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

Good morning, everybody. I'm Peter. I'm a recovered alcoholic, grateful be live and sober and part of a sacred place called Alcoholics Anonymous and thank all of you for being here

and bought and sell and sell, for allowing Chris and I to be here and thank Christopher, his first session, his sharing. It's a real treat for me to be here. I'm glad the air conditioners work this morning

looking for a fireplace to talk in front of,

but

God separated me from alcohol. June 23rd, 1988. I'm recovered alcohol and I'm very grateful for that. And if you knew me when I was drinking, you'd be grateful too.

But because of the power I found in Alcoholics Anonymous and have had an experience with and continue to have an experience with this power

of infinite mercy and infinite love, my life gets reborn and resurrected each time I revisit this work. Each time I have a new experience in 1011, each time I sit down with another alcoholic, I have a new experience. Each time I wake up every morning because it's a new moment. I have a new experience with God. Every breath I take because it's a new breath

when I go to work,

when I'm in a relationship, when I'm taking care of children, when I'm taking care of my pets, when I'm out at the grocery store shopping, I walk with this power. Because what I found out little by solely is that there is no more duality in our life. See, most of us come here and we're in fellowship. And here's fellowship and there's program and somewhere there's service. And I'm fellowshipping now. I'm doing service, you know, you hear? It's a great fellowship outing and fellowship. So we can act like drunks without drinks in US.

Then I come to name and talk about the steps and I become a guru. And then in service I do when I have time, right?

And we separate the three. But as we wake up and experience oneness with this power, there is no more duality. Fellowship becomes service. Service becomes fellowship. It all becomes when we come part of the whole. And when I'm tending to the children, not at the grocery store or being with the loved one or whatever I'm doing, doing a talk, working with another drunk, I move from moment to moment to moment with spirit. And when I'm awake, who I be is manifested in thought Word indeed.

And when I'm untreated, it will manifest in thought. Word, indeed.

I'm grateful for presence. I'm grateful for breath.

Last night we talked about I had mentioned if we want to get free, get freer, if we're not experiencing current bondage, do we want to get past that?

Do I want to experience a new level of consciousness I've ever never experienced before? A new experience with this power call God. And what we quickly do is think, well, this new level of consciousness, this new awareness with God walking around consciousness without thought, no thought, life involved, but truly present with this power, no separation, no duality of what that's going to look like. You know, I want what you have to offer. So I think it's going to look like what you got. And very rarely does it resemble the the sponsors recovery

or someone else's recovery because God has these separate journeys for each and everyone of us and what we quickly do is get attached to the outcome. How this supposed to look I'm how it's supposed to feel, how I'm supposed to sound.

And as we move to this work, the great remover, we start to lose that, which is a great thing. And we become very present to the moment without judgments, without trying to interpret, but just present consciousness without thought. And wherever God moves me, he moves me. And it's glorious wherever I land.

My thinking mind says, well, my recovered life should be the new car, that house with the white picket fence, the ideal spouse, 2 1/2 kids,

the whole deal.

I should be making this much money and everyone's going to worship me when I walk into an AA meeting

and then God says no. I need you at the Salvation Army this weekend.

That's why a book uses the word pause in the 11th step. Anytime I'm pausing, if it's not to seek counsel, and sometimes even when I need to seek counsel, it's because I got in the way again. Ego showed up again. That's why I'm pausing because it goes like this.

I'm going to go to that meeting on Park Ave. tonight to Saturday night meeting. 8:00 start. The woman looked great, the men are all dressed. It's going to be a nice meeting. Going to go out afterwards. So I'm going to get dressed to the nines and go be spiritual for an hour,

right? And then the little nudge says the Bowery needs someone to go down and work with. Some drunks go down there and suddenly I have to pause. But I don't want to go there. I want to go Uptown, right? And then I have this dilemma, this conflict going on. The conflict is self and spirit. Last night I said that the mind will contradict spirit and the spirit will contradict mind. We pause and we see counsel. Should I go to that meeting up there? And

one which I go down there and meet some new drunks and we know where we need to be.

There's a couple of things I want to talk about before we move into some of the work. I'm just going to kind of fill in a couple of spots that Chris hit.

What this work will do for us is remove, as we talked about last night, all the obstacles in my path to experience God, starting with step one with comes to a surrender, a surrender, a conceding, a concession deep down in here that I'm a real alcoholic.

And that's just the beginning. Because after we make that admission and surrender to that first step where, yeah, I'm an alcoholic, I have no power, choice, control. I'm really clear on what's going to happen to me. I don't know where I'm going to land, but I need to get help now. And whatever the help may be, I'm willing to go to any lengths I'm going to seek with the desperation of a drowning man.

And then we begin

and we look at a power gradient ourselves, make a decision to get there, etc. And Chris talked about step four, and we get to look, take stock of oneself, not you, but I take stock of me. I'm not looking at your defects of character, I'm looking at mine. At six and seven, they get removed. And as we move through nine, they further get removed and we start to wake up. It's removal and really simply what happens. And I'll put this out there to someone who's never done the work, although we are experiencing the death of self and it feels like we're dying. Oh my God, they're taking me and dismantling me. Well, that's exactly what's happened. But

great thing because in that level leveling, we get reborn, we get resurrected and what happens to us very simply is we, in a sense, go home. We're going home with this work and spiritual warriors will embrace that. We'll go through that change because there's greater pain in not changing than the change itself. We go home through this work. We're going home to our Creator who put us here in the 1st place. Perfect.

And over the years, we show up here and we start to accumulate things, belief systems, resentments, fears, things that are given to us and we walk with them. And our whole way of going about this journey is based on what the thinking mind has accumulated and tells me to do. And that's how I operate. Don't trust those people. Don't trust those people. Those people, OK, dress this way. Don't like them, sound like this. Do this. Go here, don't date her. Date. I mean, it just goes on and on and on.

Most of us find when the smoke clears, we had a wonderful life and we destroyed it.

I was sharing with someone last night. Last night I was missing my home a whole lot. I mean, I was just and I'm not too far. I'm an hour away from home. It felt like I was in Europe less. I was just feeling very far away from home

and I travel a lot

and when I'm away from home, it's really clear to me how much I love my home. Little things. I go into the grocery store,

seems sacred all of a sudden

because I never had it so good. And I got real clear on that

few times going through to work. I got real clear on how blessed and sacred my life is that waking up in the morning and getting a newspaper, pouring a cup of coffee and going to the grocery store and getting to do a good day's work is glorious because there's no duality. I go to work with God, I get the paper with God. I have my cup of coffee with God,

We go home. That's what this work does. It takes us home.

I had to get real clear on this. No matter how long I God keeps me sober, no matter how old I am, no matter how many things I've accumulated over the years, what kind of reputation I've accumulated or I think I have accumulated, no matter what kind of external conditions, what my external conditions look like in the eyes of my Heavenly Father, I'll always be a child.

An ego doesn't want to hear things like that. But how comforting that is that I can turn as a student to the teacher, as a child to his father, and ask for direction and be with that power. B.

Now it didn't look like that when I got here in 1988.

When you talk to me about a God personal to you, I figured you belong to a cult.

When you told me a God loves me, I says, yeah, maybe you, but not me.

God could. And what if he was sought? That works for you, it doesn't work for me. And I would more than bristle an antagonism when we talked about God.

And then what I find out is this that this message this this a big book is aimed directly at spirit in order for me to experience God. My book is not aimed at a thinking mind. It's aimed right at spirit. And I was looking out what an order I can't go through with it. But what were my alternatives? Find the spiritual basis of life, or else. And I knew what the OR else meant another Mr. Boston BlackBerry Brandy and drink to oblivion.

And if I'm lucky, I landed another treatment center.

So the question we ask ourselves, is my recovery based on abstinence or is my recovery based in spirit? If it's based in abstinence, then you don't need to be here this weekend. If it's based in abstinence, you put a put, put the plug in a jug, don't drink. Go to meetings, Joan. So sober softball team, make lots of coffee. Go a, a bowling team, right? A a dancers. That's your recovery. Abstinence. I'm not drinking.

My name is Pete. I'm an alcoholic. I beat up my wife. I cheat on my wife, cheat on my tax. I haven't shown up for work in three weeks, but I've been to pick up a drink today, so I'm a winner.

That's recovery based. In absence, I really don't care

and bless them.

Recovery is based in spirit. We go to some of the greatest lens, any lens, in order to recover and continue to grow an understanding and effectiveness because it's vital to me, life giving when I do and life threatening when I don't. My life is based on my relationship with this power called God and we get real clear on that.

We get cornered in step one,

and if my recovery is based in spirit, it kind of separates us from some of our contemporary AA. Because if we walk into an AA meeting and think everyone's a real alcoholic, we're delusional

because a lot of us aren't. Maybe some here this morning, maybe some are not sure and we'll find out their truth. But most of our AAA meetings are not filled with every seat as a real alcoholic. And you could hear the different brands of recovery, the different brands that stay away from a drink. I just think the drink through

and I haven't picked up a drink or it got really bad for me out there. I had a few DWI, a handful of car crashes, even did a detox and I made a decision. I got to put the plug in a jug and I came to AA and lifes been great.

I did all of that stuff and still kept drinking.

And God in his infinite mercy said enough. June 23, 1980, enough. Now I separate you because I have other work for you to do. That's the real alcoholic. I experienced a phenomenon called craving. It was intensified every time I put a drink in me, never satisfied, and my mind would take me back to it over and over and over again, no matter what kind of desire. Had to stay away from it. Can't drink anymore, Pete, You're not going to drink. No matter what, we're not going to drink. You know what happens to us. I had that much clarity. And somewhere Chris talked about it like somewhere in the middle of the day.

Well, let's let's rethink this or I haven't had a drink in a week so

let's get going. My mind would not give me the consequences that were going to follow and if they did, they were hazy and ready to supplanted with the old threadbare idea. You know what, one or two won't hurt. It'll be OK. That's lack of power, which we touched on last night. Lack of power was our dilemma. For me, the most profound words in my big book is lack of power. That is my dilemma with power. No dilemma. I lack power, which means I lack choice and control.

This is step one.

Even after I conceded to my innermost self, even I've perhaps walked through the doctor's opinion and identified what the mental obsession identified, what the phenomena called craving, I still lack power. I've just acquired some knowledge, and knowledge will not work. Knowledge alone will not work. Any fool can pick up this big book and memorize it and get to a podium and sound really profound and then pick up a drink when the talk is done

all right.

But a book uses the word combined knowledge and experience and what Ioffer you this weekend is this seek experience. Seek experience. Knowledge will follow. That's part of the package. Anyone who sits down studies this book will acquire knowledge. Don't seek knowledge. Seek experience with this power because it cannot be understood, but certainly been an experience, experience. This book. This book will take me to God. Seek experience,

because when we're having an experience with this power goal of God, there is no room for thinking about drink because God's got work for us to do. Go out and work with others. I have no time to occupy your mind with drinking. See, I can hear right away who's in an experience with God and who isn't because they talk about the drink signals and the drink issues and they can't go where drinking is served.

And I challenge that. Well, what kind of God do you have? How do you do a 12 step call if you still have drink signals in thinking about a drink? I can't go to a wedding because there's drinking served. Well, what if God calls you to go do a 12 step call and you walk in and that drunk's got a pint of vodka in front of him? What are you going to do? Should I save him or take the drink?

You're going to trust that call with Joe and say Joe, I'm thinking about drinking. That pint looks good now Joe's got two to make.

See. But God moves me to a safe of a place of neutrality, safe and protected,

and I don't have to do anything other than work the 1st 9 proposals. I'm in this place where I'm immune, if you will, from this booze. I'm safe and protected in a position of neutrality. I'm not running away from it. I'm not drawn to it. There's booze. Here's me. What else is going on? Oh, we got a drunk to work with you. How many 12 step calls I've done and gotten the bottle and dumped it or tossed it in the trash. Nothing going on. Not like, well, see ya, maybe another time. None of that romanticizing, none of that euphoric recall.

In fact, I didn't even hate it. There's this booze. Not good for him. It's going down to two. We're getting you to a detox next.

How could I work with a drunk if I'm still stuck in triggers and issues? When I'm hearing that drunk story and he's telling me about all his drinking escapades? Because if I'm listening to that and I got drink, if I'm thinking about a drink, if I'm still attached, every escapade, no matter how sick it sounds, you know us. That wasn't too bad. It sounded like good good time.

Maybe I'm making a mistake going AAA?

Yeah.

Is my recovery based on abstinence or in spirit?

We go over to page 34 for a moment.

Here's where a lot of our meetings get split right down the middle,

page 34,

about the second paragraph, it says for those who are unable to drink moderately, the question is how to stop altogether or forever. OK, altogether, forever, Doctor Bob said. Quick drinking for good and all.

God doesn't wear a watch and doesn't use a calendar

when I'm integrated with this power,

its presence.

We live a day at a time. I live at a day to time. That's my human condition. That's how God put me in these 24 hour clips.

But with presence there's no attachments to I got 3244 days and going on 45 day. That's a horrible way to live, right?

Were just present, sober, recovered, moving

for good and all.

We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. And the question I ask a prospect do you still have a desire to stop?

Are you clear on what brought you here?

And here it is. Whether such a person can quit upon a non spiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he or she has already lost the power to choose whether they will drink or not. What my book just told me. If I have the power of choice, I may not need a spiritual basis of living.

I may want it, but I may not need it.

And if I've lost power, choice, control, then I need to find a spiritual way of living or else.

I mean, my book is really clear. In fact, I'll be honest, I always felt at this point my book is even being delicate with us.

It's either find God or drink and die. And that's what it comes down to. Spiritual life and spiritual or spiritual death. Have I gotten clear on that? This is spiritual life with spiritual death. And when I say spiritual life, I'm not talking about being a guru or leading groups or anything like that. Spiritual life.

Carrying a vision of God's will into all my activities. Not just when a A is watching,

not when it's convenient.

Carrying a vision of God's won't to my activities. Looks like this now. Purity, honesty, unselfishness and love. Oxford stuff. That's what I was moved to do.

And God raised a bar on me and I wasn't too thrilled about that, but He did.

It says many of us felt we had plenty of character. There was a tremendous urge to cease, to stop forever, but we found it impossible. That's lack of power, choice and control. I want to stop. I want to put this away. I want to turn the page. I want to have a new life. Alcohol is killing me and everyone around me. I want to stop and we can.

I'm in the treatment center business. I speak to many families

about the husband, the wife, the children. I don't understand. It doesn't mean or she know what they're doing to us.

They're weak. It goes on and on and on.

The sad thing is when I tell them they know exactly what they're doing to you

and they want to stop and they can.

That's alcoholism. And sometimes we get real comfortable in AAA lives get together as they author, they get reassembled

and we get comfortable as we ought to be and experience some PCs and comfort and Alcoholics Anonymous, but we forget the real deal. We're telling somebody I got a call. I don't know Mr. been around 1:00 this morning. Guy calls me up. Didn't even say Pete, I'm sorry it's late. He just went right into, you know how newcomers, they go right into it, you know, hello. I got a resentment. She did this and it's like 2:30 in the morning. Well who is this?

And the guy was telling me he was trying to do this 12 step call on this young lady who came to my Home group Thursday and she was home and try to get it to a detox and didn't want to go.

And you know, she was oblivious to all of this. And this guy on the phone knew to serious trouble she was in. And we talked about let him know she there's a pot of hood that wants to stop. That's why she came to an AA meeting on Thursday. But she can't

go into a detox or a treatment center. Doesn't make me immune to alcohol. If I get shot with a bullet and the bullet wound heals, I'm not immune to getting shot anymore, right?

Going to AAA doesn't make me immune to alcoholism, it just gives me an opportunity to find a place to recover from alcoholism,

it says. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it, this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish. Page 35 What sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic who repeats time after time to desperate experiment of the first drink?

All action is born in thought. My drinking starts with a thinking mine that takes me back to the drink. Then a phenomenon called craving kicks in and it stops when it wants me to. And the only remedy for that is God. The only remedy for any area of my life is God.

We have some stories on a book about a guy named Ed, a guy named Jim, and a guy named Fred. And I sponsor a guy named Ed, a guy named Jim, and a guy named Fred.

God like this and has shown all his mercy on me yet. I don't know.

Let's go to page 42 for a minute.

More about alcoholism has been talking about the mind over and over and over again.

And we get presented with step one with the doctor's opinion.

We learn about Bill in the 1st 9 pages. We learn more about the thinking mind. Chapter three, more about alcoholism. Like if you didn't get it yet, we're going to talk more about it, right? More about alcoholism. And then after all of that, we come to page 42 and there's a great line in there. It says he reads as this process snuffed out the last flickering conviction. I can do do the job myself. As I'm sitting going through up to page 42, has this work thus far snuffed out the last flicker conviction in me

that I can do this on my own? That somehow, some way, I'll be immune to alcohol? That I'll be able to beat the game?

Or am I at a place flip right across the page, the 43, where it says I'm 100% hopeless apart from divine help? Am I in that place? Because that's a great place to be feeling 100% hopeless from divine help when we're in step one. Because the only way to go at this point is to find God.

Lack of power is my dilemma. That's another way of saying 100% hopeless from divine help.

We come to Step 2 in chapter 2. Agnostics and I shared this last night where when we talk about God, we feel the difficulties rise in an alcoholic. The tension

gets brought to a new level

and it's real clear. Do I want to be taken past here where I currently am? Where I currently am? Don't want to go past here, whether in a grip of the grapes are going to get free or around Alcoholics Anonymous a little while and looking to get past where we currently are.

The difficulty and tension is not what God it's with me, with God

based on my old belief systems, my contempt prior to investigation about this power call God. And one of the most powerful chapters in our book is chapter 2 agnostics, because they blow the doors wide open on how to experience with God. They don't care what you're coming in with, what kind of tempt, what kind of contempt you have, what kind of religious ideologies. They lay it out for anyone to grasp this.

On page 45,

it's his lack of power is my dilemma. I had to find a power by which I could live, and it had to be a power greater than me. Where and how was I going to find this power?

Chapter 2, Agnostics will tell us how to find a higher power, where to find this power, and even why I should find this power.

And it lays it out for us wide open.

It says that's what this book is about, its main objects to enable me and you to find the power greater than ourselves, which will solve our problem. So I'm not even talking about drinking anymore. They're talking about solving our problem. This book will enable us. I was doing a talk one time on step six and seven and a woman said from the floor, you know, it's easy for you to talk about God and your experience with God. You're up there and I'm sitting here, I've been relapsing forever. And she went on and on and on. So I can't find God no matter what I do. And I told her First things first. God's not lost.

I get lost all the time. My friends know this. God's not lost

and then open up the book and I took it a page 45

and I read to her that this book, this big book will enable me, will help you, will help us find the power greater ourselves, which will solve my problem. This book is the vehicle to take me to this power call God. And when I stop looking out there for external remedies and come back to the book and realize it's an internal reorganization that I need a spiritual revolution. And this book will show me how to do that. I will stop searching out there and get busy with this book with the teacher who's awake and experienced God,

and I share that with her.

And then she got angry with me.

OK,

it says that means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral, means we're going to talk about God. Hear difficulty arises with agnostics. And we talked about that difficulty arising with agnostics even arises when we're at currently, when we're experiencing Gnosticism and Alcoholics Anonymous sober years, we get that current agnosticism and someone says to us, well, you better find God, You better experience God. And we want to knock their head off the shoulder

because my ego is looking for a different answer. Well, if I was in your shoes, I'd I'd be feeling that way too. That's what the ego wants to hear to justify inappropriate behavior that's now manifesting in my life.

Until we speak to someone who's awake and says, when was the last time you went through to work? Where were you at Amends? What's current? What's your current a prayer, meditative life look like? What's 10 and 11 look like? And we pause on every one of those. That means we were in trouble, right? Because we're not doing it. That's what a good teacher will do. When people come to me, it's it's really bad for me. I'm not experiencing this and life's unmanageable. I get fear all over. When was the last time you went through the work?

What's 10 and 11 look like? How current are you with the men's? By the way, do you have a sponsor?

Because you're calling me with this.

All right. Well, I have some guys I talk to. That's not the question.

Do you have a sponsor?

OK, see Ego will justify all inappropriate behavior and look for a false sense of self in external conditions.

I go to a meeting a week. My life's full in the pot. But I just bought a new Cadillac so I'm good.

False sense of self and that stuff. And that works till we get the first call payment and that don't work anymore. All right,

I'm in a relationship. She's wonderful. Everything is gone. I feel so good. She's everything I dreamt about. And then you have your first fight. I hate her. I got to get rid of her

and woman, you do the same thing about us. So

this week I'm in love. Next week, I don't know.

OK,

I did it. So OK, so we're coming to Step 2 and it's our point to define this power that we're going to come to believe in a power grain ourselves. We're going to get to this place, this arrival place of this power doing for us what we can never do for ourselves. And that's giving me wholeness of mind, restoring me to sanity. If I'm being restored to sanity in in step 10, that promise, that contract is delivered, that Sandy will have returned sanity, wholeness of mine. I'm not thinking about a drink and I will challenge

any a A who says it's normal to think about a drink because you're not called perhaps. But don't give a broad stroke across all of Alcoholics synonyms and say that's the theme of a a thinking about a drink as normal on Alcoholics Anonymous, because me and countless others will challenge that

being we start to sanity. I will tell you I haven't had a thought about a drink in a very, very long time. And I've been around drunks, wet ones, I've been around drinking situations. I've gone to parties, I've gone to weddings, you name, and I've been there. I've been where a guys had the powder on a table, the vodka next to it and got him out of there untouched. And my mind didn't say remember those days. That would be nice. Maybe just one. None of that.

I haven't drank over sorrows and I have many challenges in Alcoholics Anonymous on this journey and have a drank drank over joys and I've had many of them and Alcoholics Anonymous not once been placed in a position of neutrality safe from protected that'll ruffle feathers and contemporary AA. They don't like when I say things like that. Tough

because I'm not going to deny the glory of God, what He can do for us. What a promise we give to a drunk who's here this weekend new and I can tell them. I promise you, you'll get to a place that drinking will be removed. Then you'll never think about a drink again. I'll go out and say that you'll never pick up a drink again. If you're an experience with God, your last drink is done. Quit drinking for good and all.

That's what we ought to be talking about in Alcoholics Anonymous. Not just put the plug in a jug stuff. Make 90 meetings in 90 days like that. Replace somehow replaces God. One that that's thought

a book says we had a quit play in God, it didn't work. And how many of us play God when we tell a newcomer who's walking in here in a state of obsession, just coming off for drunk, Hey kid, make 90 meetings in 90 days. Like we know they're going to make 90 meetings in 90 days without picking up a drink. Who's playing God Then rather than saying sit down with me, I have a solution for you. It works. It's called a big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. I'll walk you through because I've had an experience with it. I've had many and I will take you. I will walk you to have your own experience and you'll get free and don't grab the next one.

That's what we ought to be doing in these places called Alcoholics Anonymous, and in some of our places we do it.

Those little pockets of enthusiasm. When you walk into the meeting, there's something going on beneath the fellowship, the power underlying all of it. You can touch it,

you just have to walk in the same thing. When you're around people like that,

you want to be around them more.

There's something going on below.

We come to Step 2, this power, and first thing we approach Step 2, which is my old belief systems about God, like me, like I did. The difficulty was always in with me. I would more than bristle an antagonism about this power call God. And at the beginning he told me power graded on myself. Group of drunks for good, good, orderly direction. I found some power in the numbers, found some safety in the numbers. I shared last night. If Joe had 30 years and Frank had 40 years, I'm going to sit between him 'cause maybe it'll rub off.

Just have to be around that.

That works for a little while, but then we need to move past that.

And then my book does great stuff. I always share the start. I was working with a guy. I was living in Staten Island. This one guy was from Brooklyn.

Big strappy guy, tough kid,

did a lot of damage on the way in here. St. Kit

and he asked me to sponsor him and we stopped moving through the work. We got to Step 2 and I saw it. You can his whole department

said to me, I can't do this.

We're going to get to Step 2 into a balloon about God Chapter Tenasa explain what atheists like to what was to him. I explained in an agnostic. I explained what a believer was and someone inexperienced and he got tight, just shut down

and we start moving through. Chapter 2 Agnostics on page 46,

Second Power Grid says we found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a power grade on myself, I commenced to get results right then, even though I couldn't define or comprehend that power call God

circumstances make me willing. I asked them that question. Are you willing?

Yeah. Are you willing? Yes or no? Are you willing to grow towards this power? Are you willing to have an experience, this power called God? Yes or no? Don't know what it's going to look like. I'm scared to death. But based on my first step experience, you're unwilling. Then we can move.

The spiritual experience begins with a mustard seed of willingness. My spiritual experience, I thought, began in Alcoholics and honest when it began going through the work. After lots of reflection and meditation, looking back, my spiritual experience truly began in the back of a filthy hallway on the Lower East Side, coming off my last drunk in 1988, where I said I'll do anything, I don't want this anymore. That was it.

That's all it takes. A mustard seed of willingness.

Next paragraph says much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God. What a great piece of information. Because I thought when you talked about God, it meant the God I grew up with, the God my grandparents gave me, the God my parents gave me, the God I witnessed working in others lives. And the first thing I went to was my mom was a drunk. She suffered, was humiliated, degraded, and finally takes a life. I don't want that God.

That's a horrible God. My book says you have to choose that conception.

They're opening up the doors for us to walk through. See, most of us come from religious communities, say, well, we're right and every other place is wrong. And while you're in here, you have to do it this way. In fact, do it a little bit more this way, and we get so wound up and tight. That's not freedom.

Yeah, I'm a Catholic and we have some of our religious holidays and went to a restaurant and I was in a mood for a burger and it was a day where you're not supposed to eat meat on this Friday, right?

And someone said to me, not supposed to meet, that's a sin.

I should really think God cares I'm eating a hamburger

really. And I don't want to get into religious because if that works for you, please, I'm not. I'm just sharing my own experience. I don't want to break any traditions. But for me, my God is not interested in that stuff. I worship him in silence. I worship him in private and let him demonstrate his actions through me. Out here I don't stand on the corner until everyone see I'm praying in a great AAI. Don't do that

when we close for the Lord's Prayer, I rarely you'll really hear me saying the prayer. I'll just say it, the minds between me and God,

I'll let him speak through me up here. Let Him speak through me when I'm working with you.

I love my God more than anything, and He knows that. It knows that this power knows that. Not interested if I'm eating a burger or a tuna for sandwich on a Friday. You know,

none of my God loves me unconditionally.

And for me, I had to get unhooked from that old stuff. My own conception of God was a weight off my back

and I got permission deep down in here to use AA as a God group of drunks for good early direction. My old belief system said how dare you does this God only that God everyone elses God is wrong. This is the God can't use a group of drunk. My God says go,

that works for you. That's going to bring you to me. Do it.

See, you're going to go up the hill this way. I'm going to go up the hill that way. She's going to go up the hill that way. God doesn't care. God just wants us. Come to me. I'll be there

and it's going to show you how to come up and pull you when you're struggling and pull you and show some. He'll take us right out of it and places there some who move through us. But we're going to get there because Father, show me how to get to you. And when we get there, this thing called alcoholism starts to dissolve.

We're not taking up meeting a time at meetings talking about drama, my boss, my children, my wife, my this, my dog. And we spent 20 minutes at a meeting wasting time at an A, a meeting when we should be talking about a solution. And who can we help

get involved in drama?

Talking about God. You want to hear my drama? I got 1/2 hour. Let's go. Here's my drama. This is how my day looked. And I'll take up a meeting. If I don't have drama, I'll listen to your drama. Let's talk about your drama. You don't have drama. Let's look at some. Let's invent drama. Let's have something right,

drama, because it gives me this false sense of self. I got something that I can do and deflect from me. God forbid I shall hold up a mirror to me, disregard you for a moment and take stock of me. No drama is better.

So it says much to our relief, we discovered I did not need to consider anyone elses conception of God my own conception. Look at this promise. My own conception of God is like God knew how, how childlike we were spoon feeding us this Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to affect the contact with Him. God doesn't make hard terms,

it says as soon as we admitted the possible existence, these are all words for God. Creative intelligence, spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things. I began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction provided I took all the simple steps. Condition of spiritual law here.

So my book just told me my own conception. No matter how inadequate, group of junks could all lead direction. Good enough, let's go. I'm willing, let's go. That was sufficient. It can't get simpler than that,

it says. We found that God does not make 2 hot terms to those who seek Him. That's why I don't try to live life on life's terms. That's difficult. I fell miserably with that. Living life on God's terms is simple. It's easy. My book tells me that to us, the realm of the Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive, never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It's open, we believe, to all men and women.