AA - Alcoholics Anonymous
April 8, 2024
(0:01 – 0:19)
My name is Burns Brady and I’m an alcoholic. I want to thank Tom for that involved
introduction. It’s just like they told me, he really is more than just a pretty face.
(0:25 – 0:39)
Let me commend you on a wonderful conference. I don’t know how many of you have
been privileged to travel around the country or to even attend a lot of AA conferences,
but I have. This one has a lot of spirit and it’s just really neat.
(0:40 – 0:56)
Everything about it is good. We meet the disease where it is, prisons, homeless shelters,
hospitals, wherever we may be, and here we’ve met it in the hat, and the costumes are
different, the message is the same. So I really commend you on a lot of hard work.
(0:56 – 1:14)
I’ve been on the host committee in Louisville before for conferences we’ve had, and it’s a
lot of work, and I really commend you on it. It’s been an outstanding conference. I
especially commend you on the format of doing the Ask It Basket, because that saved
my life about 15 or 16 years ago, and I think it’s a great part of the conference.
(1:15 – 1:27)
I thank Polly and Bob for being wonderful hosts. I listened to Polly talk, I guess, what,
four or five years ago, wherever we were. Where were we? Toronto.
(1:27 – 1:34)
Toronto. Oh, I’m sorry, West. Hell, I don’t know the difference.
(1:35 – 1:46)
I mean, you fly in there you are and you leave. I remember where we were, they did talk
funny, so that was one thing. Not as funny as they do in New Brunswick, but they still
talk funny.
(1:47 – 1:59)
When I went to New Brunswick one time, they had an interpreter for me so they’d be
sure and understand what I was saying. Y’all may need one too. Y’all, I’m sure y’all never
heard of y’all before, but that means y’all.
(2:01 – 2:11)
I really want to commend you on being able to count to 12. I wasn’t sure anybody in New
York could. I was impressed.
(2:13 – 2:33)
In Kentucky, we don’t get past eight. That’s sober, drinking, we don’t get past six. But I
really enjoyed a talk that Polly gave at that time and we kind of fell in love with each
other and met Bob and fell in love with him and they’ve just been wonderful hosts for
me.
(2:34 – 2:52)
Met a bunch of people that I’ve come to know over the years. Tom and I were talking a
while ago and his memory slipped a couple of cogs and I kind of cover my butt a lot of
times when I come to places and see people. Henrietta came up to me this morning and
said, Hi Burns, how are you doing? I’m sitting there just blank as a post.
(2:52 – 3:15)
I know Henrietta, but I couldn’t have thought of her name if my life depended on it. It
reminds me of a great story that Father Martin told one time about this old priest who
was close to 100 and he’d retired years before. So they asked him to come and do this
farewell retirement dinner for one of his protégés who was 70 or 75 and retiring.
(3:15 – 3:54)
So the old priest had found the best way for him to remember things was to write them
down inside the lapel of his coat. He got up and he said, I’m very grateful to be here, to
be chairing this wonderful retirement dinner for my close friend, one of my close
confidants, one of my protégés, one of my dearest friends, Father James O’Reilly who has
labored long and hard in this parish, my favorite parish, the best parish in the whole
world, the parish of St. Michael. But most of all I want to commend Father for all these
years that he has given to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
(4:01 – 4:16)
So you may see me flipping to Jesus Christ a lot of times in this thing. He flown me up
here to tell you a story. Well, now let me go back.
(4:16 – 4:23)
First of all, for some reason I’m kind of ribbed up tonight. I’m not exactly sure why. I felt
great all day.
(4:23 – 4:35)
I feel great now, but I can feel my brain going just like that. And God knows where it
goes when I get like that. I mean the room may be emptied or you may be bringing men
off the streets when I’m finished, but none of us will ever be the same, I can tell you that.
(4:38 – 4:53)
It really is a true honor to be with the speakers that have been up here. And I have not
heard the speaker in the morning, and I won’t hear him because I’ll be leaving early. But
the other speakers I’ve heard before, and I’ve never heard any of them any better than
I’ve heard them at this conference, they have really, really rattled my chimes.
(4:53 – 5:22)
And I really commend you all on the selection, and I commend them on the message
that they have delivered. The common denominator of all them is, of course, the terrible,
terrible tragedy we get in the middle of and the wonderful opportunity and then the
spiritual recovery, but the passion, the passion, and you’ll see it in me, is this passion for
this program, this incredible fellowship in these 12 steps. I’ll tell you right now, AA is a
great place to live.
(5:22 – 5:29)
It’s a lousy place to visit. And if you really want to get this program, you’ve got to
become a part of it. And you listen to these speakers, and the passion is there, and it will
be there in me.
(5:30 – 5:49)
You have invited me up here to tell you a story. Bill Wilson used to call this his bedtime
story. And I never was quite sure what he meant by that, but my wife said, well, what it
means is when you tell your story, everybody says, thank God he got to AA, we can sleep
better tonight, you know.
(5:53 – 6:06)
And this story is a very powerful story. There will be some of you in this room whose
lives will change tonight. There will be some of you who will really wonder why you
invited me.
(6:07 – 6:17)
There will be some of you who will think that is a neat story. Let’s go dance, you know.
But if you really need and want to be in this program, stick around, because if this isn’t
your story, you will hear it.
(6:19 – 6:30)
I do a lot of preaching and teaching in my story. I never intended to start out that way,
but that’s the way it ends up. I was born and raised a Baptist, and you’ll see a lot of
Baptists in me as we go along, because it’s there.
(6:30 – 6:37)
It’s not intended to be there. It is just there. Because I attended a lot of revivals, and I’m
sure that programmed me a lot.
(6:37 – 6:49)
And the passion I feel is to transmit that. About three years ago, I grew up. And it was an
interesting feeling.
(6:50 – 7:02)
I was able to live with my warts and wings and able to live with your warts and wings.
But probably the biggest thing that I grew up and came to know is is that your approval
doesn’t mean a lot to me. I’d rather have it than not have it.
(7:03 – 7:17)
But your approval doesn’t mean a lot to me. What does mean a lot to me is that
someone in here who is hungry hears a story that may save their life. If in any way that
it is offensive to anyone else, and a lot of my stories are very personal, and people
wonder if this is really in a general way.
(7:18 – 7:29)
But I don’t know of any way to tell it except that, because I think there’s someone who
needs to hear it. And, boy, have I learned in this journey. The thing I’ve done consistently
right is I haven’t found it necessary to take a drink.
(7:29 – 7:41)
Everything else, it’s been an interesting journey. And I’ll share a lot of that with you. And
sometimes it gets a little bit tricky and a little bit more personal than some people want
to hear.
(7:42 – 7:55)
I don’t know that it’s more personal than I want to tell, because it seems to me that it
needs to be told. And that’s what I’ll do. I grew up in a little town in western Kentucky
named Mayfield.
(7:56 – 8:08)
I grew up in a home where there’s no alcohol and no drugs. My grandfather died drinking
live water in the Mayfield City Jail in 1935. My mother was molested physically,
emotionally, and sexually in that home.
(8:09 – 8:17)
She dragged the entire disease of alcoholism into the home that I was raised in. It was a
home full of love. It was a home full of a lot of support.
(8:17 – 8:25)
But it was a crazy home, because it was dominated by alcoholism. They had an
interesting way of treating my granddaddy in the middle 30s. When he got drunk, they’d
put him in jail.
(8:25 – 8:41)
When he sobered up, they’d put him in a chain gang, sweeping the Mayfield City streets.
And my mother used to walk past her daddy at least once a week in good weather,
sweeping the Mayfield City streets in a chain gang. The scarlet letter from my mother
was not adultery.
(8:41 – 8:53)
It was alcoholism. And my mother dragged that all the way in. What I saw in my mama
was a lot of love, but I saw conditional love, because she never had a chance to deal with
the shame and the rage.
(8:55 – 9:05)
And all those things that we read about in the family after, where it says, if you’re raised
around one of us, you get neurotic. And my mother was neurotic. God, she was a neat
lady.
(9:06 – 9:18)
She died in 1978, and I miss my mama more every day. The longer I live and the grayer
my hair gets, the more I miss my mama. Great, wonderful feelings of gratitude that that
woman was in my life.
(9:18 – 9:24)
But my mother was goofy. She was really goofy. And she was the first person that I saw
conditional love in.
(9:24 – 9:35)
The second place I saw it was in the church. And in the church, it told me what I heard,
and it wasn’t just what I heard, it was what I was told, that if you’re perfect, God will love
you. If you’re not perfect, you’re going to fry.
(9:37 – 9:51)
And this provoked a lot of uneasiness in me, to say the least. I was doing things at 12
years old they told me I was going to go to hell for. And it felt pretty good at the time.
(9:51 – 10:11)
And I was having a tough time making a decision, you know. Right after church was over,
I made up my mind, and then about 11 o’clock that night, I changed my mind, and that
was the way it was. Now, I need to tell you, that did not make me an alcoholic, being
raised in that home dominated by my mother.
(10:12 – 10:34)
But what it did do, is it began the thinking, that was going to have to be dealt with when
I quit drinking. Because that’s exactly where it started. And if you don’t believe that’s
necessary to go back and look at it, look in the 5th chapter, we go back through our
lives, nothing counts but thoroughness and honesty.
(10:34 – 10:50)
Because my thinking began then. And we know that the thinking is what precedes the
drinking. It didn’t make me an alcoholic, but it absolutely started the thinking process
that I was going to have to deal with when I got to y’all.
(10:51 – 11:02)
Alcohol and drugs were no problem for me in high school. Oh, to please my mother, I
became Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy. It looked like that maybe when I grew up,
I might be Pope.
(11:02 – 11:11)
And hell, I wasn’t even Catholic, but I might even be Pope. I was president of all my
classes in high school, quarterback on the football team. I was Mr. Mr. Perfect.
(11:11 – 11:22)
And I enjoyed it, and it got a lot of approval from my mama. But drinking wasn’t a
problem. Oh, every now and then we’d, maybe once every two or three months, we’d go
get a Michelob beer, or I don’t even know if we had Michelob.
(11:22 – 11:34)
What we had then was some malt liquor, and I’ve forgotten what country club malt liquor
or something. And we’d go out and have a bottle of beer, or a can of beer, and then we’d
sit around and sing gospel songs. I mean, hell, that’s what you did in western Kentucky.
(11:35 – 11:40)
You’d still do it in western Kentucky. You’d sing gospel songs, and then we’d play
Monopoly. And that’s what we did.
(11:42 – 11:46)
So it wasn’t a problem. Got to college, it wasn’t a problem. Now, alcohol affected me
differently.
(11:46 – 12:11)
When I got to college, I was the first Brady who ever went to college, and I didn’t have
any point of reference on what to do with fraternities and those kind of things. So I would
study the first five nights of the week on Monday through Friday, and on Saturday, I’d go
to fraternity house that first semester and drink beer and just get Wilder and Cooter
Brown. Now, I went, yeah, I know y’all haven’t heard of Cooter Brown in Michigan, but
just trust me.
(12:14 – 12:22)
Y’all got the same name. I don’t know what it is, but anyway, you got one. But I went to a
little college in central Kentucky where the women’s campus was on one side of town
and the men’s campus was on the other.
(12:22 – 12:39)
So on Saturday night, we’d go to fraternity house, and we’d get all liquored up on beer,
get on the back of this flatbed truck and drive over to the women’s campus and
serenade the women, just standing there and singing. And I’d just take off all my clothes
and stand there butt naked just singing up a song. Nobody else got naked, just me.
(12:42 – 12:57)
And I say for comic relief, I never got any cards, I never got any letters, I never got any
telephone calls, but I’ll tell you who did notice, the dean noticed. And the dean calls me
in, he said, Burns, when you don’t drink, you’re a neat guy. When you drink, you’re
weird.
(12:57 – 13:02)
Why don’t you just quit drinking? And I thought, I think I’m kind of weird too. So I quit
drinking. It was no problem.
(13:04 – 13:14)
Graduated from college and started medical school at the University of Louisville in
1958. This part of my story I do not apologize for. We talked about it today in the Ask It
Basket.
(13:14 – 13:26)
But this part of my story, I’ve been told from people who have asked me to come and
talk that I had to leave this part of my story out. Because if I talked about this part of my
story, I couldn’t talk at an AA conference. And I never did leave it out.
(13:30 – 13:42)
But I began to think about it, and there’s nobody that respects the traditions and the
history of AA more than I do. They can’t. But I sat with my sponsor, and we prayed about
it, and we read the book.
(13:43 – 13:49)
And it says our experience, in essence, is our greatest asset. That’s right out of the
family afterward. For with it, we may be able to help somebody.
(13:50 – 14:07)
And my whole life’s experience has been the journey that got me here. And I really
haven’t been able to figure out what part God wants me to leave out. Oh, I figured out
the part some of you want me to leave out, but I haven’t figured out the part God wants
me to leave out.
(14:08 – 14:25)
Now, I’m not telling you that it may not be revealed to me later that this is a part that
must be left out. And I can also tell you there’s not any defiance in this because I have
prayed about and shared about this part of my story. Now, I’m a card-carrying,
commode-hugging, quarter-whiskey-a-night, 12-gauge shotgun-in-the-mouth drunk.
(14:26 – 14:39)
But there was a period of time in my life where I was a pure drug addict. And it’s a part
of the story that I just do not see that God wants me to leave out. I started medical
school in 1958.
(14:39 – 15:31)
And the reason is because I do truly know that it helps people. It seems to help a hell of
a lot more people than those that it pisses off, so I’m going to keep doing it, you know?
When you get 63 and gray-haired and been sober 22 years, you may not be as old an
old-timer as some, but you just really don’t give a shit much anymore, you know? Don’t
get bulletproof, but I mean to tell you what, with God as our co-pilot, we begin to
separate the fly manure from the pepper a lot quicker, you know? So I started taking
amphetamine to study my freshman year in medical school. Everybody took
amphetamine to study.
(15:31 – 15:42)
I wasn’t taking it to get high. I was taking it to study. It hooked me within a matter of a
very few weeks, and I was hooked on it tight, and I took it daily for almost four years.
(15:43 – 15:53)
Two weeks before graduation in my senior year in 1962, I was kicked out of medical
school. In an amphetamine rage, I hit one of my medicine professors. They took me to
the head of the Department of Psychiatry.
(15:53 – 16:00)
Dr. Keller looked at me and said, What’s wrong with you, Burns? I said, I take too many
drugs. And he said, Do you believe that? And I said, Yes, sir, I do. He said, We can help
you.
(16:00 – 16:09)
And I said, What are you going to do? He said, We’re going to put you in intensive
psychiatric therapy. And they put me in intensive psychiatric therapy for almost two
years. Psychiatry helped me.
(16:11 – 16:31)
Psychiatry brought me an insight that you were going to sharpen and hone and focus.
Psychiatry was the first place I learned that feelings are what dominate us. I learned that
anger is not a primary feeling, that it is almost always caused by resentment and fear.
(16:33 – 16:38)
I learned those things from psychiatry. I learned a lot of things. I learned that I lusted
after my mother.
(16:39 – 16:52)
I’m not sure I ever believed it, but I learned that I did that. I learned that I hated my little
brother, and I knew that already. I learned that I would rather have a three-wheeled
tricycle than a two-wheeled tricycle.
(16:52 – 17:12)
I knew all that stuff. But psychiatry did help me, and I came back into medical school,
started over, and went in there full of vim, vigor, and vitality, and within less than an
hour, I was strung out on amphetamine again, and just sat on the steps of the school and
cried because I didn’t know why. Well, today I know why, and you taught me.
(17:14 – 17:44)
Psychiatry brought me information and knowledge, but they didn’t bring me a spiritual
solution. And interestingly enough, if you read their job description, it doesn’t say that’s
what they’re supposed to do, any more than it says we in AA are supposed to practice
psychiatry, which means there are an awful lot of AA meetings that are goofy from time
to time, don’t they? Yeah. But psychiatry brought me knowledge but didn’t bring me a
spiritual solution.
(17:44 – 17:56)
That was going to come almost 15 years later when I got to you. My classmates enabled
me that year, and when I would get too hot, they’d take me home. I was married, had
one small child.
(17:56 – 18:06)
Sally would put me to bed, call the medical school, tell them I had the flu. They knew the
better. But some of them who are still alive today say, Burns, we knew what was wrong,
but we’d given it our best shot, and we didn’t know what to do.
(18:07 – 18:16)
But we felt like if we’d just leave you alone, maybe you would grow up. How many of you
all have heard that? Maybe you’ll grow up. You know, it’s an interesting thing.
(18:16 – 18:25)
In the big book, it says it takes some of us a long time to grow up. As alcoholics, we are
sensitive people. It takes some of us a long time to outgrow it.
(18:26 – 18:38)
And when I read that, I thought, Wilson, why would you say that? You’re just like the rest
of those perverts. You know, why’d you say that? What he meant was a long time to
grow up spiritually. To grow up spiritually.
(18:39 – 18:49)
I graduated in 1964. Between 64 and 67, I was in Our Lady of Peace, the mental hospital
in Louisville, four times. Strapped down, IV fluid, straight jackets, padded cells.
(18:49 – 18:58)
I must stay off amphetamine six hours, six days, six weeks, six months. Always went
back, bam, put me in the hospital. We didn’t know speed drugs had tolerance at that
time.
(18:58 – 19:05)
We knew alcohol did, but we didn’t know about speed drugs. But we know today that
they absolutely do. And it got to where it just burned me up.
(19:07 – 19:21)
Interrupted my internship, interrupted my residency. Almost killed me. In 1966, I finished
my residency and started to practice.
(19:22 – 19:29)
Got on amphetamine. I hadn’t been off of it very much, but I was really on it big time
then. Went in the doctor’s lounge during the Vietnam War.
(19:29 – 19:36)
We’re talking about the Vietnam War. And I was ranting and raving. I probably got up on
the table like I’m prone to do at times and just raised hell about the Vietnam War.
(19:37 – 19:51)
And somebody said, well, if you don’t like the thing, why don’t you join? And I thought,
that’s a good idea. And I walked out and got in my car and drove to the capital of
Kentucky, which is Frankfurt, and joined the Army. Didn’t call my wife.
(19:51 – 19:55)
Didn’t call my office. Didn’t call anybody. Just joined the Army.
(19:55 – 20:07)
Came home and said, get packed. We’re going to Vietnam. Now, I’m here to tell you I go
to four or five meetings a week today, 22 years sober, because that’s the same way I act
today.
(20:07 – 20:16)
If it seems good, by God, do it. And then go clean up the mess. And I got a sponsor.
(20:16 – 20:22)
They give me about six inches of chain most of the time. I mean, I’m on a short chain up
here. I’ve got to leave early in the morning.
(20:23 – 20:26)
And you can feel them tugging. Burns, watch your language. Burns, watch your passion.
(20:27 – 20:38)
They just piss me off. Because I’m one of these people that’s got it on full bore, pressed
down to the floor, get the hell out of the way. We have to change history.
(20:42 – 20:49)
So that’s just the way I am. But with this program, it can be tempered. It can be dealt
with.
(20:49 – 20:59)
And I do become more aware of the people around me and the significance of their
feelings. And that’s really good. It’s good for me and it’s good for everybody else.
(21:00 – 21:06)
In Vietnam, I didn’t go to Vietnam. I protected the East Coast. I was at Virginia Beach for
two years.
(21:12 – 21:29)
What are you laughing about? By God, they didn’t invade us, did they? It must have
worked. It was dark and lonely work, but somebody had to do it. Almost got put in
Leavenworth.
(21:29 – 21:36)
Post commander came down and said, Burns, are you taking the amphetamine? And I
said, yes, sir. And he said, if you don’t quit, we’ll put you in Leavenworth. And so I quit.
(21:36 – 21:42)
Once he explained it to me, I quit. It’s an interesting thing. I took amphetamine for 12
years with no alcohol.
(21:43 – 21:51)
I drank alcohol for eight years with no amphetamine. Both times I got in the sewer. Now,
I’ve dealt with thousands of street alcoholics.
(21:51 – 22:07)
As some of you heard today, my job today, I practiced medicine for 25 years. The last 10
years or 15, something like that, I practiced addiction medicine. In 1992, I took over the
impaired physicians program for the state of Kentucky, and we get doctors who are sick
and get them into treatment.
(22:07 – 22:30)
I also do the addiction work for men and women’s homeless shelter where we sleep 250
men and women a night and have 150 of them in a year-long program of recovery using
Joe McWaney’s recovery dynamics. So I’ve dealt with thousands of street drunks,
hundreds of alcoholics, all points in between by going to four or five meetings a week.
And if I hadn’t done it or hadn’t seen it, it probably hadn’t happened.
(22:31 – 22:50)
And the thing I have found consistently, now there’s a little bit of variation in this, but I
promise you, not much. Not much. But certainly in my drug addiction period and in the
pure drug addicts that I deal with, if the consequences are severe enough, they can lay
the drugs down.
(22:51 – 23:02)
I could lay the drugs down. I could quit if you had a gun pointed at me. There came a
time in my drinking where the size of the gun, the consequences of the drinking made no
difference.
(23:02 – 23:08)
I could not quit drinking. Distinctly different. Behavior was different.
(23:08 – 23:22)
I can do a 12-step call on a drug addict and I can do a 12-step call on an alcoholic
because I lived in both cultures. And I’ve got to tell you, behavior was different and there
is some distinct differences. Same solution, but distinct differences in the stories we
share with each other.
(23:22 – 23:37)
But I could lay the drugs down if the consequences were significant enough. I couldn’t
stop drinking. When I came home from the Army, I got right back on the amphetamine.
(23:37 – 23:54)
I stayed off for a year, had a gallbladder attack. They attributed it to the amphetamine
and the basal spasm and the secondary gangrene in the gallbladder along with some
gallstones and some other things. And my internist and my surgeon, they took out my
gallbladder and I was sitting in Methodist Hospital and the internist, who is still my
internist, was standing there.
(23:54 – 24:04)
He’s about three or four years older than I am. He was holding my hand. The surgeon,
who is still a good friend of mine, he’s quit operating now, but he held my hand and we
prayed that I would quit taking amphetamine.
(24:04 – 24:12)
And that was my last amphetamine. And I’m sure the prayers had a lot to do with it. I
absolutely know for certain what had a lot to do with it is I started drinking.
(24:15 – 24:24)
That much, I’m sure, had a lot to do with it because I didn’t take more amphetamine.
And the first four years of my drinking wasn’t alcoholic. I got drunk a lot, but it wasn’t
alcoholic.
(24:24 – 24:30)
I didn’t set out to get drunk. I didn’t set out to stay sober. I didn’t think about when my
first drink was going to be.
(24:30 – 24:37)
It wasn’t a deal. If you want to diagnose an alcoholic, say, have you got an alcohol
problem? And this fellow says, no, I can control my drinking. He’s got an alcohol problem.
(24:38 – 24:57)
Because if I told you tonight that there was celery on my plate and I limited myself to
four celery sticks, you’d say, my God, Brady’s got a frigging celery problem, doesn’t he?
You know? Yeah. Yeah. So I didn’t think about it one way or another.
(24:57 – 25:04)
And no big deal. My wife thought it was a big deal, but I didn’t think it was that big a
deal. And it didn’t impact me professionally or any other way.
(25:04 – 25:15)
Now, the next three years of my drinking were alcoholic. I mean, every minute I planned
my first drink and I knew what time it was going to be, it was going to be at 4 o’clock in
the afternoon. I knew when it was going to be.
(25:15 – 25:25)
And I knew exactly how much to drink to get just as drunk as I wanted to get. And
everything was controlled. I mean, it was just this way, controlled every minute.
(25:25 – 25:32)
At 4 o’clock, I saw my last patient. I had a highly successful practice and a good partner.
I walked out of my office.
(25:32 – 25:50)
If there were any extra patients to see, he had to see them because I was going to get
my first drink of the day, and it was going to be then. Walked across the 7-Eleven, got
me a quart of beer, stuck it between my legs, drove 25 miles home, drank that beer. As
soon as I got home, I walked in the house, got my scotch and water, which was my drink
of choice, and sat down and got smooth.
(25:53 – 26:11)
You all remember smooth? Hell, yes, you remember smooth. Because that’s why you’re
going to a lot of meetings today because that’s all you can remember is smooth. You
know? There will come a day when we’ll be unable to bring into our conscious memory
with sufficient force.
(26:12 – 26:25)
So we forget the tragedy, but we remember the smooth. Oh, my first sponsor said, I
want you to tell me the most successful period of time of your drinking. I said, oh, no
problem, Jim.
(26:25 – 26:36)
I won a trip to the Bahamas on a 75-foot sailboat for three couples for a week. We were
down in the Bahamas, and I’m out there on the front of that boat like that kid in the
Titanic. I’m just like this.
(26:37 – 26:48)
And I’m going through that water, and the spray is coming across my face, and it is
absolutely wonderful. Now, he helped me realize that wasn’t spray. That was puke
coming back across my face.
(26:57 – 27:09)
And I want you to know, for the first two years of my sobriety, I’m thinking, that wasn’t
all that bad. You know what I mean? A little bit of puke here, a little bit of puke there.
Hell, I’ll put up with it being in the Bahamas.
(27:11 – 27:18)
Oh, yeah, that’s smooth. Every time I walk in here and they say, think through the drink.
Hell, all I can think through is smooth.
(27:19 – 27:27)
But I get to hear the story. Last year, my drinking was addictive. I drank a quart of
whiskey a night and told myself I wasn’t an alcoholic because I never drank in my office.
(27:29 – 27:41)
And I had to believe it, didn’t I? Those of you who have been there know, those of you
who didn’t get to that point, you can get there. I’m really glad you didn’t choose to go
there. But you can get there, and I sure did.
(27:43 – 27:53)
My first wife kicked me out of the house in 75. I basically degraded her and demeaned
her to the point that I finally left her no choice. She shouldn’t have ever married me.
(27:54 – 28:17)
But the fact is, I should have never married her. But the fact is also that we know in AA
and relationships that when the rocks in my head fit the holes in hers, we got a
relationship, right? Yeah, I mean, that’s the way it is. And I married this woman I hated.
(28:18 – 28:39)
I heard somebody the other day say, you know, I’ve decided I’m not going through any
more of that divorce shit. I said, what do you mean? He said, I’m just going to find me a
woman I hate and buy her a house. But we lived together for 17 years, hating each other
and having two kids.
(28:39 – 29:01)
And finally, even in spite of her sickness, I just walked on her to the point that she just
kicked me out. And I had to get drunk enough to leave, because I was so dependent on
her that if I hadn’t been drunk, I couldn’t have left. And for a year and a half, I
womanized, ran around, looked cool, looked slick, hip slick and cool, and the whole
business.
(29:01 – 29:10)
I thought I was. I wasn’t, but I thought I was. And then I met Casey, who was my wife and
one of the neatest human beings on the face of God’s earth.
(29:11 – 29:25)
Now, Casey’s daddy was a bipolar and a true type, what we call a type one bipolar as
opposed to type two, a true bipolar, a manic-depressive. And she watched her mother
take care of her daddy. So Casey was a wonderful caretaker, and that’s what I needed in
my life.
(29:26 – 29:33)
And she needed a healthy daddy, and that’s what she got. I’m 14 years older than she is,
and we had a wonderful relationship. Still do.
(29:33 – 29:50)
I almost beat it up a couple times, and I’ll talk about that. But this was one of the neatest
human beings I’ve ever met in my life, and within a week after the first date, we moved
in together. And believe it or not, this is a neat lady, and it wasn’t the rocks and the
holes.
(29:50 – 30:11)
It was certainly the need, but with two good hearts. And I’d be dead if it weren’t for her. I
need you to hear that because as I go through the story, I want to tell you what I did as a
matter of this disease and undealt with alcoholism and all that that means.
(30:13 – 30:25)
I tried to quit drinking because I knew if I didn’t quit drinking, I’d run her off like I’d run
everybody else off, and I couldn’t quit. I couldn’t quit. I tried everything that the book
talks about, tried everything that any of you all have done that I did.
(30:25 – 30:36)
You know all the deals. And I couldn’t quit. That particular morning, Casey had gone off
to work, and my drinking had gotten so delusional that I would come home at night.
(30:37 – 30:59)
I didn’t go to the hospital and make rounds in the morning because I knew the real
doctors would see me, and I was still trying to get over the hangover. And I’d make my
rounds. I’d get there about 11 o’clock or 12 o’clock at my office, and I’m supposed to get
there at 9 or 10, and then I’d work four hours almost going into withdrawal or literally
going into withdrawal, race home, make my hospital rounds real quick, race home, sit
down with my quart of whiskey, and I’d sit there and drink.
(31:00 – 31:12)
And it got to the point where I thought if I just don’t go to sleep, I won’t wake up. If I
don’t wake up, the day won’t start, and this horror can’t go on. And that particular
morning, Casey had gone to work, and it was over, and I knew it was over.
(31:13 – 31:18)
I knew it was over. I also knew I couldn’t quit drinking. I’m blessed.
(31:18 – 31:32)
I was powerless over alcohol because I couldn’t quit drinking, but I’m more blessed
because I’m powerless over alcohol because it didn’t work for me. It didn’t work for me. I
couldn’t drink enough to get drunk.
(31:33 – 31:41)
I could drink enough to stop from going into DTs, but I couldn’t drink enough to get
drunk. I couldn’t stop the noise. I couldn’t stop the noise.
(31:43 – 31:55)
Casey had gone to work, and I said, God, you’ve got to help me. And the peace that
came over me when I said that was boom, just like that. It’s the second greatest peace
I’ve ever known in my life.
(31:56 – 32:30)
The first greatest peace I’ve come to know in my life came with you people, when in this
program I got in my understanding that I finally touched and became a part of is a God
who loves me just as I am. Drunk, sober, in the wrong bed, in the right bed, stealing,
cheating, making 12-step calls, loves me just as I am. For me to have any dignity, I have
to follow the rules so that I can like me.
(32:31 – 32:46)
But my God loves me just as I am. That’s the greatest peace I’ve ever come to know.
That morning when I said, God, help me, and immediately I knew what to do, the peace
was incredible.
(32:47 – 32:54)
I walked in my bedroom, took my 12-gauge shotgun, and put it in my mouth. I was tired
of the lying. I was tired of the drinking.
(32:54 – 33:07)
I was just tired. You know it, don’t you? I was just tired. I sat on the side of the bed with
the shotgun in my mouth, ready to go.
(33:07 – 33:14)
I thought, Mom and Dad will be better off without me. Casey will be better off without
me. My patients will be better off without me.
(33:14 – 33:38)
And I got to my babies, my two children. I’d been in practice at that time about ten
years, and I’d seen a whole bunch of patients come in to see me as adults who were
absolutely impaled on what they did wrong that caused a significant person to commit
suicide in their life, usually their mother or father. And I watched them agonize over that.
(33:39 – 33:51)
Most of the time they’d done nothing wrong, but they couldn’t let it go. And I thought my
babies will have that same deal, that their daddy blew the back of his head out. I really
understand suicide.
(33:51 – 34:10)
Suicide is the complete absence of hope because there doesn’t appear to be any help. I’d
been deacon in five churches and had had nine years of psychiatric therapy, had never
heard of AA. I didn’t think there was any help for me.
(34:11 – 34:29)
And with no help, there’s no hope. And with no hope, with where I was, there was no
reason to stay. Our job for that hopeless alcoholic is to be able to bring help.
(34:30 – 34:45)
With help, there is hope. With hope, healing can begin. At that moment of complete selfabsorption, because that’s what suicide is, that’s not a pejorative term, self-absorption.
(34:45 – 35:09)
That meant I truly did not feel that there was a power greater than me that I could
access. I knew there was a God, but I didn’t know how that God worked for me, and I was
totally self-absorbed. And that’s what suicide is, complete self-absorption, not believing
there is any power greater.
(35:10 – 35:37)
At that moment of complete self-absorption, what I’ve come to know is my thinking and
focus came on another human being, my children. And I need to tell you, if you’re
wondering if you’re here to stop drinking, yes. If you think that’s the name of the game,
let me be the first one to tell you, that’s the beginning of the game.
(35:38 – 35:51)
Your reason for being here and my reason for being here is to fit myself to be of
maximum service to God and my fellow man. That’s the only reason that I’m here. I
didn’t know that then.
(35:51 – 36:03)
Go to the sixth chapter, eighth step. Our primary purpose is to fit ourselves to be of
maximum service. Our book is meant to be only suggestive and a vision for you, page
164.
(36:03 – 36:39)
But if we ask each morning what we can do for the person who still suffers, and if our
own house is in order, if you’ve never done the steps and you want to be a sponsor, let
me be the first to tell you, you can drive the car, but you can’t be a sponsor. You haven’t
fit yourself to be of service except to drive the friggin’ car. You with me? Is this
preaching? Oh, you bet your ass it’s preaching.
(36:40 – 37:02)
Don’t you miss it for a minute. Because if the survival of AA is to continue, and I think it
will, it will be when we step up to the line and really figure out what the hell we’re here
for. To fit myself to be of maximum service to God and my fellow man.
(37:02 – 37:08)
That’s the deal. I laid the shotgun down. The terror came back.
(37:08 – 37:15)
I crawled to the phone. I called a good friend of mine who was a psychiatrist, went to his
office. We talked and he said, you’ve got to go in the hospital.
(37:15 – 37:26)
And I looked out at Our Lady of Peace, which is where I’d been, and I said, David, I don’t
want to go back in there. It never works. But then I said the words that were to set me
free, but I’ll do anything you tell me to do.
(37:27 – 37:31)
I became teachable. I became vulnerable. I quit manipulating.
(37:33 – 37:58)
Now, all those skills would come back after about six months to a year of recovery. As TBoat said, the ego does arise unscathed. But at that moment in time, I became, as the
wonderful New Testament teaching, I became as a little child, with the complete purity of
a little child, to be led and to follow.
(37:59 – 38:09)
I was sent to New York where they detoxed me. Then I was transferred to Atlanta where I
was in treatment for three months. Came home and got into AA.
(38:10 – 38:25)
When I came into AA in Louisville, Kentucky in the spring of 1978, it was the best and
worst of times for AA in Louisville. It was the best of times because the fellowship was
truly indescribably wonderful. There were six of us that hooked at the hip.
(38:26 – 38:31)
I mean, I called us the little elephant syndrome. We held on to each other’s tails. One
went to pee, we all peed.
(38:31 – 38:38)
One played golf, we all played golf. I mean, that’s the way it was. Here’s some guys 40
and 50 years old following each other around like little lap dogs.
(38:38 – 38:42)
Our wives got into the deal. Hell, they follow around. When they went to pee, they went
to pee.
(38:42 – 38:49)
We went to people’s homes. I mean, it was an incredible fellowship. God, I still think of it
with great warm memories.
(38:49 – 39:00)
It wasn’t 30 minutes early and 30 minutes late. It was seven days a week that we lived in
this fellowship. It was the worst of times in AA because we didn’t even mention the big
book.
(39:01 – 39:14)
It wasn’t even mentioned except that’s a big book. The marching orders in AA in
Louisville, Kentucky at that time were don’t drink, go to meetings, get a sponsor, tell him
what’s wrong with you. He’ll tell you what to do.
(39:14 – 39:26)
Then do it and then go save a drunk. And I lived 10 years in the program on a three and
a third step, the first three and a third of the twelfth step. I became a lethal weapon for
God.
(39:26 – 39:31)
I mean to tell you here I was. Here he comes, drink a beer. He’ll drag gas off treatment
anyway.
(39:31 – 39:45)
Here he comes. And being a doctor, I had this incredible credibility. I mean, if I opened
my mouth, everyone went, oh, it’s a doctor, except the old timers, they went, eh, you
know, like that.
(39:47 – 40:04)
Everybody in AA meetings called me Dr. Burns, and I loved it. But I was so humble I
wouldn’t say that I loved it, you understand, except the old timers, they’d say, hey, you.
But for 10 years I lived in that kind of thing.
(40:04 – 40:26)
I began to notice those people we sent off to treatment didn’t come back and go to
meetings with us because we had this little pool of sickness that was on one side of
Louisville, and thank God we kept it there, and it’s like a cesspool getting deeper and
deeper and deeper, you know. And finally at 10 years in this program, through a series of
completely self-centered acts, I was driven to my knees. I was driven to my knees.
(40:27 – 40:55)
I asked God one time, I said, God, if you all, if you just get off of counting those frigging
sparrows and come over here long enough to take care of my sorry, but why did you
leave me out there for 10 years? And I felt his voice say, hey, man, you may impress a
lot of people with your knowledge, but you’re going to heal a lot of people with your
experience. And I loved you so much I wanted you to know what experience is, to live
out there in this sickness and then to live in this hell. And I said, thank you.
(40:55 – 41:02)
After it was over, when I was in the middle of it, I wasn’t quite so grateful. But after it
was over, I was really grateful. Now let me tell you what happened.
(41:02 – 41:16)
This is the part that gets kind of tricky because if you think that our story is telling a
general way, I’m not going to tell you all the sordid events and that sort of stuff. But 10
years in this program, I had an affair. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Casey.
(41:17 – 41:29)
It’s just that I had an affair. Now it doesn’t just happen that way, you understand? It ain’t
like you’re walking down the street, next thing you know you’re in the Holiday Inn having
an affair. It’s just kind of like a drink.
(41:29 – 41:40)
You just don’t get drunk one Saturday night. You start getting drunk about six months
before that, you know? And what happened was it goes back to my family of origin. Let
me take you there.
(41:40 – 42:03)
My mama, when I was perfect, used to pat me on the butt, part my little hair, pick up my
clothes, fix my breakfast, and she raised a little monster. She raised, as T. Bolt said, King
Baby. And my whole idea about women at that time was women are supposed to take
care of me and make me feel special.
(42:04 – 42:08)
I didn’t think that. Of course not. That’s just the way I took it.
(42:09 – 42:18)
And so I looked around. Everywhere I looked, if I found a woman that would take care of
me and make me feel special, hell, we had a deal. The ones that had any sense didn’t
stay very long.
(42:18 – 42:26)
Those that didn’t stayed around for quite a while, and it was a hell of a deal. It was a hell
of a deal. Now I met Casey, and Casey quit drinking when I quit drinking.
(42:27 – 42:38)
She went to Al-Anon for six years. We had a wonderful relationship. It was a perfect
marriage because I was a benevolent dictator.
(42:39 – 42:45)
I wanted her to have the best clothes money could buy, and I bought them. I didn’t ask
her what she wanted. I just had them delivered.
(42:46 – 42:50)
I wanted her to have nice cars. I didn’t ask her what kind she wanted. I just bought it and
had it delivered.
(42:51 – 42:57)
I wanted her to have wonderful vacations and took her on them. I never asked her where
she wanted to go. We had wonderful sex.
(42:57 – 43:07)
I know because I planned all of it. Why wouldn’t it be wonderful sex? I was having a good
time. I never asked her.
(43:09 – 43:24)
And then at the end of six years in Al-Anon, she heard her story in AA and came to AA.
Within a year, she came to me and said, Burns, I’ve never loved you more, but I want to
go to my own meetings. I want to go back to college, and I want to go into therapy.
(43:24 – 43:40)
What I heard was, you’re leaving me. Disease of perception, you’re leaving me. What
does someone do when they’re losing their caretaker? They get another one, don’t they,
an alcoholic, one who’s not in any recovery.
(43:41 – 43:56)
And what do nurses do? Not the new ones. The new nurses don’t buy this crap, but the
old nurses used to take care of doctors and make them feel special. And a nurse that
had been working with me for two years, a neat lady, single, divorced, neat lady.
(43:57 – 44:20)
And all of a sudden, Kathy began to assume these incredible angelic proportions because
she was doing what Casey had been doing, and Casey quit the job. So I had a short-term
physical affair and a long-term, a couple of years, emotional affair. Now, I had a real
problem at this time because you taught me that if you can’t be honest, you can’t get
this program, and that’s still very true.
(44:21 – 44:29)
And I knew inside me I was lying like a dog. And I thought, I’m going to get drunk. But I
had a real problem because I was in love with two women.
(44:31 – 44:48)
And at 52 years of age and 10 years sober, I remember sitting there at home thinking, I
wonder if I can figure out a way that all three of us can live together. Well, what the hell
are you laughing at? It makes sense to me. It still makes pretty good sense to me.
(44:49 – 45:06)
I mean, you all taught me it doesn’t make any sense, but I’m not sure I still believe that
shit, you know, because that’s just the insanity of this disease. And I went to my sponsor,
and I sat down, and I hadn’t talked to him before this. And this was a sponsor who didn’t
use the 12 steps in the big book, but I went and sat down and talked to him, and I told
him the whole story.
(45:06 – 45:11)
And he said, Burns, you’ve got to quit that stuff. And I said, okay, and I went home. And
by the time I got home, he had called my wife and told her.
(45:16 – 45:30)
Principles over personalities. Let me tell you, that wasn’t put in there just by mistake.
And one thing we need to teach you all, if we’re the old-timers and we’re your sponsors,
we don’t walk on water, not unless we know where the stumps are, you know.
(45:32 – 45:55)
And if you start making your sponsor God, then I’ve got to tell you, it’s going to be rocky
for you, because your sponsor needs to jerk a knot in your ass and tell you that ain’t
what he is to start with. But if you hadn’t, then you need to just simply get another
sponsor, because you’ve got one who thinks he’s God, and that’s a lot of trouble coming
up for you, you know. Now, that’s exactly, at that point in time, I was totally decimated.
(45:56 – 46:03)
I lived believing this man was God. Whatever he told me to do, that’s what I did. He had
done the unthinkable to me.
(46:03 – 46:22)
Now, when I’m teaching those guys at the men’s homeless shelter, and I rotate chapters
5, 6, and 7, they read the big book or study the big book all day, go to meetings at night,
but I rotate chapters 5, 6, and 7 twice a week in there for them, and I get to this point
and I tell them this story. And these are guys who can eat that wall. I mean, these are
guys who can eat this wall.
(46:23 – 46:37)
Ninety-five percent of them have been in prison. And I tell them this story. I say, what do
you think I ought to have done with him? And what I’m doing is I’m baiting them, right?
Because we’re getting to go into chapter 5. Shoot the son of a bitch.
(46:37 – 46:55)
That’s what you ought to do with it. You know? And I said, well, that seems like the right
thing to do, doesn’t it? But in this program, we’re going to learn to love the unlovable,
tolerate the intolerable, and forgive the unforgivable. And this is the mechanism for
doing it.
(46:55 – 47:02)
And you know where it is. If you don’t know where it is and you hear me say this tonight,
it changes. This is the whole fulcrum of AA.
(47:03 – 47:09)
In the fifth chapter, it tells me this is a sick person. How can I help them? Take away my
anger. Thy will be done.
(47:09 – 47:23)
We focus on the four-columned inventory, but do we ever focus on the fourth-step
prayer? This is the bridge between the third column and the fourth column. This is a sick
person. How can I help them? Take away my anger.
(47:23 – 47:38)
Thy will be done. I thought, help him? I want to kill him. Now, the reason I was in the
books because a little pigeon I was sponsoring came up to me with eight tapes and said,
would you listen to these tapes and see if they’re any good? And they were Joe and
Charlie’s tapes, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
(47:38 – 48:07)
And as I listened to those tapes, I cried all the way through them because I found the
program I didn’t have. And I was in the middle of this, and I got to that. And this is the
deal that changes the alcoholic thinking, not from what they did to me, but what can I do
for them? Not what they did to me, but what can I do for them? The next paragraph says
it took me three weeks through a lot of tears to get to the next paragraph.
(48:07 – 48:25)
We can’t help everybody, but God can help us be tolerant. Love and tolerance is our
code. That’s heavy-duty stuff, isn’t it? If you haven’t gotten there, then you better get
started.
(48:26 – 48:36)
Because the longer you are from your last drink, if you haven’t gotten there, the closer
you are to your next one if you haven’t gotten there. Because that’s a crazy world out
there. This is a crazy fellowship.
(48:37 – 48:44)
It ain’t no paragon. This is not a bastion for mental health. AA is not a bastion of mental
health.
(48:47 – 49:02)
And if you think just because we are all here trying to quit drinking that every one of us
has finally worked out exactly how to live with God, are you in for a surprise. You know?
This is the whole deal. This was the whole deal.
(49:04 – 49:26)
And I referred today to the… I had eleven copies of those tapes made and we began the
first big book study in Louisville, Kentucky. And that was 12 years ago. Today there are
at least 50 to 60 big book studies going on at all times.
(49:26 – 49:38)
And I’m absolutely convinced we began that journey. I called Bill Wilson in his last talk.
Polly talked about the thing he wrote to the Mimosas Bride, and I’ll talk about that, too.
(49:38 – 49:53)
And he did put that in a grapevine in Language of the Heart in 1958. But Wilson actually
wrote that first time in 1953 in a longer version called Emotional Sobriety. And in that he
talked about, in his last talk, he talked about AA must and will change.
(49:54 – 50:15)
And I didn’t know what to do with that when I first read it. And I called Geraldine
Delaney, who’s now dead, who had almost 60 years of sobriety in New Jersey, and I said,
Miss D, has AA changed since you came in? She said, Yeah. I said, How has it changed?
She said, When I came in, there were probably, oh, three or four old-timers for every
newcomer.
(50:16 – 50:25)
She said, Today we’ve got 50 or 60 newcomers for every old-timer. So we’ve got people
with one, two, and three years of sobriety sponsoring people. I said, Is that bad? And she
said, No, it’s not bad.
(50:25 – 50:39)
It’s not good. It’s a fact. She said, But what we have to do is decide how to get these
principles across to these masses intact, because we’re not going to have this old-timer
sponsoring the newcomer every time like we’ve always had in the past.
(50:39 – 50:46)
I said, Is Big Book Studies the way to do it? She said, I don’t know. Try it and see. And in
AA, that’s exactly what we’ve seen.
(50:47 – 51:05)
These are not mental masturbating Big Book Studies. These are really getting down and
working with this, not excluding a sponsor, absolutely not, but studying these wonderful
principles, studying these wonderful principles. When I got into the book, I found an
interesting thing.
(51:05 – 51:11)
I found that alcohol is not my problem. Alcohol is a symptom. The bottle is a symbol.
(51:11 – 51:18)
And you know where to find that. If you don’t, then you can go look it up and find it
would be good for you. If you haven’t read that, go look it up.
(51:18 – 51:28)
But it says alcohol is not my problem. It said, My problem is my mind. My problem is my
mind, my thinking.
(51:29 – 51:48)
Wilson believed it so much, he called it a peculiar mental twist. And he believed that was
so important, he said, that’s what precedes every drink was this peculiar mental twist.
And for a long time, I thought that meant just, the peculiar mental twist says I can drink
again when obviously if I drink again, I’ll die.
(51:48 – 52:01)
But no, it’s a lot more than that to me. And let me share with you what the peculiar
mental twist means to me. The first part of the peculiar mental twist for me is being
bigger than the rules.
(52:03 – 52:12)
Bigger than the rules. I’ve got nine points on my driver’s license. Three more points in
Kentucky and I walk.
(52:15 – 52:34)
I sit down and ask myself about a year ago, why do I have nine points on my driver’s
license? I thought, well, sure, you go 90 miles an hour and 65 mile an hour speed zones,
that’s when they give you a ticket. Well, yeah, I understand that, but why did I do that?
And I thought, well, I must be crazy. And I thought, no, I’ve got all kinds of discharge
summaries that says I’m not crazy.
(52:35 – 52:43)
Well, you must be stupid. And I know I’ve got all kinds of degrees that says I’m not
stupid. Well, then, why do you do that? It’s because I’m Burns Brady.
(52:47 – 52:53)
You shouldn’t do it, but you’re not Burns Brady. I’m Burns Brady. I can do it.
(52:55 – 53:00)
Handicapped parking zones. I know you can’t park in a handicapped parking zone, but
you’re not Burns Brady. I can.
(53:00 – 53:06)
I can park in a handicapped parking zone. And you all taught me I can’t do that. I can’t.
(53:06 – 53:19)
I don’t have a handicapped parking sticker in my car, so I’m not supposed to park there.
And I want to tell you how this spirituality works. Two weeks ago, and it’s gotten where
it’s fun for me because I love to see how crazy I can get.
(53:20 – 53:33)
I’ll pull up to a handicapped parking zone, and I’ll say, you can’t park there. God help me.
There’s a parking space three places down, but I’m standing there praying my young ass
off not to park in that handicapped parking zone.
(53:34 – 53:49)
And I’ll circle the block praying and come back there and pray, park’s still open. I’m just
standing there just praying, just reveling in this high spirituality that’s keeping me out of
that handicapped parking zone. I’ve heard speakers from the podium say, we think just
like other people.
(53:50 – 54:06)
Bullshit. We don’t even come close to thinking like other people. You know, for 25 years I
practiced medicine, and I’ve seen it all.
(54:07 – 54:11)
I’ve seen what happens to us. Normal people come in. You cut them, they bleed.
(54:11 – 54:15)
You cut us, and we bleed. They lose a loved one, they cry. We lose a loved one, we cry.
(54:15 – 54:29)
They’re sitting at a red light, and it turns green, and somebody honks at them, and they
just drive off. We’re sitting at a red light, and it turns green, and somebody honks, and
we get out and slap hell out of whoever it was that got behind us. We don’t think like
normal people.
(54:31 – 54:40)
Now, I can even put formulas up there to show you why we don’t, because we’re playing
two bricks short. I’m telling you, that’s what we are. And we don’t have the same brain
chemistry.
(54:40 – 54:51)
And we don’t hear, no. We hear, no! You know? We don’t hear, honk. We hear, honk! You
know? That’s the way it is.
(54:52 – 55:03)
We’re just out there. But I’m standing there fighting that handicapped parking zone, and
just thinking how spiritual I am when I could park right there. Now, let’s translate that
into everyday living.
(55:03 – 55:18)
If I get up in the morning, and I open my book, and I do the twelve steps, the eleventh
step, the seventh step prayer, the third step prayer. Do it in the morning. I lead my day
with the tenth step prayer, which takes me to all the other steps.
(55:19 – 55:34)
And I close my day, and I close my day with the eleventh step prayer. And if I spend at
least twenty minutes in the morning, even if I’m not praying, just sitting there and letting
this incredible, powerful, love of the universe come inside me. I don’t care what happens
that day.
(55:34 – 55:48)
It’s going to be a decent day. Do I do it every day? Of course not. And if you all say you
do it every day, you’re lying like a dog, and I ain’t going to believe it.
(55:51 – 56:03)
No, it doesn’t count to jump up in the morning, jump and shout, Dear God, please direct
my thinking, keep my thoughts free from self-centeredness. That ain’t the way it works.
Bigger than the rules.
(56:03 – 56:10)
About, oh, I guess a couple of years ago, it was one Saturday morning, and I was pissed
off about something. I’m laying in the bed at about seven o’clock. Casey’s getting ready
to go to the Al-Namid.
(56:10 – 56:24)
She pulls her chair over next to mine, over next to the bed, and she said, I’ve had it. I
know I’m going to be supposed to let you figure out your own misery, but I’m going to
tell you something, because I’m tired of you sitting around here with your chin on your
chest. I said, your problem is you’ve gotten bigger than the program.
(56:25 – 56:42)
I thought, what’s wrong with you? I’m a spiritual giant. Hook your belt in here to my belt,
and we’ll have a spiritual rocket, and we’ll go to glory together. What the hell do you
mean I’m bigger than the program? And she looked at me, and she said, Burns, you
haven’t called your sponsor in six months.
(56:45 – 56:56)
Bigger than the rules. You don’t think we’ve got rules? Read Silkworth. If these men
follow a few simple rules, I’m glad they have suggestions, because if they had rules, I
couldn’t have stayed well.
(56:56 – 57:10)
Get real. By God, if you got as sick as I got, you just better pray that we got rules, and
you better pray you’re smart enough to figure them out if we teach them to you. Don’t
sit around on your candy ass saying, I’m glad you got suggestions.
(57:10 – 57:31)
That just makes me want to puke. What did Wilson call bigger than the rules? He called it
self-centeredness. What do the psychiatrists call us? Narcissistic.
(57:32 – 57:47)
My standing diagnosis at that mental hospital is psychopathological narcissistic
sociopathic personality disorder. That means I’ve got the psychiatric profile of a serial
killer. And they were right.
(57:48 – 58:00)
They diagnosed what they saw, and that’s the way I acted. And every one of y’all I’ve
had the privilege to work with, that’s the way you act too. Second part of the peculiar
mental twist.
(58:00 – 58:06)
Victimization. You’re my problem. You haven’t laughed once, and that really upsets me,
because you just made mine up.
(58:06 – 58:13)
I know. I mean, I’m busting my ass up here, and you ain’t laughed once. What’s wrong
with you? You’re my problem.
(58:16 – 58:20)
Victimization. Oh, yeah. I mean, I was born poor, and I like to milk that until I like to die.
(58:20 – 58:36)
If you’d been poor as me, had the caddy rather than belong to the country club, you’d
have been a drunk too. If you’d been poor as me and had to work your way through
college, you’d have been a drunk too. If you’d been poor as me and had to marry that
rich bitch and stay married to her for 17 years, you’d have been a drunk.
(58:36 – 58:41)
I had a heart attack in 1994. I mean, I almost died. This is big-time stuff.
(58:41 – 58:50)
Electric shockers on the chest and the whole deal. I mean, this is ER all over again. I
mean, it was big time, you know? And I mean to tell you, for the next two years, I was a
thing of beauty.
(58:50 – 59:00)
I’ve had a heart attack. I’ll never be a man again. Next time, it’ll be my prostate, and it’ll
blow up, and I’ll never have another erection again in my whole life.
(59:06 – 59:33)
And finally, some of the guys in the program said, Man, we’ve had all this joy we can
take out of you, you know? I went to talk in an Al-Anon conference in Tulsa, and I was the
token AA speaker at 9 o’clock, and I got down there, and I met a bunch of drunks. We
went into the cafeteria. So it’s kind of an interesting cafeteria because they brought over
your plate and brought over all your setups, but then you went on and went through the
buffet line.
(59:33 – 59:56)
So they asked me to go first, and I go through, and I come back and sit down at the
table, and there’s no setups. I assume they’ve taken everything away, and I thought,
Why’d that woman do that? And I got up in my spiritually best mood to go over there and
say, Why did you take my stuff up? And realized I’d sit down at the wrong table. But my
first thought is, They screwed me.
(59:57 – 1:00:10)
What did Wilson call victimization? He called it resentment and self-pity. Resentment and
self-pity. Victims may not drink.
(1:00:10 – 1:00:17)
They just don’t get sober. They just don’t get sober. Third part of the peculiar mental
twist.
(1:00:17 – 1:00:25)
Square peg, round hole, bigger hammer syndrome. If the square peg doesn’t get a
bigger hammer, then beat that son of a bitch till it fits. Just beat it and beat it.
(1:00:25 – 1:00:34)
Like when I was drinking. My kids may have gotten a truck for Christmas, but when I put
it together, it flew, and that’s what they got. By God, that’s the way it was.
(1:00:37 – 1:00:46)
And about half the time, that’s the way I lead my life. Square peg, round hole, bigger
hammer syndrome. What the hell’s the reason for all that? Of course you know what it is.
(1:00:46 – 1:00:52)
It’s fear and control. There’ll be a number of the people in this room tonight. It may be
me who will drink again.
(1:00:53 – 1:01:09)
And not a one of us will drink again because we don’t believe the first half of the first
step. We’ll get drunk over the second half of the first step. Do you really believe your
life’s unmanageable? Do I really believe mine’s unmanageable? That’s the question of
the day.
(1:01:09 – 1:01:13)
Every single day. It was this morning. It’s been that way throughout the day.
(1:01:13 – 1:01:23)
It’ll be in the morning. Do I believe my life is unmanageable? You have to ask yourself.
Because that’s where those of us who get drunk again will get drunk.
(1:01:24 – 1:01:33)
We will not believe that our life is unmanageable. And why? I’ll tell you why for me.
There are days I just decide I’m not going to trust God.
(1:01:34 – 1:01:40)
He may have something for me that I don’t want or He may take something for me that I
want to keep. And that’s right out of the 12 and 12. Oh, I’ve got a neat way.
(1:01:40 – 1:01:47)
I believe that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. Let me tell you how I can
screw that one up. Two years sober, I come busting into an AA meeting.
(1:01:47 – 1:01:53)
I sit right down beside my sponsor. He said, Where have you been? I said, God thinks I
can do more than I can do. He said, I’ll talk to you after the meeting.
(1:01:53 – 1:02:00)
After the meeting, he said, What do you mean? I said, Well, this morning I had to get up
and deliver a baby. I had to circumcise a child. Then I had to make hospital rounds.
(1:02:00 – 1:02:09)
Then I had to get to the office and see 50 patients. Then I had to go back and I had to
attend a board of directors meeting. Then I had to go talk to my investment advisor.
(1:02:09 – 1:02:16)
Then I had to go talk to my lawyer. And I tell you, God just thinks I can do more than I
can do. He said, Next week, bring me your appointment book.
(1:02:16 – 1:02:39)
I said, Why? He said, Well, I’ve just never seen God’s handwriting, and I don’t want to
miss it. And what did Wilson call square peg, round hole, bigger hammer syndrome,
control, and fear? What do we got? Bigger than the rules. This is the peculiar mental
twist.
(1:02:39 – 1:02:42)
Take it home with you. Breathe it. Put it down.
(1:02:42 – 1:02:54)
Because this is what you’ll get drunk over. Bigger than the rules, victimization, and
square peg, round hole, bigger hammer syndrome. That’s self-centeredness,
resentment, and poor me’s, and the final one is control and fear.
(1:02:55 – 1:03:12)
And we’ve got a chapter dedicated to beginning the process to deal with that on a daily
basis, don’t we? That’s the peculiar mental twist. What’s the solution? Spiritual. And if I
don’t leave you with anything else, let me take the smoke, mirrors, and magic out of A.A.
spirituality.
(1:03:13 – 1:03:22)
It’s not smoke, mirrors, and magic. It’s a wonderful, beautiful mystery. And the mystery
is that I very rarely see the closing of the circle.
(1:03:23 – 1:03:33)
I get in a part of it, and on the parts of the circle that close, and I see what God’s plan
was. It is incredible to me. Frequently, I never see it.
(1:03:35 – 1:03:39)
But it’s a mystery. But it’s not smoke, mirrors, and magic. Read the family afterward.
(1:03:41 – 1:03:52)
We must be rid of childish spirituality. God wants us to have our head in the clouds with
him, but our feet must be firmly planted on the ground. That’s where our fellow travelers
are, and that’s where our work is to be done.
(1:03:52 – 1:04:09)
This incredible program is the most practical spirituality I have ever encountered, based
on what Wilson said was humility and responsibility. Humility and responsibility. He said
this program is spiritual, and spirituality is humility and responsibility.
(1:04:11 – 1:04:27)
Believing in a power greater than myself, surrendering to that power, and getting off my
butt. If you want to get goosed by the Holy Ghost, get off your ass. This is absolutely
essential.
(1:04:28 – 1:04:40)
There are no free rides in this program. Just get on the train, and do your work, and
really believe that there is a God. I will tell you that’s what works in my life.
(1:04:40 – 1:04:51)
It works beautifully. I’m a hard case because I truly believe I can handle most of life, and
in most instances, being a doctor, I can. Believe that shit, I’ve got a bridge I’ll send you
to.
(1:05:03 – 1:05:33)
In the past two to three years, I became obsessed with studying the life of Bill Wilson
because I really wanted to know that man. Dr. Bob I loved, but I couldn’t relate to, but
Bill Wilson I could. Bill Wilson was a very wounded man, and I came to know that in God’s
army, the wounded soldiers can serve.
(1:05:35 – 1:06:02)
As I came to know this man from Pass It On and other books that were written about his
life, I began to see what a tortured, gifted, blessed, and wounded man this man was.
What it brought into me was great love and great hope and great faith that no one’s too
wounded to find God. And that God picks wounded soldiers to carry messages.
(1:06:03 – 1:06:34)
Throughout the history of time, God has picked the wounded soldiers to carry the
messages. And I hope that’s of great consolation to you because as I read Wilson’s
Emotional Sobriety in 53, which he said was his dependence on people, power, prestige,
money, and sex. And I’m not going to go through Wilson’s history, but you need to know
when he came out of this incredible depression, very briefly in 53 to write this.
(1:06:34 – 1:07:02)
Went back down for another two years of what was almost a 10 or 12-year incredible
depression, incredible depression based on a lot of dependencies. And I began to
absolutely feel great compassion and love for this man. What I realized is that the only
way to discern God’s will is to detach from earthly dependencies.
(1:07:03 – 1:07:25)
Detachment is not just a word for Al and I. Detachment is a word for AA. Live and let live.
The only way for me to discern God’s will is the same process for me to detach from
worldly dependencies is to work the steps, to have a sponsor, to go to meetings.
(1:07:25 – 1:07:40)
I’m going to give you a diagram, and for those of you who are early in this program,
please remember it and draw it. I give it to all of my men at the homeless shelter. It’s a
triangle on its point, balanced perfectly on a base.
(1:07:41 – 1:07:53)
This corner is meetings. This corner, sponsor. This corner, big book, on a base of honesty
and today.
(1:07:55 – 1:08:01)
If your life is messed up, look at that drawing. It’s right out of the big book. Not the
drawing, but all these components.
(1:08:03 – 1:08:09)
See if you’ve talked to your sponsor. See if you’ve made your meetings. See if you’ve
read your book and done your steps.
(1:08:09 – 1:08:21)
See if you’re being honest and living in the day. I will promise you you will find why your
life’s screwed up. It’s a great reference point for that first two years when we can’t find
our car in a parking lot.
(1:08:22 – 1:08:30)
It’s a good reference point for us the rest of the time. I’ll close by telling you about my
family. My kids think I’m the greatest thing since cod liver oil.
(1:08:34 – 1:08:43)
That’s right. They think that I was the greatest thing in their life, drunk, and the most
important person in their life, sober. My daughter’s 40.
(1:08:43 – 1:09:02)
She’s been in AA for 20 years. My son is 33, been in AA almost 34, been in AA almost 16
years. And they say I’ve had the most influence on their life, drunk and sober, and
they’re really grateful that I got sober because it changed the lives of a lot of people in
my family.
(1:09:03 – 1:09:16)
My mama died in 1978 of metastatic cancer. I had eight months to make my amends to
mama, and when mama died, we were absolutely on level playing field. I worship that
woman, and I still miss her tremendously.
(1:09:17 – 1:09:29)
My daddy has been one of my great heroes. My daddy was a very quiet man, not
demonstrative like my mama. I wanted my daddy’s approval more than anything, and
daddy just was quiet.
(1:09:30 – 1:09:34)
He never would say, I love you, never would hug me. He would just always be there. If I
needed him, daddy would appear.
(1:09:34 – 1:09:41)
Just boom, there would be daddy. And when I got sober, I went down after mother died.
My daddy married again within a year’s time because he’s like me.
(1:09:44 – 1:09:51)
He’s male-oriented and female-dependent. That’s exactly what I am. I’m picking healthy
women today.
(1:09:52 – 1:10:13)
Kathy got married, thank God, and Casey and I went into therapy and wrapped up that
thing and worked our programs and put some really heavy-duty scars into a relationship.
But we dealt with it honestly, and we dealt with it face-up, and we did a lot of good work
through our steps and through some therapy, and we’ve healed. And we’ve healed.
(1:10:14 – 1:10:33)
But my daddy married within a year, and I’d go down and try to make my amends to
daddy, and he’d say, Burns Mac, I don’t want to talk to you about it. And it was really
because of his shame, as I came to know, because he thought he’d caused my
alcoholism. My sponsor pulled me off of him because I kept trying to cram it down
daddy’s throat, and he said, Burns Mac, let that go, and that’s right out of the book, too.
(1:10:33 – 1:10:44)
Then daddy began to lose his mind. Like Alzheimer’s, it really wasn’t just due to
hardening of the arteries. We had to put daddy in a nursing home, and it was the right
decision.
(1:10:45 – 1:10:55)
It absolutely was. Peggy, my stepmother, had a lot of heart disease and just simply
couldn’t take care of daddy. And I would drive down each weekend to see my daddy in
the nursing home.
(1:10:55 – 1:11:07)
Now, this is between 12 and 15, 16 years of sobriety when this unfolding is occurring.
And I’d drive down every weekend or close to it to see my daddy in the nursing home,
and I’d say, God, take away my pain. It’s a 250-mile drive.
(1:11:08 – 1:11:14)
God, take away my pain. God, take away my pain. And I’d get there, and I’d go in, and I’d
work with daddy all day, and it never worked.
(1:11:14 – 1:11:31)
I’d just get back in the car and cry all the way back. This one Sunday I drove down, and
this miracle is unfolding in my life, and I parked the car next to the nursing home, and
for some reason in my prayers before I went in, I said, God, let me be for my daddy what
you want me to be. And I walked in.
(1:11:31 – 1:11:38)
He was in a wheelchair, and he didn’t know who I was. He thought I was my uncle, his
brother, my uncle Buster. And I walked in, and I didn’t call him daddy.
(1:11:38 – 1:11:43)
That confused him. I said, Hal, how are you doing? He said, fine, Buster. Would you
shave me? And I shaved my daddy.
(1:11:44 – 1:11:54)
And I said, would you like some lunch? He said, I believe I would, Buster. And I rolled him
out there, and daddy was too weak to feed himself, and I fed him. Peggy came in, sat
down, and Peggy and I got to talking.
(1:11:54 – 1:12:01)
Daddy used to just love to watch mother and me talk. And daddy was sitting there in his
wheelchair watching Peggy and me talk. He loved to watch mother and me talk.
(1:12:01 – 1:12:07)
He just sat and watched us. As you can tell, mother and I used to talk for hours. And we’d
sit there and talk, and daddy would watch.
(1:12:08 – 1:12:14)
I turned around and said, would you like to go out on the porch? And he said, I believe I
would. And I rolled him out there, and Peggy and I got to talking again. Daddy’s in the
wheelchair.
(1:12:14 – 1:12:22)
He sits up in his wheelchair and looks me right straight in the face. He said, son, today
you’re just like the little boy your mother and I raised. I love you very much.
(1:12:22 – 1:12:29)
Thank you for coming to see me. Now, ten seconds later, my daddy didn’t know me. He
never did again.
(1:12:29 – 1:12:37)
We buried him in 1992. The miracle of recovery is not that my daddy recognized me. As
a doctor, I can tell you we can explain that.
(1:12:38 – 1:13:21)
What is not within medical purview to explain is that this self-centered, self-serving, selfabsorbed alcoholic said, dear God, let me be for my daddy what you want me to be.
That’s recovery. And my prayer for you and for me for the rest of this night, carried over
into God’s kingdom tomorrow, is that all the way from the Kroger checkout line to the
gas pump to somebody crossing the street in one of our AA meetings, we look at the
person in front of us and say, dear God, what do you want me to be for him? With this,
we cannot fail.
(1:13:22 – 1:13:24)
Thank you for the privilege of being with you. Good night.
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