Peter's 39-Year Sobriety Journey: Listening, Family, and Healing

Hi everybody, my name is Peter Green and I am an alcoholic.

- Hi, how are you doing?

- And I want to thank Callan for a greeting

and I want to thank to be invited to participate,

but I don't want to take any more time.

Sean, thank you.

I'm sober, I love sober, and I love listening.

And man, you're on the top of your game.

You can sponsor me.

Honestly, God, I mean,

I would trust you with what you have now.

And if you hadn't noticed, the dust coming off my jacket,

it's been over a year since I put a sports jacket on

and probably twice that with a tie.

But I read Nat Snap, right?

- Nate.

- All right, Nate.

We've been fighting that for the last three days.

Nate texted me in my time going to meetings

and we're going to respect,

'cause he asked me to respect

the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous

by leaving my coat and tie.

So I'm going to step it through.

And you can all feel bad.

Thanks, Nate.

I love sober.

And Sean, I'm going to start off

prophesizing right off the bat

before I tell you who I am.

I have two, I have a pair of socks.

One's red, one's blue.

You're not here in those that are on Zoom.

I'm asking about my daughter, Molly.

I'm talking about her.

She gave me a pair of socks that have photographs

of her two kids, which is Molly's,

and the other blue socks of Lauren,

my older daughter, of her two, my grand.

So I got four grandsons and they're all sober.

And Lauren and Molly are sober.

And for history, how much time do I got, Nate?

- About 35 minutes.

You're going to go until 8.25.

Just pay attention to those lights on the podium.

- Okay, all right.

Well, being that I had a stroke last year,

I'm not going to remember it.

So just tell me what I got to do.

I take direction today.

So, all right, Lauren and Molly.

And I got these socks on with these photographs.

About six, let's go back.

Two years ago, I had a stroke.

And I'm up and I'm about,

did you just call it a mid start?

Christians call it a blessing?

And their drunk says, "Hey, you're even lucky.

You're going to respect the language of the heart."

Trust me, it's going to be very difficult, like I said.

So the kids are with me right now.

My sobriety date, it's October 27th.

At 7.10 a.m. tomorrow morning,

October 27, 1985,

I will be 39 years sober tomorrow morning.

And not a single second, you're listening on there on Zoom?

Not a single second had I been separated

from the experience that you gave me.

It didn't come from me.

It came from listening

to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Listening was taught to me by Joe Quinn,

who became my sponsor.

He got sober in '52 and he found me,

and I'll do a little later on that.

But he said to me, "Peter, you don't listen."

In my very early years, 39 years ago,

I said, "What are you talking about?

Of course I listen to the business that I've been in."

He says, "No, no, you don't listen."

I said, "What are you talking about?"

He says, "Listening is an act of unselfish."

When I heard the word, I went back

to when I was seven years old

and I failed the Latin test to become an altar buddy.

So the word act was religion.

That fast, I was out of game.

And I said, "Screw you, this is Peter."

All right, then explain.

What are you talking about, I don't listen?

If you're not listening to me here or on the Zoom,

you're thinking about yourself, and that's what he told.

That was my introduction

to the fellowship of alcoholic synonymous

and the beginnings of what will become,

and still today, 39 years of listening.

Doesn't make me any bit different than you guys.

It just happens to be a practice that was given to me early

so that when I tell you I love sober,

it's because I've done the work.

My book right now, I'm sad.

I'm detoxing a guy in my house.

I've got a two bedroom apartment over in Sherman Oaks.

I didn't do speed, I didn't do speed, I did acid.

Hey, oh, by the way, Sean, thank you.

You know, you're on top of it.

You were a juvenile delinquent, thank you.

I related 100%.

(laughs)

And I forget two years of community college,

another miracle in sobriety.

And I plunked everything leading up to.

I couldn't even get out of grammar school.

I was still drinking on the seventh grade.

And then we got out of there and I went to La Salle Academy

and then I plunked out to the Christian Brothers

because again, the Catholic vision and the authority.

And I went, I was the first in the family

of all of the families to go to a public school.

That's how religious Catholic we were.

All the cousins and all of that business.

And I was in Newtown High School and I was a gymnast

and we drank and we used and it helped the whole,

the whole high school.

And that was the introduction.

And we have shortly after that,

I started a career with my brother-in-law.

My brother-in-law and I, I could bring his anonymity

as passed on with Kevin Dobson and Kojak and Matt Slanda.

And he and I were drunks, trust me.

We needed to be high all the time.

Through this, I did Guiding Light in New York

and I came out here and did General Hospital

and I did a movie.

You guys are, you go on Netflix tonight,

you're gonna see me on 16th.

The original title was Like a Crow in a June Bug.

So I went into film and television

and until I got sober in '85, it wasn't a sober day.

There had to be something.

Three months ago, I met Radford Hall,

which is the North Hollywood group and Sherman Oaks

and a young member of our fellowship gets up

and I'm listening to the dialogue and says,

now I'm coming up on 39 years and I am working all day.

Every day is a new day and he says I needed alcohol

and it hit me like a bullet.

38 years sober and I never heard and I've done everything.

I've done the retreats, I go to the studies,

the big book and then I love sober.

I love sucking you guys dry.

I want everything you got that I hear that I can use.

A newcomer says I needed and I immediately in no time

related that my entire life until October 27, 1985,

when I came to that entire life, I needed alcohol.

Son of a bitch.

I am 80 years old and I know that you are hearing me

but feeling me that we can't put a lid on this.

When I die, I'm coming back the way I go out.

And that's my consciousness

'cause I'm gonna get into that

because Karen used the word tonight.

God, I'm glad to be here.

I hope you guys on Zoom can feel me.

I am here 100%.

I come in and I get greeted by Karen

and she says that she knows energy and looked and showed me.

All right, so let me tell you now

so that you don't get bored.

The word got me sober.

There was a guy, I did property management

and I got married, got the two kids.

But on February 27th, I came to after five days of detox.

Five days, Tommy Zetowoski had eight years.

He was a part of a group that I'm gonna lead up to.

This was a guy that was, now here I wrote a book

and you can get it in the libraries and it's free.

The title is "Never Pay Rent Again."

I hope you're all laughing out there and saying,

"What the hell did he just say?"

But that is your book.

It's in the library so you don't have to buy it.

I'm not promoting sales.

If you're unemployed or your career,

I've been a resident apartment manager

and all of the titles above for over 30 years.

That was my supplement to allow me to do

guiding light and general hospital deliveries.

I was in the business for 40 years.

I'm retired now 12 years.

I didn't do anything along those lines.

But the book is in the libraries

and if you get ahold of me, if anybody asks,

I'll give you the book for free.

Okay, "Never Pay Rent Again."

So here I am, I'm coming out of a five day detox.

I am 41 years old.

You're not gonna get me to in any way

listen to your religions.

But Tommy was a janitor in a building that I managed

which was several hundred units in North Hollywood

and he nursed me for five days.

And for those that are out there and know and feel it,

you don't have to go there.

You don't have to go.

But that's where I was taken.

My God put me through hell.

That's my opinion.

If we believe everything or nothing,

he either is or he isn't,

then that son of a bitch put me through hell

to find him, which I have found.

I have found consciousness, conscious, conscious.

Five days out of detox.

And Tommy takes me the down time

to the Wagon Senate on Skid Row.

Now I grew up in Greenwich Village in New York City.

La Salle Academy was on the side of the Bowery

in New York City.

So I grew up with the bums.

Brooklyn bums, the bowery bums.

I grew up and I come up to a little LA to do my life

and get married and have kids in the whole nine yards.

But at that five day awakening,

Tommy takes me downtown to the Wagon Center.

And in the front door, Nate, come on up.

I'm gonna go off camera for a second.

Come here, baby.

My introduction, the Alcoholics Anonymous Fellowship.

300 pounds, all right?

300, 300, 300 pounds.

You sit there at the front door of the Wagon Center.

And I'm just coming out of five day detox.

This is how I met.

Now I had 82, 84, and 85 D-Rice.

Sean, you talked about it, buddy.

So you and I are the same.

I had 11 arrests, all alcohol related.

And I'll finish up my year on this.

I did a year in a Puerto Rican prison.

A Puerto Rican prison, not New York City.

I went to New York on the weekends

and I wound up taking account of the credit card

because we're involved with the business of New York.

And Ann and I, we got popped.

And I did a year in a Puerto Rican prison.

I was the only white boy in a 200 native.

And I wound up teaching English for the year.

This is the introduction.

If you can see it, this is the introduction

to you that are untreated.

If you haven't done the work, I wanna curse at you.

I really do.

If you don't do the work,

what the hell are you listening to me for?

Think about what I'm just saying.

If you haven't done the work, all right.

This is how I got introduced 39 years ago.

Tomorrow morning at 7.10, a handshake and a hug.

That's how I found Alcoholics Anonymous.

Whoa, God bless Zoom.

God bless me and God bless all of you.

So from there, Chandler Lodge is in North Hollywood.

It's a men's recovery facility.

And Tommy took me to Chandler Lodge and the 9 to 12.

And as he scraped me up and sat me down,

and I was not alcoholic,

you couldn't convince me that I had anything to do

with anything other than I wasn't an alcoholic.

I hope somebody can relate to denial.

It was beyond denial.

It was psychotic.

We're talking about '82, '84, '85, which is recent.

And here it is in October of '85.

So the awakening is the realization

that if I can get through to you, whether you're seasoned,

I used the word seasoned instead of old.

I'm 80, I'm not old, I'm seasoned.

That's for the women, single guys.

Follow me.

So here we are coming to Chandler Lodge.

And Tommy was in a literal sense of the word.

He took me down with Mac.

But from there, I was introduced to Father Terry,

Richie and John McAndrews,

who have been two mentors to all of us Catholic priests.

And it began the journey.

But more important is although I had

the tremendous energy of sober in a room with others,

I didn't know who I was.

I was a celebrity to a greater extent and on the street.

But I was a bar fly for 14 years

at the Rain Check Bar and Grill in Santa Monica.

And I lived in the Valley.

And every night and going to work, I lived that way.

And until a few months ago when a young member

of our group said I needed alcohol.

And that's the disease powerful.

But now I'm 39 years hoping to get through

not only doing the work,

and I hope everybody's listening in here or on the Zoom,

you're missing out.

Joe Cramrud is 1952.

Three months into sober, Tommy,

I got a job with American Savings down in Laguna Beach,

down south in Orange County.

Now here I am, three months without a drink.

Tell her what it is, a miracle.

I'm a miracle.

You're listening Zoom?

You better say to yourself, you are a miracle.

I want to tell you effing, but I can't do it out of respect

because I was told, don't you effing in this meeting.

And I'm going to do that.

I'm going to get through this meeting painstaking.

All right, but if you have to do it,

I did it with Joe Quinn.

He took me through the steps.

He has a meeting.

He sobered Clancy, the Midnight Mission.

The Arlington group of Beverly Hills

was the home group for a man that's got millions,

millions of people around the world today,

Clancy Ingram.

Joe was part of the Arlington group.

Joe had an abandoned car on the street.

And when Clancy came scraping up,

he detoxed in Joe Quinn's car.

The energy that we are talking about,

you better investigate who, what, where, and how

brought you to Alcoholics Anonymous

because I believe those are the angels.

I believe that the energy that I'm about to talk about,

that I believe today as Karen does.

We talked earlier.

She doesn't know how big of a deal it is for me.

And I'm hoping to get through to you, anybody.

It's about doing the work, spiritual experience.

So when I went downtown, Joe in 1950,

he started a meeting at the Canyon Club.

It is still there today.

It's 2024.

He got sober in '52.

And I got sober in '85.

And I wound up months later, downtown in Laguna Beach.

Listen to this, guys.

The intensive study of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

That's the label of a meeting.

It's still down there at 7 o'clock on Thursday.

And I tapped into that energy.

The Jews call it a mitzvah.

Christians call it a blessing.

And they says, effin' lucky.

So the gift that we all have is the ability

to listen and want a desire to change.

Can I?

Yes, human condition.

We have 10 million people that are doing it.

So if you don't do it, call yourself what you are.

Selfish.

I got a kid over at my house now.

I've detoxed him for the last three days.

And he went out.

He was supposed to drive me here.

If anybody in the group is in Sherman Oaks,

even though Nate has offered me, if you're in Sherman Oaks,

I need a right home.

I just thought I'd throw that out.

You can't do it, Zoom, because you're on camera.

All right, you news.

All right, so I'll be going home sometime tonight.

So with Joe, I tapped into the sources

we are doing here and now.

But the study of the big book-- wow, what are the years?

I mean, we're talking about a 41-year life of I need alcohol

and don't know that.

And the wreckage that I cause is tragic.

But the fact that I'm even standing up here now,

Puerto Rico alone, I had to take out five guys.

I stepped over, and there it wasn't.

I have not.

The lady that I put in jail because of my actions, Annie,

she was released.

I was released.

She went out six months, and I went out in a year.

Never saw her again.

Can't imagine what that event was all about.

But that's the love that I have of able with sober mind clear

to just, gosh, god, it's great.

It's good.

So with Tom and the meetings, a meeting back downtown.

And Tommy took me over to a meeting, Skid Row Drifters.

Louie Law, he's got about 55, 57 years sober.

He founded the Skid Row Drifters.

Any of you on Zoom have been downtown,

and you know what we're talking about with Skid Row.

There is a group, the Skid Row Drifters.

And the second Friday of the month, I am a sponsor.

It was given to me one week without alcohol.

So I have had, the second Friday of the month, 39 years.

Just once a month.

Pack a month, the panels.

Just about every group in San Fernando Valley

has been down the Skid Row.

And for those that have been down there,

you know where I'm at.

The Skid Row Drifters, it doesn't mean you have to run

and become a Skid Row Drifter.

No, no, no, no, no.

But the energy that I have been given was given.

But I want-- there's the difference.

I want to hear you.

I want to listen.

I believe that that is sober, the gift, if I choose to utilize.

So that when I die-- and I'm going to die.

I got born again.

If you're on-- and you're a Christian, and you love Jesus,

I was born again at 76.

Searches.

Every one of you on Zoom, we're here.

Now I'm prophesizing.

Now I'm teaching.

We are searchers.

I've listened to a quarter of a million shares in my 39 years.

I did the arithmetic.

Just 64,000 just out of the gate listening.

And the gift.

So Tommy introduces me to Louie Loy.

And I get a meeting downtown in the park, at Gladys Park,

that we gave it up at because of the COVID.

So for 36 years, I gave up.

We all gave up that meeting.

And trust me, it was the homeless on the streets

that were coming into the park.

And the panels, we'd bring the panels, seven panels a week.

And that's the Skid Row Drifters.

I got born again in 76.

Let me go back there, because that's the recovery.

In 76, now I'm doing theater.

I'm drunk all the time and everything else that supports

it.

And I can't think of his name.

It's off the top, man.

But a guy took me to the Hollywood Presbyterian Church.

And he thought that Jesus would save my soul

and help me stop drinking and being regressive, angry,

all the time.

Bad, bad, bad, bad to the phone.

So I meet the minister.

And with this name, Lord Olgovey was the guy's name.

I think he's still the pastor 40 years later.

I don't know.

But after this meeting, I'm going

to find out if he's still alive.

But I met a guy by the name of Lord Olgovey.

And I started thumping the Bible on the goddamn boulevard.

Hollywood Boulevard, the actor in me comes out.

And I'm theatrical.

I'm on the streets saving souls.

Oh, man, it was bitchy.

And I'm drinking and I'm getting content.

This is a while, 76.

Just using his name as a blessing.

I'm getting a best friend for the Jews

and getting my blessing and my--

what the-- wow, sober.

So I spent the year.

And then it was time for me to leave, like we all get two

at some point.

And it was time for me to leave, very close with this.

So he catches up to me outside.

It's nighttime.

And last week, we had a full moon.

And if you guys look up and saw the moon on you on Zoom,

if you saw that full moon last week, it was--

I understand it was one of the phases

was like hundreds of years ago.

And I happened to catch when I was in 1976 with Lord Olgovey

after a year of Jesus' teachings,

the Bible and the fellowship and the street

and the whole nine years.

And it's now--

I got to go.

I got to go.

And he catches up to me.

And he says, Peter, I'm out at night.

I'm saying goodbye.

And I'm drinking.

And he says, Peter, how did the moon get up there?

I got a green light.

I'm doing good, all right?

How did the moon get up there?

Now, when you're dealing with fundamental mentality

on the Zoom, if you guys are fundamental, you don't give up.

This priest was fundamental.

And I've been dumping for a year.

And he's asking me, how did the moon get up there?

And I told him, who gives up?

And he shut the door on me.

Because he knew I was psychotic.

And there was no hope for me, no hope.

And he let me go.

And back eight years later, tomorrow morning at 7 10,

I came to 39 years ago after telling

the minister of a church what I thought of him.

And eight years later, on October 27, 1985,

and I had religion in '76.

And because of Tom and his teachings

and the studies and the big book in Alcoholics Anonymous,

I flashed back eight years that I carried that F-U

to the priest about Jesus.

But in 1985, when I came to get Tommy,

eventually I realized eight years later

because I was on a retreat.

Eight years after, that guy pointed out the moon in the sky.

And I'm going to close with this.

Because the full moon is going to be coming up.

And what got me sober, that gave me the conscience of sober.

Believe me, 100%, in a single second,

have I altered what my realization was.

And you'll be reading it, even if you've

been it 100 times before.

But I'm the speaker tonight.

When I looked up in the sky, eight years later,

the moon was full.

And for the first time in eight years,

I realized what Lord [INAUDIBLE]

was trying to tell me.

Hey, Peter, you didn't put it there.

Something big, conscience, energy.

And that has been my higher power for tomorrow morning.

And for this night, energy.

I didn't put the moon up there.

But I needed a priest and all of you

to carry me every single day.

Every single day, I depend on your energy, your belief

system, and I hope to God, on Zoom or physical,

that if you're having any challenges, my number unlisted.

Peter Green, G-R-E-E-N-E, call me 24/7.

I'm not a priest.

I'm not a minister.

I'm a [INAUDIBLE] alcoholic.

[INAUDIBLE]

Because I've done the work with all of you and given to me.

And I want to thank Nada Ken for giving me a time to share.

I'm not a speaker.

I haven't done this.

I'm a participant in my sober life.

And if anybody's got a challenge, please take my number.

Do the work.

Thank you, everybody.

I'm good.