Steps 11 and 12 at the Fellowship of the Spirit convention in Queens, NY

OK, we're going to start up.

Moonlight becomes you. It goes with your hair.

When is this thing in?

It's 1015.

That's well,

OK, I'm Peter, recovered alcoholic. Hi, Peter. So we're going to

talk about step 11 and probably rodent roll right into 12 and and, and call it a weekend. So on that I want to thank Barefoot Bill for doing such a great job with taping and good

he gave me 50 bucks to say that.

And thank Harry and the committee for taking real good care of

and Mark for being such a great host and and taking me back and forth. This weekend he showed up at the airport with a big cardboard sign.

Marion and Peter. So that was fun. And, and seeing my friend Mike here from Mike Chase from Fort Lauderdale, who's kicking butt and taking names out there with new folks. Incredible work. He's doing a primary purpose group Monday night in Fort Lauderdale City Hall Lutheran Church, 441 NE 3rd Ave. What time

7:15 get there. Great meeting. My Home group is at Deerfield Beach. Big book study group and we meet Thursday nights at 7:30.

We studied a book. The book is the star, not the speaker. And and we walked through the book at the Zion Lutheran Church over there

and Mickey has a home and my Home group, this is Mickey, is the Denver Thursday night group, 17th and Pennsylvania downtown Denver 8:00 Thursday night. It's a closed meeting and we would love to have you come visit us. So I just want to share something from a book I work with now and again.

It says to breathe and to know you're alive is wonderful because you're alive, everything is possible. Practice, continue. Don't waste a single moment. Every moment is an opportunity to breathe life. Every moment is an opportunity to experience God through your daily life. Walk in mindfulness, making peaceful, happy steps on our planet. Breathe deeply and enjoy your breathing. Be aware, enjoy being alive

so that things like this I would, I would take into

sometimes meditation

and I would read it and I'd go into sacred silence.

There was a time in on this pathway I thought I had had to create stillness or create silence and meditation. And how could I create that which already exists? It's our natural state of beingness. It's silence. I make a lot of noise doing a day in my head, which interrupts everything.

And so with the discipline of going into meditation and being still and giving attention to God and getting me out of the way and learning how to unhook from the noise that's going to come, we can get to a place of stillness.

I was sponsoring a guy for a while and who was having visions every 15 minutes

and what he was doing was creating his own visions because he thought that was part of spirituality. And there's a woman I was studying this woman Gangaji, and and she went to the story went something like this. She went to a teaching, says I'm having all the stuff going on and I don't know what to do. He says do nothing. She's yeah, I know that, but what do I got to do? Shuttle. And yeah, I know that, but and he stop, just stop and be stop doing stuff.

And so sometimes my effort is so great to find God. I miss God

sometimes. We just have to be and see God, as Mick was saying earlier, and what's in front of Maine and we can go into meditation, say come meditating now. God zapped me with a, you know, part the seas. I want to be euphoric and, and be Moses and go tell everyone about it. And we're trying to create something. And I saw I saw cheeses in a bagel this morning. Oh my, you know,

And he must be going. I'm not in a bagel, you know.

Oh, sometimes we sit and we wait and it's going to happen today. It's going to happen today, it's going to happen today. And we figured that just in the discipline and the doing, we succeed. Getting an alcoholic quiet and trying to worship God as a victory. And those things that those, those those experiences that I've had in meditation didn't come when I wanted them or expected them, just that the ground is fertile. Farmer does the plowing, God does the growing. Doctor does surgery, God does the healing. My job is to suit up and show up to the altar waiting.

And then God says, OK, Now

one of the neatest things about meditation is not I don't listen to me for a while.

And then that kind of gets taken into today and then into the evening a little by slowly and more and more. I'm listening a lot less to me and I'm listening or trying to listen to God or God and other people. So there's a stillness and a peacefulness about walking that walk compared to the noise in the head all day long, which really turns into my actions all day long. So I have a lot of amends to me making constantly. So step 11 talks about

morning and evening

and it says, it says right before the 11 steps, we, it says we've begun to develop this vital 6th sense, vital life giving when I do and life threatening when I don't. And I must go further. That means more action. So we're going beyond our five senses that we know we're aware of. And I always, I don't know if this is true or not, but I've always sat with this. We have this sixth sense that is intuitiveness, this godliness, this, this, this God voice

that once we're out of the way, we seem to hear.

It's that Thunder of silence that cuts through everything.

Is it possible that we're really born with six senses? We always say we're born with five senses, but there's this really this other gothing that you can't put under an MRI or a microscope, but it's there.

And suddenly we come into AA when we're full of ourselves, when we remove the self to death of self, we find, oh, there's this vital 6th sense that we that we found and we develop and we grow it because that's what we're relying really upon is that doesn't say listen to the mind now because it's in good shape. We've been given a renewal of the mind, a God mind. See what God's eyes hear, what God's ears speak. God's words do his work,

but the mind as it was is not my Mass. That makes a wonderful servant, but a terrible master, as the saying goes. So I'm listening to my God now who's renewed the mind. And I go by this intuitiveness, But I got to be clear. So I can hear. And that means inventory, nightly review, sacred silence and meditation and giving worship to God. So I'll pray to God in the car. I'll pray to God when I'm walking around. I'll pray to God while I'm in the public supermarket. But my prayer

in the morning, there's no interruptions. So I've been blessed. I always thought about what it would be like to walk this walk with someone

who love God as much as I do or more who loved AA as much as I do or more who can teach me Scripture, who I can learn some things about that. And God puts a person in my life that I'm able to pray with. We pray together.

She teaches me scripture because I'm new.

Well, I'll read something and I'm like a little kid, look what I found, she says. Yeah, Matthew, blah blah, blah.

Go back. Keep reading. Go back.

But what a neat thing to share God. Or yeah, share God with someone else who wants to share God with you, Right.

And so I was brought up in a certain way of sponsoring

and that has still continued. But there's this new Ave. that I've been asked to walk down.

And so I go to Mickey with scripture, he'll teach me and this it's this whole thing

to growing and understanding effectiveness. Now I didn't say, OK, God, I need a woman who does this. I need a sponsor says that. So, you know, let's do it. It was just yearning this deep down within

and I've always said God can hear the heart, God here's the soul. So I never petitioned this. It was just given to me.

And so my 11th step, I mean, always been a guy with mechanics. That's the way I was brought up. I just don't worship mechanics, but I know the mechanics. I'm good with the mechanics. OK now what?

Where am I with God? When adversity hits it's easy to be spiritual and everyone applauds you and I go home and I got a nice bank account. Everything. The goose hung highs and I have all my ducks in a row. My life has become my master. How am I doing with adversity?

How am I doing? I have fear.

How am I doing when I have doubt? How am I doing with God when I don't think God's paying attention to my life? All those things have happened and I turn back, I turn back, I turn back and this is what I have found for my own experience. There have been times in my life when my back is not only against the wall being pushed through and had some close a a friends who who held me up

looking to file for bankruptcy, going through a nasty divorce,

a messy relationship, can't get a job. Just everything was removed. And I remember being in a parking lot in New Jersey and looking up and say what is why do you want from me? What am I supposed to do? I quit again. I give up. I am not running my life. I'm done running my life. I got it and it was a turning over, surrendering again

and I begged for mercy

and then I call my sponsor and he says it's time to go through the work again. I was hoping he'd give me a job and that's why I called him.

And I'm thinking, why go through the work now? My life, my personal life is just blown up. And I did in those moments when things have gotten removed and they don't have to get removed to experience intimacy with God. But this is how it works for me. It has always worked that way.

Every time things have gotten removed, the marriage removed, the money removed, the things, the possessions removed, and I'm down on my knees. Those were the most intimate and sacred and honest moments I've had with my God.

There was nowhere else to turn,

and I was able to take direction, the most intimate. And I always refer to those times, like I did when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, as the innocent climb. There were no more attachments. If I do this, that's going to happen. It's Please have mercy on me. Show me what to do, fix me, heal me. I'm falling apart. And he scoops me up, puts a teacher here, puts a meeting here, puts a newbie here, whatever it is.

And it was more pruning, more removal. Why? To be an effective agent for God.

Now, those divorces didn't happen because I was cheating on a wife. Those divorces didn't happen because my behavior was inappropriate. My divorce doesn't happen 'cause I refuse to get a job. I was trying to be a good husband. It just didn't work. I, I, I didn't come back. Oh, I'm sorry for screwing up again. I had, I was trying to do right and carried a vision of his will into that activity, but it wasn't to be. And I turned back and said, what do I do now?

So in a sense, I showed up those times

not full of remorse and guilt.

It was I've, I've lost my way. What do I do? So on awakening, which is important to me, it literally on awakening, I, I was living in a sober house in Minnesota and I woke up one morning and literally my eyes opened. And it was one of the first days that I can recall after being coming out of my seven treatment center and being now and a halfway house and being a Dome about half this size with like 25 guys on one side and 25 on the other with a little cubicle. Not everyone bathed,

making strange noises in the middle. It was a weird scene and I found myself open my eyes and said thank you father for this day. I have my own little cubicle. No one can come into this space. I have one pair of sneakers, a pair of pants and a couple of shirts. That's all I own

and I was how cool is this? They're going to feed me. I can come back to this bed at night. I have to sleep in a hallway.

And I'm sober

and I was grateful that morning.

There's been times in AA when I've had a pocket full of money, a nice car in a nice house, and I wasn't grateful

because the ego got in charge. I had nothing in 1988, in 1989, nothing. And I found moments of gratitude. And that's where my on awakening literally began because it was literally on awakening. And I do that. God made me that way, discipline me to the spiritual life on Awake, my eyes open, I come around, thank you Father, for this day. And I make a prayer as I'm lying in bed.

I get out of bed and I have a mat. I have a meditation section of my altar, and it's a small one, but it's an altar

at pictures of my Carpenter and some other things that people have given me a it's a little altar and that's where I go. That's where we go

and we pray in the morning.

And sometimes I've been, I've been trying to learn scriptures. I read that in the morning. I read my book, a couple other books and it's just to get scented. It's a centering exercise. Some things I highlight and I try to work with, but The thing is my thing is going to hit my knees and good morning, God.

And so I try to get out of the way and I and I, I would, my heart is like, let me do the right thing today to be of service to others because I live in a really nice place that I don't really deserve based on my track record. I have a tremendous job that don't deserve based on my track record,

I make a good salary that don't deserve braced on my track record, you know, but as God's children, I deserve it. As God's child, I deserve it. God's always feeding, always in abundance. So I can never meet God if I'm playing God, but I can experience and meet God if I'm whole in here and he's the one who's going to do that. So I, I, I work with this eleven step and I've been blessed my very first sponsor, Tony back in Brooklyn and

when I was working with Mark and, and, and now Mick and there was another gentleman, Joe from Ohio. These guys are all about 10:00 and 11:00.

So I was schooled, I was brought up that way and I like the effect produced by God

and not to shove God down your throat like a zealot and say my way or the highway, but allow me to have compassion for for the wounded. I shared the other day the how I'm viewing my dad differently for the first time in my life as a man rather than a God and has allowed me to love him that much more and understand him and not take things personally either.

It says step 11 suggests prayer, meditation. I shouldn't be shy in this matter of prayer. Better men

or woman are using it constantly. It works if we have the proper attitude and workout. What's the attitude I'm approaching God with? Am I still laying aside prejudice and expressing a willingness to know my Creator and my honest, open and willing? What's that look like?

It says it would be easy to be vague about this matter, yet we can make some definite valuable suggestions. So let's skip down to on awakening. It says we think about the 24 hours a day I consider my plans for the day before I begin. Before you walk out the door, peep. Listen, don't be in charge today. We ask God to direct my thinking 'cause if I'm directing my thinking, I'm going to be in collision with others,

especially asking that it be divorced himself. Pitied, dishonest and self seeking motors. That's a prayer.

Under these conditions I can employ my mental faculties with the assurance because God gave me a brain to use and we have proper use of the will and self-reliance going, You know, where am I property? God gives me. I go to work, I throw everything God has given me at my clients, everything God has given me at my work ethic, everything God has given me at my day at work and I use that. It's inspiration that comes to me.

Proper use of the will. I have someone dying in front of me who's bleeding to death. God, what do we do? It gives me something. I throw everything at him. Self will lose. You better get sober damn it. Because if you don't, I look bad.

Right. Like when the sponsee goes to give his first talk and you're the sponsor and you want them to do great. So everyone goes, hey, doing a great job with him. It's all about me,

right? That tank and I got to leave. Goodbye.

You know how many of my inventories I would write that my some of the guys in my in my my where I work were going sideways and the fear thread was what are the other work is going to think of me and my program If these guys get drunk,

That self-reliance, that's fear. That's unmanageably current agnosticism. I chop wood, carry water, plow to feel like God do what God's going to do,

but I need to get scented walking out the door. It says in thinking about my day may face indecision. I may not be able to determine which course to take. They don't say that's the end of the world. We're going to we, you know, what do I do here? Turn, turn, turn or hey, Mick, what do I do about this? I'm not really sure.

I was having doubt and skepticism about taking a week off from work to go to Stockholm.

What do I do? And I read some inventory and I was still a little uneasy about going. But I went off. I went and I got to the airport. I was uneasy about going to God sent an Angel, and off I went. And I came back and said I'm glad I made a decision to go to Stockholm. Was Allman

nice

here? We ask God for inspiration and tutor a decision. I relax and take it easy. I don't struggle. I'm often surprised at the right answers come after a while. I so I open up my day. My prayer life has changed from when I first came in. I still work with some prayers that I feel safe with and comfortable. There's a whole rhythm to this for me. But I'm not attached to reading books. I'm reading, doing some reading now, but I'm not attached to that. And I I after prayer, I sit and I go into silence.

I ask God what relationships to have and how to have and protect my soul from being poisoned.

Some other things Ioffer the Lord's Prayer and then I sit and posture and breast for me as I've been brought up this way is incredibly important when it comes to meditation has a topic that you won't be popular with Tonight's topic is meditation in 10 and 11

because we like to talk with I've heard a million times while talking is prayer and and silence is meditation and what that will go to a coffee break. I mean, I don't, you know, let's talk more about it.

I was in doing a workshop in, I think it was Louisiana, and I had to talk to do Sunday morning and they asked me to do a 10/11 workshop and I got into 11. I was talking about how I meditate and there's some Eastern influence. I know that,

but allows me to experience and listen and this guy comes from the back and I knew who was gonna fall me. He had his big book on the Razam and he was coming from his oh, here we go. Welcome to the NFL. And he says, you know, you talked about this. That's all Eastern philosophy and a a said this and that and the other thing and he was going at me and I met Reese since with no resistance. I said just have a different experience. His ego wanted a fight, and he got really frustrated and walked away. And he had some nasty things to say. And

Sunday morning, I'm giving a talk. I finished the talk. Here he comes. Joey, Big book, he's coming at me. And he walked right up to me, says, can you sponsor me? It's a true story. That's a true story. Yeah. Yeah,

so there's some, you know, I've taken words and visions into meditation to help me stay focused. I've taken questions into meditation. The meditation for me is just God's going to communicate. We're going to communicate, but I'm going to be still right. Now the thing about meditation, when we do it at the beginning, we all have noise.

I'm going to be still, Goddamnit, if it kills me,

I'm in a fight.

Oh, I can't think of that. I can't think of going to work. I'm trying to meditate and be spiritual or I've got to take the kids to to school and then I've got to cook dinner. And I'm sure don't fight that. Don't resist. What is once you become aware that you're drift and you're no longer drifting, you're present again. So if I'm thinking, OK, got take the kids to school, come back to breath, breathing in one, breathing out two, breathing in one, breathing out two. I got a business meeting at 1:00 with the boss. We got to do a board meeting and OK, oh, back to breath, breathing in one

breathing. And little by slow, we strengthen the spiritual muscles. Now, what happens is when we can't plan this, and I've given you my experience and really working with this, there's a piece of meditation where no mind is involved. I'm not thinking anymore. No mind equals total present equals peace. No mind equals total presence equals freedom. No mind. And I don't know, there's probably some fancy way to say this, but I go into meditation. My experience has been with this

and I'm focused on breath and I'm getting still and I'm cutting. You kind of jockeying and got stuff going on and then you get still and then there's a rhythm to it and out. I used to use a timer. I don't do that anymore. I don't know how long. My God needs me in sacred silence. That's his job. I just am the willing student, waiting and waiting and waiting. OK, Pete, now we have to go to work. OK, off we go. God going in that there's our first piece, and what I've experienced a handful of times

was a piece that I'm not aware I'm meditating, I'm not even aware I'm in the room and I'm giving something. I've been given something

two particular times, completely shifted me around as far as my relationship with God. There was no thinking like wow, this is some experience I'm having, this is really spiritual, must be God talking to me. None of that. I was in the experience, if that makes sense.

Like this, this other dimension. And it had to do with riddles that I had in my head about riddles in life, about my mom, the afterlife, how come and why and all these things. And he knew that, but the ground had to get fertile. So I go into meditation, I'm working with breath and getting still impostor is important. And then I go somewhere else. I don't know how long I'm in there for because time doesn't get involved in that. There's no calendar, there's no clock involved in that purely

movement. And then there's then there's a third piece where you come back breath.

When that happens, how that happens, He's in charge. My job is to say, OK, I'm here to go to work, Let's go. And I'm in and I'm giving worship and attention and integrity and dignity to my God. I don't get my prayer life involves while I'm in the shower. I don't get my prayer life involves while I'm driving in a car. That's like having trying to have a talk conversation with someone, an important talk with you while you're texting

and I'm pouring out my heart and you're going really wrong. Sorry to hear that. Is this what I'm supposed to care about? The way, you know,

right?

I mean, that's what we're doing with God, God, God, God, God. But I'm driving, cutting lanes. And by the way, I need this, you know, just think about that for a minute. So I don't do that.

My night I I've been made discipline, my nightly reviews. It's a long time. I'm sober now and I'm consistent.

Have I missed nights? Absolutely. Have I fell asleep after work and woke up the next morning missed my night leave You? Absolutely. Do I write inventory just about every single night? My 11 step? Yes. Do I share it with my sponsor? Yes. Am I willing to share inventory with you? If I had something with me now and you asked me to share, I'd check.

And that's how God has kept the slate clean for me. If I'm clearer, I can hear, and I go into silence to hear and darkness to see. That's what I do. I don't know where it's taken me. It's none of my business. My job is to chop wood, carry water and somehow

when you're getting that soul food and, and, and you work. I work with meditation, I work with prayer. I have a prayer life. It shows up in my life

and it affects other people in a positive way. I'm no longer infecting people.

What I do for a living makes no sense.

Patience, tolerance, teaching, understanding, lowering the boom when it's needed, drawing a line in the sand and howling how to navigate. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a light. I am not a licensed clinician. How do I know how to do that kind of work when it's called upon?

Sometimes we have a client in front of us and we're in a staff meeting and they say you want to take this client. I said sure, how are you going to work? I don't know. I'll I'll just know though. Just put them. If I'll know, I'll just it'll come to me.

I got a drunk, a difficult drunk, who's who's you know, I know who responses were they didn't know to do and it comes to me. Something says just put him in front of me. I I'll I'll nab it. I know how to do this. That's coming from someplace else. Now, if you ask me to balance a checkbook, we're all broke at the end of the day.

If you ask me to hang a picture on the wall, there's 300 holes in the wall. I don't know how to do that. I pick up a ham. I look for a screw. I mean, I'm lost,

but we when we're trying to operate on this soul level,

I don't know. I just do it and I happen to be successful at work. Since I've gotten into this business, God has given me some gifts. How do I know how to manage men?

Why how? Why is it that the people I work for like working for me? I didn't never read a manual.

I never went to college,

but while operating on relationships, college can't teach me that. A degree doesn't show me how to do that. That's a God thing. I need to be right with my Creator

God's here seek and to save. I feel like I've been saved whom I seek and to bring back to God and this whole thing for me and I will never apologize. I don't care about the a a lawyers or the historians in a who might disagree. I don't care for me a a has been about one thing taking people back home to God and we have Emmanuel's called the big book to 12 steps which take people back to God. You want to you want to get into this philosophical stuff and some people do the steps. I feel like you need an engineering degree. They worry about the commas and the dots and the periods.

It's about taking people that back to God with very wide arms. He's got long arms. It's not that difficult. So we get to heal people. Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm getting into the 12 step now, I apologize. What we do, we get the power to heal people in AA. God has given great power. We're no longer powerless. God has given us great power. You get a drunk who's busted up and his family is ripped up from his alcoholism. We get the drunk, we work him through this book. We take him to God. They awaken and that trunk now is compelled to go back

into that family and take these principles into that affair and little by slowly different times for different people, whether they go to al Anon or not, and they should, but whether they do or don't, they start to get affected by that recovered drunk. It becomes a God house because he's there with the wife, He's there with the children. They have date night,

they have time, they have dinner together, they do things together, they be together. That family is healed. That drunk is healed. Because of the power God gave us, this thing could have been given to great minds around the world,

people with all sorts of letters in front of their name, reverence and priests and whoever. He got a drunk to work with a drunk. And we're here today talking about what they put in the book.

Spiritual life makes absolutely no sense. My life makes no sense.

There was a time I was living in Staten Island, NY, and I took what was left of a bottle of pills and washed them down. I wanted to die more than anything in the world. I can't do this. I just can't. And he interrupted that. And I'm talking to you this morning about that, and everyone in this room knows exactly what I'm talking about.

It's to healing.

So I seek

and I just kind of, I'm really liking, I'm loving where I am right now as far as the path goes. My favorite place to be on a Sunday morning. I mean, I'm on the road a lot. And so we try to, we try to dip into church when we can. My favorite place to be on the whole planet is 10:30 in the morning at Saint Ambrose and Mass.

That's all I got there.

Thank you, Peter,

the long and winding Rd.

So

I thought when I started out on the sober trail, first of all, I told you I felt like a displaced person because I was,

I was a fish out of water. I had been drinking my entire life. And, and, and I'm married and I have a three-year old daughter who will not stay in the room when I walk into the room.

And

I'm saying to myself,

what anonymous do I go to because I'm really in trouble inside. I'm not drinking alcohol and I'm starkers. I am just insane and I don't know what to do.

And I started having this experience where I got more isolated, more isolated, and I started sticking people up the hierarchy of guru looking for answers. You know what's up?

And I I got to this guy. I got to the head guru

and he looks at me and he says I said man, I'm coming unwrapped and I'm work steps. I'm doing the dew and what's going on? And he says, I don't know, man, maybe you're going to drink.

And I found another book

written by someone who spent a great deal of time in prayer and being with God,

and they identified everything that I was going to. I was being LED into the desert

so that in the desert the toxicity of my disease could be stripped from me,

and I needed the desert more than I needed your pat on the back or anybody's association or anything. Please understand, I'm not trying to. We're talking about the 11th step now.

And I thought, Oh my God,

is it possible

I have any value?

Because I tell you wrong way, Hannigan, because I'm trying to say it clean,

but I I flunked everything. I flunked everything.

I was flunk in my marriage. I flunked fatherhood. I got a taste for suicide. I am flunking seriously and I want to live and I can't do it. And then I find out that sometimes God will take someone

and he will remove them so he can heal them. And it was happening to me.

And that started when I was a year and a half sober. And I'm, I don't know why I'm going to tell you this, but I am going to tell you this.

I've been in the dark night of the Spirit for over 25 years

now. We would say, we say dark. So we think, oh God, this is, this is awful. I'm telling you, it's tough. This is a road. The long and winding Rd. I remember sitting in Portsmouth, NH. I had we had lost our home. We had a three story Victorian mansion with a swimming pool. I had the house on the hill. I was making some bread. We had a two-story carriage house Outback. I had a wood shop in it.

I had a couple of antique automobiles

and now I am on the road and I get out to New Hampshire and it didn't last long. I was there five months and got fired and I needed to be.

And I there was a woman who lived in Brunswick, ME, and she's got me by a year. She's 41 years sobered. She did a Hospice, you know, she ran a Hospice, so she knew what it was like to treat dying people. And Mickey was dying. Marie would take me up there on the weekends. There's a lot of trees in Maine, OK. And I remember being on that road and I look at all those trees whipping past that car and I could barely speak English.

And then she gave me a pamphlet that she used for the Hospice people. And in the pamphlet it said I am a stranger and a strange plant

God.

So you know, she was just taking me in because I was dying. What was dying?

You understand what I'm saying? I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth now. I was obviously alive. What was dying? What was dying was my false self.

Umm, I come from an old warrior family which I have told you all warriors

and it turns out that I am a warrior. I that's why God placed me in that family.

I was 3/4 donkey. I would hang on. I would hang on to the stuff and I couldn't let it go. So he began to separate me from it. And I remember I sitting on a park bench. I can't believe I'm telling you. I, I hope this has some value for me. I'm sitting on a park bench in Portsmouth, NH, which is at the edge of the United States, for those who would like to know,

and I've got the Atlantic Ocean over here, a no place to run.

I've got a job I hate. I'm with New England people. I tell a joke, they don't get it. They tell a joke. I don't get it. I don't know what the Hell's going. I bring in Donuts. We don't eat Donuts. We don't eat bagels. I've got a dozen Donuts to eat now. I don't know what the Hell's going on.

Finally, in a business meeting one time, I unloaded on my boss. I came unglued. Boom, like this. And the guy across from me starts smiling. So does my boss. I said to him, I had an interpreter. He was my New England interpreter. I said what just happened? He said the boss thought you were a wuss. You finally stood up. Now he's happy. I'm going. What the hell is this? You know,

I presented a project to one of our clients in the ad agency I was in and I said, how do you like it? And he says, well, it isn't sunrise over Marblehead, but it'll do. I started laughing. I thought what the hell is this guy doing anyway?

So I'm sitting on a park bench and it's misting OK,

and I'm eating and I'm being mugged for my sandwich by a seagull,

which we don't have so many in Denver.

And I looked up at God in tears and I said, I thought you loved me.

I thought you loved me. What the hell am I doing here? I would get up in Dover, NH. I would drive through Maine, through Kittery, ME, and then down across the Piscataqua River. You got to learn how to pronounce all this stuff. Piscataqua. No, no, no. The pisquatic of Rib. Piscataqua River into back into New Hampshire.

I remember I'm eating alphabets because I was a writer. Whatever anyway, and I literally did eat alphabet. So I'm eating alphabets in our house, which is a three story duplex in Dover. With the stairs like this. Honest to God it would have been built by a sailor. But anyway,

and I'm watching a claymation thing on television and it is it is Abraham and his wife Sarah. She's on a donkey because she's pregnant

and and Lot, the nephew or whatever is behind him and he's leading him through a sandstorm. Abraham is and Sarah says, let me get this straight. God sent us here,

right? I'm eating alphabets and I get it.

God sent us here and I would go to Portsmouth and I would pull up behind an abandoned fish cannery and I would cry like a three-year old.

I was being gutted.

And incidentally, for those who have missed this landmark, the Portsmouth Naval Prison is in Portsmouth, NH. It's now abandoned. It looks like Tim Burton built it. It's this presence over here. So I'm looking at the Portsmouth Naval Prison

and I'm behind the cannery crying and this is what has happening when I'm about 25 years sober.

Where is God in this?

Mickey, I love you so much. I am not going to let you go. I am going to mold you and I'm going to form you. I'm going to strip you down to my son. I'm going to transform you into who I made you to be.

And what does it feel like? If

it feels like death,

I felt like I was dying. So one day I stood up, facing the Portsmouth Naval Prison on the edge of the United States. And I told him, I said, if this is what it takes for you to strip me of this virulent disease, let's get it on. By God, let's do this thing, OK?

And I remember we left Portsmouth in a pouring rain like you can only have in Portsmouth and in Indianapolis, IN.

And we start, we had a 23 foot truck with our car on the back and everything we owned in this van and we're going to go home

and Murray ran out into the rain and got us a couple of Arby's or something like this. And we had it for home. And we came back to Denver and we put everything we owned in a storage facility. And I went to work on a bicycle, as I've told you, for 7 bucks an hour painting apartments.

Why is this important? I'm trying to tell you that God's ways are not the ways of people many times. OK,

Job was my favorite book in the Bible

and Joni Mitchell wrote a song and in her lyrics she said about Job. She said, Oh you silent watcher, what have I done to you that you make everything I dream and everything I want, everything I dread and everything I fear come true?

I'm sharing this with you because God is kind always, but he's God,

understand? And he told Job. My ways are as high above your ways, Job, as the heavens are above the earth.

If he had not done that, I would not be with you today. I am a spiritual warrior. I was made a spiritual warrior. The Psalm says I trained your arms for battle

and I will not let you go to understand what I'm saying and he will not let you go. We're dealing with God here. This is life and death. We can discuss techniques, but I'm going to tell you that what happened was I went down the rabbit hole. I got close to God and he put me in the darkness and I tell people this and they got frightened and I'm telling you, do not be frightened.