choice and control in the mind before I pick up a drink and certainly in the body after I pick up a drink.

The phenomenal craving mental obsession.

How we doing on time?

We're good, OK?

Alcoholic asked him to keep talking. That's not too difficult.

I heard a great story. There was a room and at a a meeting and there were two speakers and the first guy spoke for like an hour and a half and everyone left and it was one guy left sitting there and he says what are you doing here? I'm the second speaker

OK

in doctors opinion.

I have XXV I I that's I think page Roman numu 28

it says that these men were not drinking to escape, they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control. So about the body here,

a craving, a physical craving phenomenon called craving. Many times people would say to me, hey Pete, can't you just have one or two drinks and put a lid on it? My body demanded more. The craving for me, the allergy, the craving to alcohol was never satisfied, only intensified.

It's an abnormal reaction. So I wanted to have one or two, but my body demanded more experientially. Was it like that for us? What'd that look like? Can I successfully have just one or two every time? Now here's the hook. Many times I would go, well, sometimes I would go out right and go down to the bar and watch Monday Night Football and have that one beer with a couple of the guys, go home and say, see,

I can drink safely.

And I couldn't wait for the next Monday Night Football game to get to have another beer, right? And then I have that one beer and go home and say, see, I got it licked.

Well, Monday is kind of far. Today's Tuesday I can drink and I can drink Wednesday. And I'll have two and I'll have three. And then I disappear

and it starts one more journey to the asylum for me.

So I can't, I can't say, well, this is what it's going to look like, like a power choice control. And again, the unmanageable is certainly by the lack of power choice control, not knowing when this drink was going to show up. But when it did, it owned me King alcohol. It demands, it demands for me to have a solution.

And that's when we walk into Step 2. And a lot of us Brussel when antagonism, when we talk about God.

You mean I have to do this. I have to find a God of my old belief system. I have to find your God. And the tension that we experience in step one arises again when it comes to God in Step 2. But what I have to get the difficulty or the tension I experience in looking at God is not with God, but me with God. There's no tension with God. There's no difficulty with God. It's me approaching God with old belief systems. All contempt,

all resentments and fear about this power call God.

But circumstances make me willing to even willing be willing to believe in this power.

And I find out in Step 2 it's a God of my own understanding. No one else is.

We may find out as we move through the 1st 43 pages. Am I an alcoholic? Am I an addict? Do I think I'm both?

I know a handful of guys who are coming to AA meetings who are crackheads

and kept relapsing and it kept coming to AA because people in a A weren't bold enough to stand up to the plate and step up to the plate and say, listen, we'll take you to another fellowship because you're getting fired up all the time. Coming to Alcoholics Anonymous. You can identify, you know.

Need to find what my own truth is

and that's what my book will allow me to do before we wrap up and continue tomorrow morning with summer step one. I'm I'm taking it for granted that we all went through a book. We all have knowledge about this book and know what it looks like. And I found that that is a bad thing that I do sometimes. It's just assuming you know the book. So just to kind of break it down real quick, and we're going to put a lid on it for tonight. If we can just open up to the title page in our big book, OK,

this way we know we got this down. And where it says how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism, you circle that word recovered as the first promise in the big book. Now for those of us who have a circle and a triangle, great. If you don't have a circle and a triangle on that page, draw an equilateral triangle with a circle around it.

OK.

And on the bottom of that triangle write the word recovery

message in a big book. 12 steps

on the left side of trying to write the word unity.

Next I can write fellowship. 12 traditions. What this whole thing's held together with on the right side of the triangle, right, the word service carrying this message to another alcoholic.

We need to be living equally in all three sides of that triangle,

not just doing one and not the other two.

And I can tell you from experience, when we're living in all three sides of trying, we come to the fellowship. We don't come to the program. I'm not in the program. We come to the fellowship. And in the fellowship we get to experience this program. And once we wake up because of the program, we go work with another drunk service, 1 drunk worker with another. The basic service we provide in Alcoholics Anonymous is 1 drunk work or another. What happens to us? We experience that circle, that wholeness, oneness with God, enlightenment. No beginning, no end, but present,

present.

That's a great thing and we get to pass that on.

We talk about this word recovered. We talk about this word recovering. We talk about a word cured. A lot of times you hear recovered people hear cured. Recovering

is simply experiencing the symptoms of the illness.

Anger, depression, happy, sad, having no idea what that's going to look like.

The illness is still there along with the symptoms of the illness. Cured is having the illness removed completely and a book talk tells us we're not cured

but recovered is pretty neat

because even though I'm an alcoholic, the symptoms of the illness get removed.

This is a great thing. This is getting reborn and Alcoholics Anonymous as our book talks about reborn over and over and over again

in doctors opinion. I mean the table of contents.

We have some chapters. A lot of U.S. Open up table of contents have no idea what they represent.

In Doctor's opinion he talks about the phenomena called craving, He talks about the mental obsession and he talks about the psychic change. He refers to the spiritual revolution as moral psychology. Doctors opinion talks about body, mind and spirit.

Bill story is split into two parts on page nine it splits right in half. It is a line in that says on page 9 drink as a like that. That's the split and Bill story his drunk for identification for people like us, his unmanageability, his consequences and then the beginning of a spiritual experience and a great assignment to do is how do I drink like Bill. I think like Bill feel like Bill on the 1st 9 pages and the second-half of Bill's story. When did I experience resistance to what he talks about? Zara, the heavens,

God, etc. Right,

there's a solution. Begins to talk about the mind and also talks about the body. Pages 23 to 43 is all about my mind

and they talk about India as a solution. There is a solution.

What we're going to get,

and there's a solution on page 25. You don't have to go there. We'll talk about it tomorrow to talk about the great fact

perceptions have changed,

perceptions of what caused me pain and suffering, never reality, my perceptions, my belief system. And they tell me on page 25, we're going to really hear what God's ears see, what God's eyes speak with God's words. Because everything has changed for us

that doesn't resemble me when I was in the grip of the grapes because all of you were against me.

And more about alcoholism. We're talking about the mind. Chapter 2 agnostics were kind of introduced to Step 2 on page 45 and were brought back with some more unmanageability on page 52. The current unmanageability. How's that looking? Great barometer. See where we currently are

in Chapter 5. How it works are our methods or directions for steps three and four into action 5 through 11. We get to step 12 working with others. They don't talk about having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. I'll step our 12 steps.

They get right into some general guidelines on how to work with others. Had the spiritual experience back in 10 at least perhaps earlier. Step 10 says we've entered the world Spirit. Listen, you got the spiritual experience, now go past this on go work with others and we're going to show you how to do it.

So now that we're on board for that, tomorrow morning we'll meet let's say around 9:00 and we'll begin this journey and have some fun with this. So thank you.