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Source: Peter M. Boca Raton, FL – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2025-02-14.mp3 File: peter-m-boca-raton-fl-box-of-chocolates-2025-02-14.mp3 Duration: 00:50:59
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That was the worst introduction ever. I'm a mobster. I'm trying to be love and tolerant and the feds are going to walk in here. My name is Peter, Recovered Alcoholic. I'm grateful to be alive and sober and part of a sacred place called Alcoholics Anonymous. And first things first, thank the committee for having me here and Miss Stephanie for picking me up from the airport and taking me for breakfast and taking real good care of me. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And I'm glad to be here. Glad to share the good news that was freely brought to me. I'm glad to be in the center of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is my life. And I get to do this and talk about what was freely given to me. And to me, I get excited about that stuff. I remember when I was new and would go to big meetings, speaker meetings, anniversary meetings, and the speakers would be all dressed up and they would tell these horrific stories. And it didn't make sense to who I was looking at at the time. And Alcoholics Anonymous, my experience has been makes no sense to the mind. In God's world, it makes perfect sense. I mean, there's no way I'm supposed to be doing this talk tonight based on my history, but here I am and I get to do this. So thank you for having me. June 23rd, 1988 is when a loving God separated me from alcohol. I'm very grateful for this gift of sobriety. I'm very grateful for many of the things that God has taken away. God's always given, but sometimes His way of giving is by removal.
And I find the more God removes, the lighter I travel. Albeit, I leave a lot of claw marks in some of those things. But a lot of ideas, attitudes, perceptions, conceptions about what I thought I needed to be okay as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, as a man, as a husband. God got rid of all of that stuff and left me with basically nothing. And that's when the growth finally began. I do have a sponsor. His name is Bob Izzan, out of St. Paul, Minnesota.
And I do have a home group. It's called No Problems, Just Solutions in Boca Raton Friday. We meet Wednesday night at 730. If you're down there, please visit us. It's a really exciting meeting. It's a new meeting. We're about a year old and we're doing the big book. We have speakers come in and share their experience, strength, and hope out of the book. I'm currently sponsoring 12 men. Alcoholics Anonymous is my life. You know, if you knew, this is going to sound terribly lame. I don't have a life. Something in the Scripture says, if I try to find my life, I will lose it. If I lose it for His sake, I will find it. My life belongs to God and Alcoholics Anonymous. It's none of my business. I made that decision back in three. And for some reason, because of that, I find myself with a very full and abundant life, a life of purpose and direction rather than rudderless. And for me, as long as I want to experience love in my life, I need to be loving. I want to experience forgiveness.
I need to be forgiving. If I want to experience God's mercy, I need to be merciful. And it's just that way for me. And it's not on my terms anymore. And I tell you, the older I get and the longer I'm sober, I'm very grateful for this. There have been things that have been brought to me over the last few years. I've shared this from a million podiums, that the truth is true until we discover a new truth. And a number of years ago, I realized for me that this whole walk in Alcoholics Anonymous is about personal relationships. In fact, it's so important, it's the first bedevilment on page 52, about personal relationships.
How am I doing in my personal relationships? I had to ask myself and talk about this with my sponsor, starting with my relationship with God. Who am I praying to? What does that look like? What does it sound like? How often am I going there? I go to God to keep me sober. I go to other places to keep me happy. It doesn't work that way. Of myself, I am nothing the Father doeth to works. What does that relationship look like currently as recent as this morning? Who am I praying to? How much time do I spend communing with God and leaning all the way in? Do I have a real relationship? If I don't spend time with someone, I really don't have a relationship. I need to spend time and be transparent and vulnerable to participate, to cooperate, and to cultivate what God gives me. And my relationships with people. I need to get my soul food. It's a soul food journey in Alcoholics Anonymous for a guy like me. I need to get my soul food, and usually I'm getting it from you.
[00:05:00]
Very often life seems to be the best teacher, even better than a sponsor, because it presents to me where I really am when things, when adversity hits. But how are my relationships with people? Am I harboring resentments and grudges towards people? You know, when John O'Mary walks in the room, I get that tight feeling, uh-oh, there they are with their big book, uh-oh. They're going to talk about the 12 and 12, I need to leave. What kind of tension do I have? Or perhaps I think about someone at work and I get really tight and I can feel it in my gut. I can't afford that. And it seems to be the older I'm getting and the longer I'm sober, I find it gets really uncomfortable not being in the center of Alcoholics Anonymous. So I do a lot of praying, of forgiveness prayers, acceptance prayers for people, for who and what they are, and I get to travel light. See, what I learned a long time ago is my alcoholism doesn't come in a bottle of whiskey. I thought it did when I was going through seven treatment centers. I thought it did in my entry into Alcoholics Anonymous that my alcoholism came in a bottle of whiskey and it doesn't. My alcoholism sits right up here in the head. They're the part of me that creates the problems, not where I'm going to solve the problem, either go to God or in. And this thing called sobriety for a guy like me, I hope you can identify with this, it's kind of like how fragile it really is.
I make a ton of meetings, I do lots of inventory, do a lot of prayer, a lot of meditation, service to others, I do all those things, they're all three sides of the triangle. But I still have this part of me called the mind that wants to get in the middle of that. That's wants to have me divert from where God is calling me and be consumed with my plans and my designs of everything that's going to take me away from God. I never picked up the first drink drunk. And the most insane thing I'll ever do is from a place called sober. Because my sobriety is hanging by a thread because it is mine. Now God's going to keep it intact.
But what does that look like? So I, you know, kind of get these aha moments when we're around here a little while, little realizations that God kind of lays on our heart, and it changes the trajectory of our life. It changes my whole course of action since I've been in here. I thought for a long time an alcoholic synonymous that I had to be comfortable, seek comfort at all costs, and comfort could be my biggest enemy. Thomas Merton talks about seeking spiritual joy that's unaffected from external things. Comfort is based on what I think I need to be okay. So it's been a whole journey for me, and it still is. And I'm very grateful that there's so much more to learn and experience an alcoholic synonymous that I haven't reached guruhood yet. Thank you, God. Yeah. June 23rd, 1988 is when God separates me from alcohol. And separates is a good word because it was kind of like I had to be pulled away. Like two guys in a barroom fight have to be separated before they really do more damage. And God had to get in the way of me and this thing called alcoholism to drink itself and pull me away because it was killing me. It was winning.
And in 1988, for quite some time, I was a homeless guy. I was a bum on the street, literally in New York, in an area called Alphabet City. It was a really sordid spot in the 80s. You had crack cocaine, you had heroin, and you had the drunks, and they all met together. And it was a sordid spot. And in 1988, I'm homeless for quite a while, and I'm reduced to 130 pounds. You know, I have hepatitis C, I'm urinating blood, I'm running around with filthy clothes. I hadn't bathed in God knows how long. I had a square meal. I'm living that life. I'm in that life. And I would panhandle, steal whatever I had to do to get money to get to a liquor store to get whiskey, because I had to. I couldn't get away without getting violently ill. And there was so many times when I was drinking whiskey out of a bottle saying, this has to be the last one. I need to get help. This has to stop. I'm only going to have one. And I could not get out. No matter how much I tried, no matter what was at stake.
And there was some realization moments along the way when I was forced to take stock of myself, like, how did I get here? And I took a residency in the back of an abandoned building somewhere in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. And the only light that kind of illuminated the hallways from a street lamp outside, it kind of broke through some of the broken glass and kind of kept the kept the hallway a little light. And I come into Alcoholics Anonymous, and this whole place illuminates my whole life. But it was scary back then. I was petrified all the time. And in some crazy way, I felt a little bit safer, sleeping in an abandoned building because the street was was dangerous. And I was feeble. If I lived to be 100, I'll never be as old as the day I walked in here. And June 23, showed up and guys, I got to
[00:10:07]
tell you, I didn't even know it was the month of June. And I'm walking around with blood stained soil pants on. I have this brown turtleneck in a black zip up jacket. I'm cold and sweating at the same time. I don't realize I'm going through withdrawal. I have construction boots and a right boot is missing a front. My fingernails are filthy. I'm even in worse shape and this is my existence. And then June 23rd shows up. And it's unbelievable because on June 22nd, I'm blind drunk and June 23rd is the first day the rest of my life. Go figure how does that work? I had nothing to do with that. Just alcohol beat me to a place of reasonableness where I was listening and begging for help. And I remember that day very clear and I pray to God I never forget it. But I was lying on the floor as usual, coming to with terror and madness for army. And I'm vibrating. And I know we need to get out there, panhandle, get some money, get to the liquor store before it gets really bad. I used to love to drink in East Valley and that was my thing. Blue Dauphines, I had experience with non-conference approved dry goods. We can talk about that after the meeting. And I got up off the floor this particular morning and ready to head out and then everything changed. I got to a moment where desperation screamed louder than the ego and there's a little bit of an opening to pay attention to something else, another voice. Where the ego gets crushed for a brief moment. And when I collapsed on the floor I began to weep. I live life forward and understand that backwards. I look back on this particular moment of June 23rd, 1988.
It was full of God. At the time I thought it was a lot of punishment for me. I couldn't see clearly yet. But I collapsed on the floor and I began to weep and I couldn't stop weeping. To describe it, it would be like the fist of Gulliver hit me right in the chest. Everything that was left was taken out and I couldn't stop weeping. I don't know what was going on with me. Looking back on it, it was years of humiliation and degradation and busted relationships and here I am living in an abandoned building. How did I get here? From my first drink, which was euphoric, to this. This was not the plan. And I realized I reek.
I'm a bum. How dark it is before the dawn. It was a really dark spot for me. And I will tell you back then, I'm a cradle Catholic. I was brought up with some good Christian values from my mom and dad. But I despised God for a long time. I was never an atheist. I just thought God was a punishing God. In fact, I thought at this point God was for women and children. Real men don't need God. If you are, you're weak and cowardly. I am not turning to God. Besides, look at the life He's given me. But on June 23rd, 1988, that very same power I despised and loathed and gossiped and slandered about, in this mess of tears, I begged God to please take me from this. I don't want to die. Those are my exact words. And again, live life forward and understand it backwards. I'm so grateful I wasn't laying in this mess saying, well I need to go to treatment, then I need to go to AA, then I need to do 90 meetings in 90 days and be Moses by Monday. This will be great. I don't know what to do. All I know is I don't want to die. And I need to share this story with you. I've shared it many times. I lost my dad a year and a half ago, and God gave him enough strength, power, and courage to stand by my side, otherwise you'd have a different speaker here tonight. My dad was in a town called Atlantic City. That's about three hours or so away from where I was just existing. And around 2 or 2.30 in the morning of June 23rd, 1988, my dad's awakened out of his sleep. And he told this story all the time. And he got an intuitive thought to come find me, and he started getting dressed, and his wife woke up and he says, where are you going? I need to find my son Peter. We haven't seen him in forever. Where are you going to find him? He says, I don't know, but I have to go.
My dad always said, what if I didn't listen to that? And my dad trekked his way back from Atlantic City, New Jersey to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and later in the day found me standing on a corner, quite frankly, as we used to call it, tore up from the floor up. I can't even fathom what it's like to see your first male born. I come from an Italian Catholic family. I'm the first male born. I was supposed to be Pope or President, by the way. Not an AA member.
Not an AA member, and there I was, vibrating, and my dad found me, and when he did, he got
[00:15:06]
out of the car and just called my name and walked across the street, and the very first thing that comes out of my mouth is, Dad, I'm okay, I'm fine, and when he got to me, I collapsed, and I knew it was over, and I'm 28 years old, and my dad's holding me up, and I felt like a 5-year-old kid, safe and protected, for the first time in years, and my dad kept repeating something, I'm not going to lose my son to this, I'm not going to lose my son to this, over and over and over again, and I was placed in my seven treatment center, my dad and I never got along growing up, he was a tough guy, and I was into like hippies and music, and he thought he picked up the wrong baby at the hospital, but because of the gift of sobriety and the loving God, little by solely, especially with Step 8 and 9, that relationship kind of was healed and reconciled, and he became my best friend, see the great thing about doing the steps and awakening spiritually, is I no longer feel I'm apart from God, but rather a part of God, that I walk with my Creator, as you do, and I get to experience that with you and you with me, it's two different walks, just settling for the grace of God, and experience that power which gives me grace, it's two different walks, I don't feel like I'm apart from God, even in my uncomfortable moments, when I get in my own way, I turn in in order to go out, in fact, quite frankly, in order for me to really see and hear clearly what's outside of me, I need to first be in touch with the power that's inside of me, because the freedom I'm seeking today, folks, is no longer for me, like when I first got here, but the freedom I'm seeking today is from me, and the further I get away from me, the better, it's a long way from my first drink and drunk when I was 14 years old, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, you can tell I'm not from Alabama by the way I speak, my family used to say, I love you, it sounds like a threat, it's like, yo, I love you, you know, what we did back in New York, back in the day, I'm 65, so you can figure I was like the 60s and 70s when I'm growing up, we hung out on street corners, that's what everyone did, street corners in schoolyards, and it was a really cool time, we used to get all dressed up with no money to hang out on the street corner, and it was like wonderful, and you had your crew of guys and girls, and it was during the summertime, everyone would be out, there's no school, 20, 30 people hanging out on the corner, and it was a pecking order, you had to work yourself up to where the men stood, 17 and 18 years old, and so I'm trying to be like, you know, Joe, who's got an IQ of 2, but I want to be like that, and they're all hanging out, and they were drinking Colt 45 beer, and it was pretty cool, we had the little transistor radio, the music was the greatest, we had rock in Motown, it was before MTV and disco ruined everything, it was just a cool town, you know, we didn't have cell phones, so we actually talked to each other, it was unbelievable, and I was always reluctant to drink, but I loved the effect being produced in them by drinking Colt 45 beer, they seem to be traveling light, they seem to be joyous, happy and free, and I am not, I was a very gifted musician, God gave me that talent growing, right out of mama I was just into music, and I was good at it, and I got lots of accolades for music, but I never felt okay, I was just not okay in my own skin, and it wasn't adolescent or peer pressure, we just take that to another level, I was terrified of my dad growing up, I mean he walked in the room back then, I looked for the exit sign, very intimidating guy, if anyone's ever seen the movie Goodfellas, that Robert De Niro guy, I thought they wrote a story about my dad, and I'm into like peace and love, we just clashed, my mom was alcoholic, my mom was a narcotic user, bless her heart, and she had some psych issues, and after about a dozen or so times of attempting suicide, in January 74 she succeeded, and quite frankly the foundation of my life fell apart, I don't know what to do, and I think there was some sort of, way back here, some sort of internal decision that this God that my mom told me to pray for is a fraud, why would he let this happen, and I'm stuck with this giant cold dad, and trying to do life on life's terms rather than I live now on God's terms,
[00:20:00]
and I'm rudderless, I don't know what to do, I'm fear-based insecure, I don't know what to do, ages 8 to 10 I was being molested by some man in the basement of my home, and I was being threatened not to talk about it, so I'm walking around with a lot of stuff, and I don't blame that on my alcoholism, but they are ingredients, and sometimes we can look at the allergy, and the obsession, the spirituality, and say that's it, well we have, some of us have some stuff that are ingredients as to who we become, you know Joe walking in the media, walking in the first AA meeting, full-blown alcoholic, I want to hear about how we grew up, because that's who I'm looking at right now, a lot of trauma, a lot of stuff going on, a lot of stuff in the head, all the narratives that we pay attention to, how my thought life can be my current reality in two minutes if I'm not careful, but here I am 14 years old on a street corner, and I decide to start drinking, because I saw the other guys drinking, the girls were drinking, the guys are talking to the pretty girls, I want to do that, and I start to drink cold 45 beer, and I'm embarrassed to tell you man, halfway through a court, I'm feeling wonderful, I never experienced this before, I was back in my skin, I can breathe, we know what, you know what I'm talking about, I was part of life at last, I remember talking to some of those older girls on the corner, I thought I was like Al Pacino at this point, and they probably thought I was a real knucklehead, but I had the courage to do that under the influence, I loved it, I wasn't thinking about my dad, or my mom, or any of my insecurities, I was right in the center of it, and by the time I finished a quart of beer, I feel drunk for the first time, I know drunk, this is drunk, I'm warm and fuzzy, nothing's getting in or nothing getting out anymore, I'm insulated, I like it, I got taller and better looking, I was roughhousing with the guys, it was doing for me, as we often say, what I could never do for myself, it became my God, sometimes even in recovery, I don't realize how much bondage I'm in, until I experience a little bit of freedom, you know, this is AA, I'm sure a bunch of us have been at least one bad relationship, we know what it sounds like, we know what it feels like, we know about the sleepless nights, and all the arguing, and all of that, and for whatever reason, we get out, we look back and say, what was I thinking, oh my God, when I got drunk, I was thinking, why was I sober for this long, I'm only 14, there's no way I'm going to school on Monday sober, I'm not playing drums sober anymore, I'm not doing anything sober, I am staying drunk for eternity, and I try to capture that elusive feeling for years, took me to jail and institutions, and almost death in 1988, I woke up the next morning, it was wonderful, I remembered everything, there was no blackout, and so I'm in the hunt now, to get back to that street corner and do that again, and little by slowly, progression does what progression does, there's something in music called a crescendo, when the music starts off quiet and gets really loud, and that's what my alcoholism was doing, it was starting to infect people and hurt people, I'm not that strong, I'm not that big of a guy, but alcoholism is a monster, it devours everything it touches, I remember reading a statistic that one alcoholic in a family takes about 9 family members on the ride with him, I had two younger brothers, they idolized me, because I was the kid in the neighborhood who was going to make it out via music, I was never in trouble, I was the musician in the neighborhood who was going to make it big, and somewhere between three and four treatment centers, my brothers want nothing to do with me, they're embarrassed, my father thought a lunacy commission should be appointed for me, they don't know what to do with me, but I got caught stealing from my dad, I'm about 18 years old, and like a good alcoholic, I'd rather steal than get a job, my music career was about to take off, and I started to blow it up little by slowly, and one morning I stole from my dad's checkbook, I forged his name on a check and went down to the local store, they all knew who he was, so they reluctantly cashed it, and I thought I hit powerball, I knew nothing about check and statements, I thought when you cash a check, it just disappears somewhere, so I did this regularly, and he got something in the mail called the checking statement, and then he came looking for me, and my dad in his heyday is not the guy you want looking for you, I mean he didn't smile when he was happy, this was not going to be a good encounter, and he found me, in lower Manhattan, I was
[00:25:06]
with this young lady I met the night before, so I'm like loving stalking at the same time, and I thought I was like all that, a player, I'm sitting in the car, the seats are rolled back, the windows are all the way down, the music's all the way up, my shirt's unbuttoned down to my navel, and I really got it going on here, and then the old man found me, and he screams my name, comes after me, and I handled it like any tough guy would, I ran away, and when my dad caught me, I blamed her, the neighborhood, and I blamed my mom's death, and my dad says I understand that, but I'm putting you in this place that helps kids like you, and so around 18 or 19, I don't recall, I walk into my first treatment center, and it was a 28, 30 day thing where you went group after group after group, identified every feeling known to mankind, and when I got discharged, I was drunk in an hour, I didn't concede to my innermost self, I didn't think I was alcoholic, and so I had that same young lady meet me at the door, bring a pint, and off we go, it's unbelievable how the first drink shows up, I have to have it, but the second one screams even louder, my alcoholism doesn't come in a bottle of whiskey, I'm sitting in that treatment center looking back on it, I'm not okay with 28, 30 days under my belt sitting in a cocoon called a treatment center, I'm not okay, I'm still vibrating, and the mind is going 100 miles an hour, all these different narratives that I'm paying attention to, they're all fear-based and insecure, and they're basically passed and forward, passed and forward, passed and forward all day long.
No wonder why I need a drink, and she met me and I got drunk, I never went to AA, I don't need AA, I'm not like those other people, there's nothing wrong, my dad caught me stealing, that's it, end of story, I made my second treatment center, I made my third treatment center, see back then as I will right now, left untreated, I will pay any price tomorrow to seek comfort tonight, right now it's too uncomfortable, I'm gonna go act out with food, with money, with sex, you name it, with gambling, and I'll worry about it tomorrow, but right now I need to do what I need to do, and that's repeated over and over and over again, and at some point I go back to what always worked, and that's a drink.
This thing I have, alcohol as it goes underground and resurfaces in other areas, my experience abundantly confirms this, sex sprees, food sprees, money sprees, gambling sprees, you name it, I'll do it to seek some sort of comfort. When I first got into Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm 28 years old, but my outlook on life was that 14-year-old kid who picked up a quart of beer, so I'm walking around a 28-year-old body and you're expecting me to act like a 28-year-old, but I'm seeing and hearing the world through a 14-year-old, I never grew, and somewhere between treatment center two and three or four, I get into outside issues, non-conference approved dry goods, and they're ripping me apart, now I got holes all over my arms, the back of my legs, I got abscesses on my arms, and I'm drinking, I got the trifecta going on, I got narcotics pills and drinking all at once, and no matter how much I did, I cannot squash that uncomfortability, there'd be a moment of brief relief followed by terror and madness, and I can't get out, I know what I'm becoming, and I can't get out, I worship whiskey, I would do whatever it told me to do and go to any lens for it and pay any price for it, any price.
We talk about the supreme sacrifice we will make for a bottle of whiskey, and civilians look at us and say, what part of this don't you get? We get it all, I just don't know how to stop. How many drunks have talked about sitting on a bar stool, needing to get home to the wife and the kids and they want to be there for Christmas and Hanukkah and birthdays and so on, and I can't get out, I can't. I gotta have one more, and then one more, then oblivion, and then I curse myself the next morning for being a weakling and a failure, and then when I'm not drinking, the very first person I run into is me, and that's not a good occasion.
I'm not okay. And left untreated for a guy like me, if I'm not starving this thing called an ego and feeding this part of me called a soul, I'm in serious trouble with 36 years sober. is Trouble, We're 36 Years Sober, I'm an Alcoholic, I Drink Whiskey, There's a Default
[00:30:01]
Button That Says Drink, Pete, It's Not Going Anywhere, I Haven't Become Immune, I Said At The Opening, I'm Recovered From A Seeming Homeless State of Mind and Body, I'm Not Cured, I'm The Type of Drunk, So Broken and Floored That When The Car Drives Away, It Leaves An Oil Spot, That's My Getting Around, I'm The Type of Drunk, There's No One On The Highway and I'm Causing A Traffic Jam, I'm The Only Car Driving, That's What I Do, I Get In My Own Way, So I Need This Power Call, God, I Need You, I Need To Be Living in Recovery and Unity and Service, Or You Have Another Speaker, And Somewhere And I Go Into My Fifth Treatment Center and For Me, I Had To Meet My Demons, If You Will, Eyeball To Eyeball and It Wasn't Enough For Me To Stop, But I Need To Get A Really Good Grip Of How Deep The Roots Of My Alcoholism Go, And I Go Into This Fifth Treatment Center and I'm In Some Serious Trouble, Not Only With The Law, But I'm In Serious Trouble As Far As Me, I Got A Lot Of Physical Elements Going On As A Direct Result Of The Life I Was Living, And They Said 28 Days Is Not Going To Work For You In This Treatment Center, We Want To Hold On To You, Which I Thought Was Like A Jail Sentence and They Kept Me In This Inpatient Lockdown Treatment Center For Nine Consecutive Weeks, By The Way, You Know Your Life's Not Doing Well When You're Outside Of The Door, Doesn't Have A Doorknob, That's Not A Good Sign, So After Nine Weeks Of Being In There, They're Cutting My Meals In, Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, They're Taking Me To Group Physical Fitness, More Groups Physical Fitness, H&I Would Come In, Father Martin Talks, All Of That Stuff, Nine Weeks Later, I'm Looking Relatively Human, I'm Shaving, I'm Bathing, I'm Washing, I'm Eating, I Put On A Little Bit Of Weight, I Look In The Mirror And Say I'm Good To Go, And On That Saturday Morning After Nine Weeks, They Discharge Me, Says We Can't Keep You, You're Ready To Go, As I Know What I Need To Do And I Hit The Fresh Air And I Don't Know What To Do, I Have No Money In My Pocket, I Have No Girlfriend I Can Call, I Don't Have A Job, I Got Nothing, I'm Standing In Amityville, Long Island On The Sidewalk And I Don't Know What My Next Move Is Going To Be And Here It Comes, That Familiar Voice, Just Get A Drink And We'll Figure This Out, Just Get A Little Juice And We'll Figure This Out And We'll Go To That AA, But Right Now We're Going To Take These Edges Off, And I Wind Up Calling Home To My Dad Collect And He Says Get In The Cab And Come Home, I'll Pay For It When You Get Here, Just Come Home, And When I Walked In The Door, I'll Never Forget My Two Younger Brothers They Were Standing In The Kitchen And When I Walk In, My Middle Brother Says What Is He Doing Here, He's Going To Ruin Everything And That Was A Very Sobering Comment For Me, There Was No Party, They Didn't Want Me There Because They Know What I'm Going To Do And That's Exactly What I Did And I White Knuckled It For Two Days, You Know When You Really Need A Drink And You Can't Eat And You Can't Sleep And There's A Million Voices Going On, I Can't Pay Attention, I Don't Know What To Do And Saturday And Sunday I'm In My Dad's House, He Basically Has A Leash On Me, He's Not Letting Me Out Of His Sight And On Monday Morning Really Early, I Snuck Out Of The House Like A Thief In The Night And I Took A Car That Doesn't Belong To Me, So Now I'm Committing Crimes Again And I Head To, I Thought It Was A Gunshot, Being From Brooklyn I Thought That Was A Welcoming Committee And I Head To A Neighborhood I Used To Hang Out In, Downtown Brooklyn And I Was Waiting For The Liquor Store To Open, This Really Gets Really Interesting, Nine Weeks In Treatment Folks, My Body Doesn't Need Alcohol, It's Not Craving, There's No Allergy Going On, My Body Doesn't Need A Drink But The Mind Says Yeah You Do, The Main Problem In The Mind Not The Body, The Main Problem Is The Mind Period, About Everything, It Tries To Convince Me I Don't Need You, I Don't Need God, It's Always Working, And So It Convinces Me To Just Get One Pint Of Whiskey Just To Chill Out For A Little While, Just To Take The Edge Off The Nerves And That Was The Plan, Except The Liquor Store Wasn't Open, I Parked The Car And I Stopped Pacing Up And Down On The Sidewalk, And I Kid You Not, This Obsession, This Thing That I Have, That We Have, Was So Loud And So Powerful, In About 15 Minutes I'm Feeling Like Oh My God I Need A Drink, My Belly's Upset, My Forehead Is Sweating,
[00:35:00]
My Hands Are Clammy And Starting To Shake, The Anxiety, It Was Awful, I Need A Drink, I Really Felt Physically Like I Need A Drink, I Didn't Need A Drink, And I Could Taste A Drink And When The Liquor Store Finally Opened I Ran In And Got A Little Pint Of Whiskey, Ran Outside I Didn't Make It To The Car And I Drank The Pint Of Whiskey And You Know What Happened, I Felt Good, All Those Symptoms Went Away, The Problem Is I'm An Alcoholic And You Know What I Had To Do, Was Go Back Into The Liquor Store And Get Another Pint Of Whiskey And It Was On, And I Got In A Lot Of Trouble, I Got Set Up And In The Ambush, Got Arrested A Few Times, Just Bad Things Happened To Me, Quite Frankly If It Wasn't For My Dad's You Know Connections And Money I Probably Would Have Done Some Prison Time, And The Trap Doors Have Trap Doors, And What I Was Experiencing Out There Drunk And Sober, Is What I Experiencing Here Sober, And That's What Our Book Talks About Restless, Subtle And Discontented, Where My Aliveness Is Dead And I Don't Even Want To Do Anything, I'm Obsessing On Me, I Become The Most Important Topic, I Pretend I'm Interested In You But I'm Really Not, It's Always About Me And That's How It Was Back Then, It's About Seeking Comfort At Any Length And I Don't Care If I Have To Step On You, It's What My Alcoholism Does, And I Got Into My 6th Treatment Center And Walked Out After 36 Hours, I Convinced The Realization Kind Of Burst Upon Me I'm Better Off Dead, I Was Convinced, I Realized How Much Harm I Brought To My Family, I Blew A Music Career, I Don't Have A College Education, How Am I Gonna Get Out From Under, I Got Physical Elements, I Don't Know What's Going On With Me, And All I Can Think About Is Getting Another Drink In Me, I'm Better Off Just Dying, And 36 Hours I Walked Out, They Begged Me Not To Leave, I Walked Out, This Is Done, I'm Not Gonna Go To Another Detox Again, I'm Sick Of Your Treatments And Your Groups, I Just Want To Die, Alcoholism Gets Me In A Corner And Wins All The Time, And I Was In Some Flea Bag Motel, There Was A Nightclub Bar, Real Swanky Joint With A Motel Up Above, And I Knew A Lady There Who Was A Bar Maid, She Says I Have A Room Upstairs, You Can Crash Out There, And I Remember I Would Drink And Pass Out, Drink And Go Out, And One Morning, It Was Maybe 3 Or 4 O'Clock In The Morning, She Finished Her Shift And I Woke Up, And She Crashed Out On The Couch And I Remember Going Into A Pocket Book, Because I Was Gonna Steal All The Money She Made And Get The Heck Out Of There, But What I Found Was A Whole Bunch Of Pills In A Bottle, They Were Valium, And I Said There Is A God, I'm Getting Out, And I Ate The Whole Thing, Same Way My Mom Died, And I Washed Him Down, I Was Drinking Jack Daniels At The Time, Washed Him Down With Whatever Was Left In That Glass, And I Got Into The Bed And I Waited To Die, And I Welcomed The Idea Of Dying, I Can't Do This Anymore, It's Too Painful, Life Hurts, It's Unpredictable, I Can Be An Alcoholic Synonymous, And My First 6 Months In AA, I Was Feeling The Same Kind Of Uncomfortability, Life Hurt Again, And I'm Sober Now, But Here I Was In This Flea Bag Motel, And When Those Pills Hit, Because They Hit, And I Can Feel Myself Going Out, I Had A Realization This Is Exactly What You Told Me Was Gonna Happen To Me, Where Dying Looks Like A Good Way To Go, It's Called Alcoholism, And God Interrupted My Death, There Were A Lot Of Things That Ensued After That, And I Was Homeless, All My Family Members Locked The Doors, No Girl In Her Right Mind Would Even Fly Over Me, I Was Unemployable, And So You Hit The Streets, And I Remember My First Night On The Street, I Don't Know How To Do Streets, I Was Petrified, I Don't Know Where To Lay My Head Tonight, I'm Getting Hungry, I Need A Drink, What Do You Do? You Do, You Panhandle, You Steal, And You Do Whatever Needs To Be Done, You Get Arrested, You Get Beat Up, But This Is The Life I'm In, How Did I Get Here? You Know It's Unbelievable, My Dad, The Life We Get To Live In Recovery, My Dad Went About 6'6", 1 In His Day, 220, Big Man, And Right Before He Passed, He Was Reduced To 115 Pounds, And He Was Sitting In A Wheelchair, And It Was About A Week Before He Passed, And I Was Visiting With Him, And He Says, Peter, I'm Tired, I Want To Call The Orderly, Can You Pick Me Up And Put Me In Bed? And I Leaned Over, And I Put My Hands Under His Arms,
[00:40:03]
And I Had This Moment Of Clarity, That On June 23rd, 1988, When I'm Ripped Apart By Alcoholism, My Dad Found Me, He Helped Me By Putting His Hands Under My Arms And Held Me Up, And It's 30 Something Years Later, 36 Years Later, And I'm Holding My Dad Up The Same Exact Way, And I Had This Realization That God Is Great, I Was Able To Help My Dad Have Some Dignity And Grace In Some Very Uncomfortable, Icky Moments, And I Talked To Him In Bed, And I Prayed Over Him, And I Kissed Him On The Lips, And That Was The Last Time We Saw Him, But I Was Able To Do It, Would Head Up And Show The Square As A Sober Gentleman, And Help My Dad Cross Over, When I'm Homeless, I'm Not Thinking About This Stuff, I Want To Die Every Day, And I Took Up Residency In The Back Of This Abandoned Building, And That's What I Did, I Come To You And Go Do All That Stuff, And As I Said At The Opening, June 23rd, 1988, I Showed Up, I Had No Idea The Road God Was Putting Me On, And I'm Glad I Didn't Know, But Little By Slowly, Chopping Wood And Carrying Water, Chopping Wood, Carrying Water, Things Start To Get Better, Physically I Start To Get Better, I Still Have This Mind, But I Find The Spots, And Little By Slowly Starts Taking Me Through The Steps, By The Way, When I Got Into My Seven Treatments, I Need To Give Minnesota A Replug, I Was There For About Two Weeks, And They Sent Me Out To Minnesota, And I Was Taken To A Meeting Called The Three Legacies Meeting, It Was Like This Big On A Friday Night, And Everyone Was Dressed, They Looked Impeccable, I'm Pinned Up Against The Back Of The Wall, Petrified, I'm Wearing My Brother's Clothes, They're Too Small For Me, And Everyone Looks Glossy, And Shiny, And Laughing, And I'm Like, God, If You're Out There, Please, Please, I'm Tired Of Feeling Dirty, I Don't Want To Feel Dirty Anymore, I Don't Want To Be This Guy Anymore, Let Me Be Like These People, Let Me Dress Nice, Let Me Be A Gentleman, I Want To Have A Woman, I Want To Get A Job, I Don't Know How To Do It, Please, Please, Please, Show Me How To Live Like These People, I Got Nowhere To Go, I Got Nowhere To Go, I Got Nowhere To Go, I Got Nowhere To Go, I Got Nowhere To Go, I Got Nowhere To Go, Show Me How To Live Like These People, I Got Nowhere Else To Go, This Was It, Alcoholics Anonymous, And A Year Later, I Was Brought Home, My Dad Got Me On The Phone, He Said, You Want To Come Home, I Couldn't Believe I Would Be Invited Back Home, And I Slept On My Kid Brother's Couch, And I Got A Job, My Old Job Took Me Back, And I Start Saving Money, It's Unbelievable, When We're Sober, We Start To Save Money, I Don't Know How This Happens, And I Saved Up A Bunch Of Money, Got My First Apartment, My First Apartment In Brooklyn, New York, Was A Little Studio Apartment, It Was A Box, I Had No Phone, No Furniture, No Nothing, A Woman In AA Says, Honey, Congratulations, I Heard You Got Your First Apartment, And She Opened Up Her Trunk, And She Gave Me A Sleeping Bag, And That Was My Furniture, Had A Bunch Of AA Bumper Stickers On The Door, Had A Crucifix Above The Door, I'm A Catholic, I Have My Big Book, And I Found Some Bible That Is Still With Me, And I Got Into That Sleeping Bag, Almost Killed Myself Getting In, Because I Don't Own Sleeping Bags, And I Slept At The Ritz Carlton That Night In The Sleeping Bag, I Was Sober, I Was Employable, I Had A Sponsor, I Had A Home Group, And I Was Trusting People For The First Time In My Life, And Little By Slowly That Family Was Put Back Together, My Brothers Found Al-Anon And Therapy And Church, And Through The Power Of Amends, I Was Able To Sit With All Of Them, And Walk This Out, Because What I Have Found That The Talk Is Not The Sermon, The Walk Is The Sermon, Don't Talk About One, Let Me See One, And That's What They Were Waiting For, And Little By Slowly, And You Know, Chopping Would Carry One, I'm Showing Up For Work On Time, And Showing Up For Events On Time, I'm There When My Brother Went Through Divorce, He Called Me, And I Was There, This Is What Alcohol Has Allowed Me To Do, Pack Into The Stream Of Life, Be God's Light, It's Way Beyond My Home Group, And I Was Brought Into The Industry I Got Into, I Wasn't Planning On Doing This, I Do A Little Something Different Now, But I Was Brought Into The Industry Which I Had Been In For Over 30 Years, Took A Lot Of Hits, Because Of It, Because Of It, I Don't Care, People, There's Some Folks In AA Want To Run Me Out Of AA, Because I Work In Treatment, But As Long As I Walk With My God, I Got God's Armor On Me, So The Arrows Fall Over There, They Don't Hit This, I Start A Life Of Prayer Meditation, I started a life of prayer and meditation, and I'll get out of your hair a quick story.
And I started to touch something I never touched before, and that was knowing that I'm known
[00:45:03]
by my Creator. It wasn't sketchy. It wasn't something I'm praying to, I hope He's listening. I just knew He was. In fact, I found my gods going to any lengths to have a relationship with me, using anything He can, people, places, and things to have a relationship with me. I need to sometimes stop and pause and pay attention. When my mom died, I didn't get to say goodbye. So my mind told me we didn't say goodbye, this ruthless God ripped you off.
And I remember being in a blind drunk, not a blackout, but just a blind drunk, and I'm sitting on the edge of this bed with a crying jag going on, screaming and cursing at God for ripping me off, you took my mom. And I remember saying in this drunk, if you bring her down from this place called heaven, with more sarcasm than you could imagine, and let her hug me one time, I will quit drinking and live a good life.
I'm negotiating with God at this point while I'm drunk, and that didn't happen. But I get sober, and I get a sponsor, and I start going through the steps, and I start working with prayer and meditation, the practice of 10 and 11. A lot of meditation, a lot of prayer, the power behind this, because God knows the soul. It's always right. And I start this meditation one morning, and I find myself sitting on a beach.
I love the beach. And in this meditation, I get taken somewhere where I wasn't even aware that I was there and meditating, to another place, no dimension, if you will, another dimension. As I'm sitting on the beach, I notice way out on the horizon where the sky meets the water, that little line, here comes the carpenter headed for me, and literally out of his chest appears my mom, which my sponsor told me signifies oneness with God.
And when my mom got to me in this meditation, I became a little eight-year-old kid, and my mom kneeled down on one knee in this meditation and gave me a hug. And I know most of the men in this meeting tonight, when you're 7, 8, 9, and 10, and mama hugs you, you're gold. And I stood up, and I became a young man, and my mom gave me another hug. For nine years, I had been going. I wasn't a regular at church or mass, but I would go to my religious community and light candles every single week for nine years.
Light a candle for the sick and suffering, and light a candle for my mom, without missing once a week. In this meditation, my higher power puts his arms on my shoulders, nothing is spoken, and he looks me in the eye and says, she's okay, she's with me. The amount of peace and euphoria I was experiencing at this point, there's no adjective to describe that. You can't describe God. We try. And then my mom pointed off to the horizon this way, to hundreds and hundreds of flickering lights.
Then she pointed off that way, to hundreds and hundreds of flickering lights. She held on to me once more. She had tearful joys rolling down her face, and her and my higher power become one, and I come out of meditation, and I realize I'm weeping. I'm exhausted, and I'm confused. I don't understand the flickering lights, and what do you do? You go to the phone and call your sponsor, and I told him what just happened.
I just wanted the flickering lights. He says, you've been lighting candles for your mom for nine years. She got them, and she let you know. And at that moment, I know I'm known by my creator. There's something way beyond here that's paying very close attention to me, you, and how we're doing. When I need to lean on, He's there. When I need guidance, He's there. I just have to ask. The only thing God wants from me is my soul, and I give Him my soul, and He gives me a life.
I've given Him my sinfulness, and He's given me forgiveness. I've given Him my drunkenness, and He's given me sobriety. I've given Him my sobriety, and He gives me the sacred rooms called Alcoholics Anonymous. And I really pray, if you're new, or perhaps you're around here a while, and you haven't experienced the sacredness of Alcoholics Anonymous, will we get reborn and resurrected for fun and for free in here?
Lives are changed. Families are changed. That you stick around long enough to experience the sacredness, what we call Alcoholics Anonymous, for fun and for free. We don't care what color you are, what religious party, political party, what religion. If you want to stop drinking, come on in, we'll pour you a cup of coffee.
[00:50:02]
I'll close with this, from a book that was given to me, I love it, it says a whole bunch for me. It's not an AA book, it was given a spiritual book, and I came across this, but it talks about us. And the author writes this, may I become at all times, both now and forever, a protector for those without protection, a guide for those who have lost their way, a ship for those with oceans to cross, a bridge for those with rivers to cross, a sanctuary for those in danger, a lamp for those without light, a place of refuge for those who lack shelter, and a servant to all in need.
That's my Alcoholics Anonymous, what we get to do for fun and for free. Thank you so much for having me, that's all I got.