Peter M. AA male

Peter (0:01)

All right, Peter recovered alcoholic, and present promises for step 11

There's something that goes, if I'm faithful to the practice, I will experience the practice's faithfulness to me. If I practice fidelity to God, I'll experience God's fidelity to me.

This walk, the work, I should say we're doing, Chris talked about eight, nine, Jim talked about four and five, we talked about six and seven. All this work, quite frankly, where we arrive, which our book talks about, the sunlight of the spirit, speaks loudly for that power that cannot be spoken about. There are no words. We tell words, we tell stories in AA.

But even when we tell our story, it really doesn't touch what we went through. And moreover, when we're talking about God, we can try to paint any kind of picture. You come up with the best adjective to describe God, you can't. But we get an idea. In fact, if I was able to describe God, it's probably not God.

And the thing about this walk we're on, I'll use things to make me feel godly.

I will wrap myself up in bandages. Thomas Merton talks a lot about this. We'll call it money, property, and prestige, because I know I'm so hollow and unrecognizable. But if I acquire enough stuff, get enough popularity, and you'll recognize me. And somehow the delusional doors, I'll fill this hole in the soul. But eventually those bandages fall off, and I realize I'm just an empty vessel. I need to come to terms and peace with that.

In the pursuit of that, to get what I think I'm supposed to have, I wind up empty all the time. It's the guy who comes to a meeting, or the woman, and they're in incredibly good shape. And they look good. Their clothes just fit them well. They got that healthy glow on them. And you say, my God, what are they doing? You know, they eat right, they work out, they just look fabulous. And then you start to sponsor them, and you realize that they can't be any other way because they're driven by vanity. It's not even an organic thing, but I want to get in shape. I feel like I need to do this and enjoy the process. They're driven for vanity or by vanity, or the person that we see come to a meeting, a home group, and they always have money on them, and they're working lots and lots of hours, or they have two jobs, or run a few companies. And you say, my God, how do they get so successful? I want to be like that. I need to be more productive. And then you start to sponsor them, and greed is driving them, because no matter how much money they have, it's never enough. They need the next deal, they need the next million, and they get that, they need the next million, and they're driven by that right to a drink. And the cool thing about being in the world of the spirit, can we experientially talk about that? Now, I would, I think all of us, I can speak for all of us, like a big, fat bank account. For obvious reasons, but my mind gets involved, and says, then I'll achieve happiness. Failing to realize, I take me and my stuff just into a higher tax bracket.

And I remember how a sponsor told me, when I get to a place of acceptance, not apathy, but acceptance of having very little and working with that, it's an opportunity that I can achieve more and be grateful for whatever comes down the pike. But if I'm constantly trying to chase and grab the brass ring, while I'm scattered in here, no matter what I achieve, it's not good. I'm looking in the wrong direction. What I need to be do is seeking out God all the time. This interior prayer life, where I'm looking for the all of God and everything, the practice of getting right with God. I don't like to say closer to God, because one of the truths I woke up to is, third step says, keep close to performance work well. I don't have to get close to be close. It's an awakening of how close God was. There is no proximity between us and God. That is the awakening. The awakening, he's closer than my own breath. And I've been searching, but in all the wrong directions. I've been searching for it in horror, I've been searching for it in the money, I've been searching for it in the job, and it feels good for a while, then it gets old, and the journey, the old time has always said, was inside, where it always was. When I was living in an abandoned building, I had just as much God in me then as I do right now, whether it's a little or a lot. The other thing I can get into, it's so subtle how the ego gets in there, it says, well, I need more God. I said earlier, I need a smaller me, not a bigger God. But I need more God, I need to experience more of God. And that sounds good on the front end. But how much of that is ego driving me? If I get more God, I'll be okay. What if God said, this is all I'm giving you of me, can you work with that?