Acting Yourself Into a Way of Thinking – Burns B.

My name is Burns Bray, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. Let me thank the committee for asking me to come talk. This is a beautiful room. It just feels good. I'm sure all the other speakers have recognized that. It just feel warm. I can see your faces. It's just a wonderful, wonderful room. Time to have a little bit of a celebration, I think. I'm really honored to be asked. Dave talked a little last night about my talking tonight and how they'd give me an extra day to get my talk together. And I really appreciate that, and Dave is a special person. He is a living testimony to the fact that some of us are sicker than others. We do a bunch of newcomers' meetings in Louisville, and there are two of us that do it, and we switch roles at times. On one night, I'll come in and be disheveled looking and things like that and the next time he'll come in that way and when we sit down and talk to a newcomer what we usually say is now if you don't get into this program and do what we're going to ask you to do you're going to end up looking like Dave. But I do appreciate it and that's the kind of spirit that's in an alcoholic's non-listen deeper been real uh it's just been really gentle and kind with me and we walked around in the mall and he endorsed one of my impulses i bought a new suit i don't even have any idea if the damn thing fits it just looked pretty in the window so i bought the suit i do think it's got a 32 waist so i know that's ridiculous all the time but i'll take it home and alter it i can't help it every time i see a good looking suit i usually by it. It has been an emotional time for me listening to the speakers. It started last night when we lit the candle, and I don't know why. It struck me that the Statue of Liberty stands as a beacon for those who are helpless and hopeless and homeless. And I don't know of any beacon that shines any brighter than this candle of Alcoholics Anonymous for that young man who came up last night and for whoever is the person who snuffed it out. What an incredible amount of things go on during that period of time will go on in that young man's life. I couldn't help but think about this beacon of hope and how much it has meant to me, the light that shines through each individual member of Alcoholic Anonymous and Al-Anon in rooms like this. The speakers have been very emotional to me, and amusing at times, but very emotional. Sandy last night, I couldn't help it, she's the same age as my daughter, who's been at AA 10 years, and Libby's curled up on my lap, and we shared that this morning, curled up on our lap when she first came in the program and said, Daddy, I don't want to go to those meetings, and Mother's crazy as hell. And I said, Sissy, you're going to need to go to the meetings. And your mother is crazy as hell. I'm three-quarters of the way through my resentment where that's concerned, but I really am. And I listened bearably. And that's, sorry to come in, I thought over here somewhere, but it, yeah. And the first time I met her, it was such a beautiful lady. And I really didn't know what the attraction was at first until I watched you talking. And take this for exactly what I mean. When my mother was your age, she was a lot older when she died and a lot sicker. She died of cancer. But when she was your old age, she looked and talked and acted a lot like you look and talk and act. And I've always regretted deeply that the program wasn't there for my mother. She was not an alcoholic, and I will talk about her, but she was absolutely decimated by the disease of alcoholism. And she would have been just like you, you know? And I really appreciate it. Bo and Shirley, I've known them for some time, haven't been around them that much, and an incredible amount of things are going on in the great faith that's there. We all know that it'll be all right. most of all y'all know it you know I love you very much and I appreciate what you share the they were razzing me about forgetting my talk and I may do it tonight somewhere in there I'll pick it up and start over because there's a lot of funny things in it a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot but I did forget it one night talking down in Mount Top Roundup and Rod happened to be there and he sent me messages from everywhere all over the United States that said, tell Brady not to forget his talk again tonight. Well, it reminds me, and I may forget it, but it don't bother me. We'll pick it up somewhere else. Or if I lose it, I'll get Brian up here and we'll get another Sunday morning speaker. We'll get somebody. It ain't going to go on whether I'm up here finishing my talk or not. You can bet on that. Reminds me of a story about Father Martin, and I love this story because it just tells you a lot. And there are a bunch of us in this room that can relate to this. We're getting old enough where sometimes our brains get kind of like a sieve and it had to do with memory. And he was talking about this old priest who was about 95 years old. And this old priester, his mind was sharp, but he couldn't remember anybody's name. So he found a mechanism to do it. He would write down names inside his lapel or inside his coat when he was going to do any talking. He's 95 years ago. So they had him in this night for the celebration of a younger priest who was 70, who was retired, who'd been one of his, you know, protégés. So he got up there and he had everything in, and he says, he said, I am really grateful to be here at this meeting honoring my dear friend, my closest protégé, this man who has been a confidant of mine all of his life, My dear friend, Father O'Reilly, who has been the minister and who has been the priest at this wonderful, wonderful parish, this parish that has given me most of my life, the parish of St. Michael's. Most of all, I'd like to thank Father for those years of devotion, laboring long and hard in the vineyards of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So if it goes tonight, I'll flip it here and we'll keep right on going. I gave a talk in southern Indiana right across the river from Louisville in a little town called Jeffersonville. And as I walked into that particular meeting, it's not a regular meeting of mine. I know most of the people in the AA community there, and most of them don't meet. And as i walked in the back door, one of them said, you talking? And I said, yeah. He's talking about so-and-so's birthday. And I say, yeah, and he said, well, keep it honest and keep it short. And I said well, I'm not sure I can do both. He said then keep it short. So I don't know whether it'll be short or long but honest to God I'll try to I will try to make it honest as we go through this thing. I do need to clear up a couple of things before I start. When I first came in this program and I was attending conferences earlier like this when I came in and sat down and was going to hear a speaker I assumed that that speaker had a straight line to God and had everything exactly right and I would sit down because y'all had asked him to talk so that mean he really had to be something special so I would set there and I think whatever he does I'm going to do it just like he does it and I damn near got drunk trying to do some of those things I did I didn't get drunk but I got crazy as a loon I'll tell you that because I need to I need to tell that person who may be feeling that way that I felt and just hadn't been able to say it that what I'm going to tell you is not necessarily the right way to recover or the only way to recovery or anything like that. It's my story. If you can use it, please use it. Never is there anywhere in this story tonight do I intend to offend or in any way abuse any of the traditions, any ofthe steps, or any of the people. It is just my story It's my life as I see it today. I've found very few constants in this program, but one of the constants that I've found is change. There is constantly a change, an evolution of my insights and my spirituality. I've heard people call it different plateaus of growth. I understand that. I have no problem with it. But what I can relate to is different plateaux of surrender. every wall that i've hit has taken me to that next plateau of surrender surrendering to god's power and my responsibility and the balance between those two are exactly what this growth process and recovery has been to me different plateaus of surrender the next thing i found in this program that has not changed for me is act that from the minute i walked in this program, I walked in completely surrendered to my powerlessness over alcohol. Alcohol beat me. It whipped me. It drove me to my knees. It left me nothing. And when I came in this program, I didn't come in to argue. I didn' t come in debate. I came pleading that someone could give me whatever was necessary for me not to have to take a drink of whiskey again. For those people I listen to in meetings that say they're not quite sure whether they're alcoholic and they're working with that, my prayers go to them with such intensity and my love I'm hoping is strong enough like it was for me when I came in the program because I cannot imagine anything more difficult than working with these steps going through this process of pain and recovery when you're still wondering if you can take a drink. Because that commitment to not taking a drink has enabled me to bear more pain and enjoy more joy than I ever thought humanly possible without Finally, the last thing that has never changed, at least today, and there may be other things as I go through this process, but at least to date, the next thing that's not changed is my absolute belief it would take a power greater than me to restore me to sanity. I was talking about when I came in here the insanity of drinking. As I have stayed sober in this program now for almost 14 years, I have found it even more important and you know how important it was for that power if you're like me greater than yourself to restore you to the sanity from the insanity of drinking i'm talking about the insanity today of sobriety because it gets goofier out there with me sober sometimes it did when i was drunk you get anybody drunk they're going to act goofy now they didn't act as goofy as i acted thank god but and most of y'all i mean i'm gonna let y'All off here because y'ALL probably got about as goofy as I did listening to most of these stories, but sober. I have been the victim of such incredible delusion at times and so much insanity, which I'll share with you, that it has taken that power even more prevalent in my life and with me every day, that sixth sense, that God consciousness to help me be aware of my frailties, My humanness. Alcohol's been called a disease of perception. Basically what that means to me is I can take that gentleman back there in that purple shirt, and I can make him anything I want to make him, or I could when I was drinking, to twist him into whatever I had to twist them into being to enable me to take a drink. Now, I thought it was my ex-wife. I thought he was being born poor and having a caddy rather than belong to a country club. If I thought it was the medical profession who didn't respect my innate genius, I had every conceivable answer for exactly whatever it took to get me drunk. Because sooner or later, I got drunk and why not hell? Would you blame me with all of them? I mean, that was the disease of perception that was there. Now, recovery has also been a difference in perception. Let me share it with you because it really is important. I grew up in a little town in western Kentucky named Mayfield. I grewup in a home where there was no alcohol and there were no drugs. My grandfather died drinking lye water in the Mayfield City Jail. My mother is a true adult child of an alcoholic. She was not an alcoholic, but she was raised in that alcoholic home. And when you read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, you recognize in so many words what it says is, if you grow up around one or if you live with one of us, you get goofy. You can't help but get goofy living around one of Us. You just do. You know, putting up with Us, you've got to be crazy or goofy. Well, most of you are crazy. You're just goofy. Well, Mother grew up in that home where she was sexually, mentally, emotionally, and physically molested. She brought into the home, into our home, all of that guilt and shame and resentment and anger and all of those things that untreated alcoholism has that goes with it. And my brother and I were raised in a home where there was a lot of love. We went to Sunday school and church. We went prayer meeting on Wednesday night. There was a lot of support and a lot of love in our home. But mother truly was wracked with that undealt-with alcoholism. My daughter, when she was five years sober, came to me and looked and was able to say to me with the recovery she had, Daddy, when you were drinking I loved you so much. But I'd go to bed at night and pray that you'd die because I hated your guts. And those are the kind of feelings that Mama never got to deal with about her daddy. They treated alcoholics in Mayfield at that time, in the early 30s, in a pretty traditional way. When they got drunk, they put them in jail. When they sobered up, they'd put shackles on their ankles and they'd out on the streets and they worked in a chain gang. And my mother would walk to school in a little 12,000 town, people town, watching her daddy at least once a month sweep the Mayfield city streets. How does that feel? Picture it. Maybe some of you had the same experience. I was spared that. My daughter was not, in one form or another. But I know the kind of feelings that my mother brought into that home and how much she had to work and love that little lady. I worshipped her. I was very fortunate. The last year of her life was the first year of my sobriety. And I got to spend every weekend with her, and we worked through almost everything that we needed to work through. And she never quit loving me, and I never quit liking her. But that was the kind OF home I was raised in. Now, alcohol and drugs were not a problem for me. That thinking was getting real strange way back then. I became perfect because I realized that when I was perfect, I was mother's child. When I was semi-perfect, I was daddy's child, and when I wasn't quite either one, I was anybody that'd take me as child, you know, and they were willing to farm me out, but I became perfectly perfect because I wanted to be perfect. I mean, I looked like maybe one day I might be president of the United States but never a drunk because all of my accolades were perfect. Alcohol and drugs were no problem. I went to college, and alcohol and drugs are no problem now. Alcohol affected me almost differently from the first drink. Little college, I went through the women's campus on one side of town, men's campus On the other side of the town, and what we'd do on Saturday nights, we'd get drunk. Now, five days a week, I'd study. Straight-A student. I'd studied Monday through Friday, and on Saturday, I would go to the fraternity house, and everybody got drunk. I got drunk, too. We'd pile on the back of a flatbed truck and go over to the women's campus just to serenade the women. We'd get over there and we'd stand up there and we would just be singing up a storm and I'd just take off all my clothes and stand there butt naked just singing up the storm. Nobody else ever got naked, just birds. You know, singing. And I like to say that nobody sent me flowers, no phone calls, no cards. So I'll tell you who did notice, the dean noticed. Oh yeah, They have a way of doing that. He called me in and he said, Burns, if you weren't such a good student, we'd have to ask you to leave school. And he said your behavior is a little bizarre. And I was thinking, man's right, it is a Little Bizarre. He said we've noticed that you do that when you drink. Why don't you quit drinking? And I said I think you're right. So I quit drinking, I quit getting naked and everything went along just fine. Got out of college and went to medical school. My freshman year in medical school I walked in there and I was wracked with those feelings that we can relate to. There was something missing in me. You know the feeling? There was Something Missing in Me. I didn't know how the rest of them felt, but I made straight A's and I walked in there and all of a sudden looking at these guys and gals who were getting ready to start medical school, I thought, I can't do this. Something's wrong with me. I'm not as good as they are. There was no reason for me to feel that way, but irritable, restless, and discontented has been a part of my soul for as long as I can remember. I've always been chasing something. And I said to her, I said, I Can't Do This. frightened, packed my clothes and got ready to come home. One of my friends walked in that night and said, where are you going? I said, I'm going home. Hell, I can't do this. He handed me a little capsule and he said, take this. It'll enable you to stay awake and study. He handed Me an amphetamine. Everybody in medical school took amphetamines. Everybody else quit. Except me. I didn't quit. And two weeks before graduation my senior year they kicked me out of medical school for taking amphetamine. I beat up one of my medicine professors when I was in an amphetamine rage, and they came and got me and took me to the head department of psychiatry. Dr. Keller looked at me and he said, Burns, what's wrong? And I said, Dr. Kelly, I take too many drugs. He said, do you believe that? And I says, yes, sir, I do. And he said we can help you. I said what are you going to do? And he says we're going to put you in intensive psychiatric therapy. And let me tell you real quick, I'm not anti-psychiatry. And this is a big book about Alcoholics Anonymous. Some of the major influences in AlcoholicsAnonymous were psychiatric. Harry Tebow, for example, those of you who know the history of AA. I am anti-ignorance, and I've been very fortunate because I did get my medical degree in four years in this program. My sponsor took me aside and said, Now is the time for you to learn about the disease of alcoholism, because we want you to go out and teach doctors. I have been able to tour this country as probably one of the leading experts in the field of alcohol. I know what I'm doing, and it was exactly why God enabled me or left me to become a physician, to be able to do that. To be able to do that, not as my service work, but it's certainly an area I've been allowed to expand and I think to further insights into alcoholism for those of us who treat us. What psychiatry did do for me, though, and they gave me a lot, they taught me how to identify feeling. When I came to you, you put that feeling in a structure starting with a fourth step. And they taught me how to identify fear and anger and resentment and guilt. A lot of my feelings were sideways. I didn't know that a lot of My fears were just pure gut resentment because they wouldn't let me have what I wanted. And I wandered around trying to identify feelings except they had helped me learn feelings. Now, they didn't keep me from taking dope because their contract was to help me learn feelings and develop insight. It wasn't until I got to you and you brought me the spiritual solution that the whole puzzle became complete. And I stayed pissed at psychiatry for a long time because I didn't think that they had brought me a spiritual solution. And then I looked at their contract and you know what? It doesn't say in there they're going to bring me a special solution. Said they were going to teach me some insight. And when I got the y'all, I said, they're gonna give me some therapy. And you said, no way, we're gonna get you a spiritual solutions. And it took me about five years to realize that AA meetings aren't therapy sessions. And you're looking at one of the greatest pseudo-therapists in the world. I spent that first five years in therapy in AA meetings, and finally, driven to my knees at eight years, I found out it was a spiritual solution. A beautiful combination. A beautiful combinaion. But here's what psychiatry said to me. Psychiatry said, We think that you can figure out why you take that dope and you'll quit. I said, What do you mean? He said, if you figure out why you take it, you don't have to take it anymore. You're going to think yourself into a way of acting. Makes sense, doesn't it? We're taught cognitive thinking. We're told cause and effect. If this happens, that's going to be the consequence of it. That's cause and affect thinking. That's exactly why we don't go the wrong way on one-way street. Why? Because if we do that, they'll put me in jail. Makes all the sense in the world, you know? So it made sense that it would work with taking amphetamine. And if I could figure out why I took it, I wouldn't have to think I was going to think myself. That was their perception of my recovery. You're going to thinking yourself into a way of acting. Two years later, they let me back in medical school. I hadn't had a drug, hadn't been able to drink. Drinking wasn't a problem then. Hadn't had drugs, and I stood there, and they said, how do you feel? And I said, I'm scared to death. They said, why are you scared? Well, they're going be watching me. Well, why aren't they going to be watching you? Because I beat one of them up. Well, is that a realistic fear? Yes, it is. Should they be like, yeah. How do you feels? Well, I feel afraid, but it's a realistic feeling. They'll say, now you know the feeling. You can own the feeling and the feeling won't have to own you and you won't Have to take that dope. Makes sense. Walked into medical school in 45 minutes I was higher than Cooter Brown. Couldn't figure out what I was talking about. Just bewildered. Crushed. Crying. Hell, I didn't know what it was. What did I do wrong? You know? Well, I did graduate. I stayed on that dope that whole year and they'd take me home when I'd get too burned up and they'd put me to bed. And my wife, I was married and had a small child and the professors knew what I was doing but they'd turn their back. I was a good kid. All of us in this program would stick around and good. We got a streak of goodness that's wide in us. We really do want to be here for the right reasons, do the right thing, help somebody. We're tired of hurting people. You know, that's exactly why we stick around in this problem for all of those reasons and there are good reasons. We find so many other things but that's a hell of a good place to start from. And I was that kind of person and they didn't want to flunk me out of medical school. Well, they just didn't know what to do with me again. They even asked me to go to Indiana. Hell, they tried to do anything to figure out how to get rid of me. But he's got a cold again. I had the flu 43 times that year. Finally, I got out of school. For the next six years, I was in the mental hospital in Louisville four times, strapped down IV fluids, straight jackets, padded cells, the whole bit. I'd stay off for a while. As soon as the authorities got that close one smoke up my butt, I'd cool off and quit for a While. and just bewildered finally went in the army in 1967 I was the officer in charge of the dispensary and I had the only key to the pharmacy that's like putting a fox in the chicken house but I had this figured out I'd take those little pellets and I'd pick out two pellets at a time And, you know, if you take out two pellets at a time, after about a week or two you've got to have one of those pellets out of that thing and they miss it. And since I had the only key, they came and said, we're going to kick you out of the Army. And I said, well, I'll quit. And I did. So I came home and I sat down in this 1970 and I said I wonder why they keep putting me in mental hospitals and threatening to kick me out of their army. And I thought, I bet it has to do with that drug. See, I mean, you could go down here. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out, right? It took me 12 years to figure that out. And my last drug was 1970. Then I started drinking. And I drank four years. Wasn't alcoholic. I got drunk a lot, but I didn't set out to get drunk. I didn' t set out to stay sober. I didn''t set out to go to restaurants that only served alcohol. I didn ''t set out to just pick friends that drank. And for four years it wasn''t alcoholic. It''s too much. But alcohol didn't consume my life. Then I went into alcoholic drinking for three years, and during those three years it was, you know, if I'm going to go to U.K. football games, I've got to drink just this much or I'll miss the game. You know, if I drink this much, maybe I can drive out of the parking lot. Or I'll go to this restaurant but only one drink. Or I will go to that restaurant because they have better scotch. That scotch over there is what gets me sick. But alcoholically, every single move was absolutely commandeered by alcohol. And I never drank in my office, so therefore I wasn't an alcoholic. Honestly, when I looked at it and did a good fourth and fifth step after I got in the program, I realized that my office hours for the last two months of my practice lasted 15 minutes. Five minutes to get there, five minutes to go through, and five minutes to get home, and that was the way it was. and that literally had to because I was drinking because the only thing that would stop the diarrhea, it would stop The Sweating, it would start The Shaking, it would at least give me a few moments of peace. It didn't give me the relief that that first drink had, but at least it would help me and it would also stop those physical symptoms and signs of just pure addictive alcoholism. December 1st, 1977, I sat in an apartment in La Fontaine Casey, who's not with me and is my beautiful wife. She was my first wife and I had separated at that time. And she, I don't know if I'd have made it without Casey. I've heard people say that they came into our college and said you've got to come in because you want to stay sober. Well, I wanted to stay silver, but I sure as hell didn't want to lose her. She was, she was my greatest cheerleader and somebody I loved deeply. It grows with time. And as you hear this story unfold, you will hear the sickness of alcoholism when there came a time eight years in this program where I wanted to get rid of her. She called me tonight before the talk. And we used to go together. But sometimes you just have to make concessions because they just have to be made. And she called me that night and she said, I love you. I said, you've got that suit on that you always wear, don't you? And she said, you know, you'd have been a hell of a Baptist preacher. I'm a Baptist. I was raised Baptist. That's not a put-down. And I would have been an amazing Baptist preacher if that's just the way it was. I love this suit. I really look like Jim Williams used to always come dressed in a suit like this. I thought it was a helluva suit. But that's the kind of lady I'm married to, and she sends her best, and she truly does, and he's a wonderful lady. She'd gone to work, and I couldn't figure out how to quit drinking. I knew I couldn'T drink anymore. I thought, well, I knewI couldn'T take dope anymore. And I sat there, andI said, Well, I'll smoke marijuana. And I said, Who are you kidding? For some reason, you can't take any mood-offering medicine. And then I thought that I've got to live out there without mood- offering medicine. It can't be done, not for me. If I can't live out here without it, and if I can' t live here with it, there's not much other choice, is there? And then the choice really came just like that. Take my life. And the relief I felt of taking my life was incredible. Peace came over me, and I went in and loaded a shotgun, put it in my mouth, became aware of a burning desire to live. I wasn't afraid. I wasn'T afraid of dying. I was afraid of living. I mean, and the minute I became aware that I wanted to live, it was just like somebody blew a hole through me, and I literally crawled over the phone and called a good friend of mine, a psychiatrist, said, David, please help me. I went to see him. He sent me off to a treatment center in New York, transferred me to a treatement center in Atlanta, lived at a halfway house three months, came home, got into Alcoholics Anonymous and came to you people. I've listened to a lot of fifth steps in the program by Alcoholics Anonymous, and I don't think I've ever heard one that was unique. But each fifth step I've never heard, there is something that to me appears that it's God's piece in that puzzle for that individual to share that may be a little different. I think the only thing that's really different in my story is I took one drug for 12 years alone, just that drug, and it damn near destroyed me. I quit that drug and took another one for eight years, same sewer in here, damn near destroying me. What I have found out is no mood-altering drug will work in this alcoholic, none. I'm not telling you what will work on you or whether you should take it. I'm telling you about me. I can take an antihistamine and go over and sit in the corner, and I'll sit there for four hours and count my toes. And I don't give a damn how many of them there are, you know? It can be five, seven, eleven. And I'm not putting on too much. It just doesn't really bother me too much, you Know? Neither does anything else, including responsibility, punctuality, anything like that. But no mood altering. If there's anybody in this room that's at that point, and they think maybe they can smoke a little dope, take a little Valium, If you've got that problem, maybe drink a little alcohol. You might be able to do it. My sponsor, Jack, when I'm going up to him and talking to him sometime and I work through this program and use my steps and say I'm on the fifth step, when I go through some of these problems with him, he has this interesting way of delivering me a message. I'll say, Jack how's that sound to you? And he said, you know Burns, that might work for you. I ain't ever seen it work for anybody else, but it might work to you. So I tell you, it may work for you, but I ain't ever seen it work for anybody else. So whatever works for you can try it. When I came to you, this was your perception. I walked into you people and I said, what have I got to do to stay sober? You said, you do anything we tell you to do. You're going to act yourself into a way of thinking. 180 degrees. Psychiatry says you're going to think yourself into a way of acting. You said you're gonna act yourself into the way of thinking. The profundity of Alcoholics Anonymous is incredible. Yes, it's simple. But for starters, we have to act ourselves in the way I think because we ain't got anything but squash for brains for about two years. You have to ask. And I'll talk more about it, but you have to asked. If you're sick as I was, you had that counting was difficult, you know? You have to act yourself. I said, well, what do you want me to do? He said, we want you to not drink, go to meetings, and read the big book. Never changes. It has to be simple for me. I can take a plate of spaghetti. It's all screwed up, and I'll mess it up in about five minutes, you know. It's got to be simply. Got to be something. Don't drink, don't go to meeting, read the book. I said out, you now how it is with me. I've got to figure out why y'all spend all this time on this. Don't Drink. Well, I know Don't Drink. Why do they spend so damn much time every night? You know what I mean? Don't drink. Why are they worried about that? Now, I heard a tape by Sandy Beach. He said every time he got drunk, it was a direct result of drinking. He said he had never gotten drunk without drinking. I thought, by God, that's why they spend so much time on that. So I put that over here. I said, don't. I've got that sucker figured now. Let me get to this meeting bit. So I'm going to reflect for you what meetings have come to mean to me as I look back over these years of sobriety. Let me tell you about that home I grew up in. Mothers, I told you, was an adult child and I became perfect. And they know what adult children was, but she was really messed up being raised around alcoholism. And when I was a junior in high school, I had a couple of beers one night. And I came in, I was not drunk, I didn't drink. But I had two beers one night and I came in and I got sick and I threw up on the living room floor. Daddy came out of Mother and Dad's bedroom and he was wiping my mouth off and he said, Burns Mackey, you go on up and go to bed. Well, you know, we'll talk about it in a minute. You've been drinking. I said, yes, sir. He said, you're not drunk. I said no, sir, I'm just sick. He said well, we will talk about that in the morning. As I started up the steps, Mother came roaring out of the bedroom, grabbed me by the hair of the head and went pow, pow, I'll never talk to you, you little bastard. and I sat there and it took a lot of psychiatric therapy and a lot of fourth and fifth steps before I was ever able to admit what I thought now I didn't say it, I wouldn't have dared said it in our home our home was based on a lot of love and respect and this had no place to be said but what I felt was I looked at my mother and I said and I'll never trust you, you bitch and when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous I still didn't trust anybody i've been deacon in five churches i've been in eight years of psychiatric therapy and i was still a drug addict and an alcoholic and when i came to you people if it wasn't here it wasn'T going to be anywhere and i couldn'T trust you and let me tell you what i found out about alcoholics anonymous it's a perfect program but it's composed of a lot of sick people in varying degrees of recovery the motives are not always It's pure, you know. Sandy alluded to it last night and I found out that by God people in this program wanted to get in my wife's britches from time to time. They wanted to getting my britchies from time to time, you know, and I found out and I thought I don't know. I couldn't tell the guys with the white hats and the guys with the black hats. Where am I going to find somebody? And I began to look in their eyes. I said, why do you want to take me out to have a cup of coffee? They say, but yeah, And I found the one that said, because we want to stay sober, and we want you to stay sober. And I began to look in their eyes, and I'd see people who were at home. You know, I beganto see the winners, andI began to follow the winners. And Ibegan to trust. And for the first time, trust was coming back into my life, or coming into my life. I began, I had no choice. Ifound the winners and began to trust, began to trust. Let me clean up that thing with Mother before I go on. When I went into treatment, I stayed there for three months, and they wanted me to stay for four or five. And it was time for me to come home. And I knew it was. I knew inside here. I talked to all the people at home, and they said, yes, it's time to come home. Well, as I got ready to leave, and before I was done, they beat on me pretty hard about staying a little bit longer. And finally, a counselor the last day said, Burns, I know you're going home. And he said, I don't think you should, but I know you're gone. We need to deal with a couple of things. And I said, what? He said, we need to do with your anger. And I said, you kissed my ass. Ain't nothing wrong with mine. So he took me over and he got a circle. There were about 20 people in this therapy session. He put a chair here and put a Chair here. And he and I looked at each other and he said, I want to ask you a series of questions. You answer them as quick as you can. Don't worry about the answer. Just answer it. First thing he says, who do you hate most in your whole life? I said I hate my mother's guts. And it seemed like an eternity, but it wasn't more than 15, 20, 30 seconds. And when it was over, after all those questions, I was on my knees, on the floor, hugging his legs, crying about how much I loved my mother and how much I hated me. And he picked me up and kissed me on the cheek and he said, now you know what the problem is. You go home and get an AA and you'll find what you need to find. But he said tell me about your mother. And as I started talking about her walking to school watching my grandfather sweep the Mayfield City streets, he looked at me He said, how do you think she felt? And I became aware of her pain and her shame. And he said, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to help my mother. I want a holder. He said you found the first step in recovery other than just being powerless is what can you do for another human being? Love your mother. Walk in her shoes. She won't be perfect, but learn to love her. I'd always loved her but it sure helped let me tell you something else about meetings I found that thems that don't go to meetings don't hear what happens to thems that don's go to meeting Jim tells a wonderful story and I'm sure you've heard it about when he got into AA his sponsor would come and drag him to meetings he said finally I'd try to hide from him And he'd find me. He said, finally one night I hid and he couldn't find me, said he couldn'T find me and he said, he called me the next day and said, well you missed it last night. He said what? He said you didn't hear what you were supposed to hear. He said What was it? He said I don't know. I heard what I was supposed to do. You'll never know what you're supposed to here. I've never walked out of an AA meeting that I didn't take something with me. It may have even been a feeling that was resentment but when I took it home and worked on it, it became a gift. literally on almost every meeting i've ever walked out of i walked out with a better feeling than i walked in but always something when i travel this country talking to doctors and large legal groups talking about this disease of alcoholism putting all those formulas on the board showing them all those things that silk course still you got a physical allergy to mental obsession they said right put it on formula on the wall and i do and they say i understand the formula you know And they'll finally say to me, why do y'all really ever drink again? And I said, because we forget what happened to us the last time we drank. He said, oh, don't give us that. Give us some more formulas. You read that book. The book says there will be a day when we will not be able to bring back into our memory with sufficient power what happened To us the Last Time We Got Drunk. That's alcoholism. If it wasn't that, then I'd have to either be crazy or stupid. And I'm not crazy and stupid. I got the disease. I literally won't remember. Everybody I've ever talked with, when I was earning this program and they came back from a slip and I was afraid, you know, didn't think they'd shoot me, I'd walk over and I'd take their hand and I would say, I really am serious. I'm like, tell me about your slip. Tell me what happened. And each thing, every single time, the common thread was they quit going to meetings. They quit going to meetings and then when I really became a student of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous I really realized what had happened. They forgot! Every time I walk in that door I am gently reminded of what I am. My God, these steps and this fellowship have finally led me to know who I am. When I walk in that door, I'm reminded of what I am. And if I ever forget what I am, I will lose who I am, and you can take it to the bank. I agree with it. It sure works for me. Finally, I go to a lot of meetings because that's where my friends are. This is home. I've always wanted to be home, and I'm home. We take golf trips together. We make twelve step calls together. We do what a vision for you says, we help work through slips, infidelities, deaths, all the things that Bo and Shirley were talking about. All of those things, this is my home. You are my people. I am grateful to be with you and I am honored to be with you in what you represent. Don't drink. Go to meetings and read the big book. I said, okay, I'll read the big book. So I got the big book out and I'd take it and I would open it and I start reading and I think that's beautiful and I close it and I can't remember it. I'd open it again and I started reading it and I say, I got it now and I closed it and couldn't remember it. I'd taken my meditation book and couldn' t remember it I'd took the Louisville Current Journal and I couldn't remember it you know and I come into an AA meeting and I said I can' t remember anything and he said hell don't worry about it none of us can I'd say how long does it last about six months two years it gets better it always gets better and I'd come back the next night and I would say what did you tell me last night I can't remember I can see Dr. Bob and Bill in 1936 took them one year to figure this out they're sitting there talking to each other and Bob says to Bill how are you feeling he said I feel great How's your head? Like a sieve. Maybe we shouldn't make any major decisions for one year, you know? 1975, medical science studied us. And I'm glad they did because now I've got all kinds of references to teach these doctors when I don't teach them. You know, have to have these references for these medical people. They have tohave these references. But we already knew it. You know what I said? The alcoholic will lose the power of retentive memory for recent events for six months to two years. Sleep patterns will be destroyed. I used to say, I can't sleep. Nobody ever died from lack of sleep. Oh, God, they don't understand, you know. I gave this talk down at Autumn in the Ozarks, and there's a great big tent out there. And, I mean, it was like a revival, and it was a group about this size, and there was a guy sitting back there like one of those white-haired gentlemen sitting. And he had his chair pulled out to a young fellow, and I got that point, and I said, just stick with us. It's going to clear up. It's just the toxicity of alcohol. He jumped up, and he said, hallelujah, I thought I'd lost my mind. And I said, God, we know why I'm here tonight, don't we? I said well you know I said if I can't read the big book and I can remember it I don't know what I'll do I just don't think it'll work for me sure as hell I'll get drunk so I said I wonder how it works oh my God, how does it work I think, we read how it worked I bet that'll tell me how it looks see, I'm getting better so I get the big look and I flip this sucker over and I'm reading down there And how it works is honesty, honesty, honesty, honest. That's it. It's honesty. That's the key word. It is honesty. Look at it. Three times in the first paragraph from chapter five, honesty, that grave emotional mental disorder. Many of us do recover if we have the capacity to be honest. I may still have a grave emotional mental disorder, but I'm honest. When I went in, when I went, I begged to go into treatment. When I was in the treatment, I sat in front of the treatment center guy and I was drinking a quarter whiskey a night. And I sat up in front of Dr. Talbot and he looked at me and said, Burns, how much do you drink? I said, I drink a six pack a beer every night. He said, you're lying. I said, I know it. I do it all the time. Why did I do that? They really knew what they were talking about. I used to play golf and I'd hit my golf ball on the green and I'd go over there and I put a dime in front of the golf ball. Then I'd come back when I'd put my ball down and put it in front of the dime. You know, I just saved myself a fourth of an inch on a 40 foot putt. And I just hated my guts. You know, I just hate it. And when I came home that year after I was in treatment that summer, I spotted my golf ball right. And I'd tell myself, this honesty shit's good stuff. I mean, it's really working. I began to feel good about me. I could be honest. It became, don't drink, go to meetings and don't tell lies. That's exactly what it came for me. They said, you ask Burns Brady anything and he'll tell you the truth. May not anything do what you're talking about but he'll say you're the truth and it really was I began to feel good about me. Somebody said, well, that's cash register honesty. Well, I realized that. They said, you've got to be honest with yourself. And I realized there's a problem with that. There are a lot of times when I don't know when I'm being honest with myself. Today, I really have problems for some reason. I know when I am lying. But when it gets down to those gray areas, I kind of get a little goofy at times about whether I am laying or not. But I'll tell you what God has given me. He's given me the prayers that I follow in the big book. He's giving me a fellowship, and I'm talking about specific. I go to five meetings a week, and there's about nine guys that know every single thing about me, including if I've got a hemorrhoid. I mean, they literally know it. I pray, I share with that group, andI do help others. And I'll tell you what, with that kind of combination, I don't have to worry about my delusions because they know the way my breath smells, and they know when I start to get off center and I'm doing all the things that we teach each other and I've come to know exactly and to trust exactly where my strength is. Clancy gave a wonderful talk one time and he said that he was sitting there about 20 years old and he's up there walking in the clouds with God and he says, He's looking down on us and he goes, God, how are they doing? And God said, They're doing alright, Clancy. He said, Well, how am I doing? He said. You're doing fine too, Clency. I bet you could have a light beer. I'm here to tell you I believe in the inspiration of prayer like the 11th step says I truly believe in it but I'll tell you what else I believe I don't have to believe this I have enough experience to know how delusional isolated prayer can be for me because I can make God's will damn near anything I want to twist it into and I don' t know it until I've just shot the door off the outhouse and that's exactly what happens about half the time And I can give you example after example of it. I won't do it because time is not there, but I have found to pray is essential, to share it is even better. Prayer and share. Prayer and sharing. The inspiration of prayer is incredible. Sharing it finishes it. It's beautiful for me. It's wonderful. Don't drink, go to meetings, read the big book, and don't tell lies. I don't want to close any talk, and I'm not close to closing if you're ever getting ready to think I am. Promise you honesty, I didn't promise you brevity, I told you that. But I do not want anybody to ever leave a talk I've ever given and say, there were a lot of, in the first eight years of my recovery almost every talk did not focus at all on the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous because I didn' t use it. I grew up in a program where we gave lip service as I've told you but it was basically don't drink and go clean up drunks. It was a two-step program. It took me five years to get through the steps. It took Bill Wilson a matter of a week or thereabouts. And don't let anybody walk out of this room that said, Burns Brady did not emphasize the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous because the big books of Alcoholic Anonymous when I became a true student and a liver of it at eight years in this program when I was almost crazy has brought sanity back into my life because of the process and my responsibility in doing it. The way I worked the first eight years of my program was much like if I left from Louisville to go to Atlanta. I want to go To Atlanta real bad, and I know it's south. There are three roads out of Louisville that go to Atalanta in that direction. I might end up in Memphis, Asheville, or Nashville. And that's the way I did the first 8 years of the program. I just kept on trying to get to Atlanta until I always made it. I just wanted sobriety so bad that I kept sober. I kept not drinking. Never even considered drinking. Never even considered it. But I've wandered all over this recovery for eight years. First three months I was in the program, I went over, I had a spiritual director. We don't talk much about spiritual advisors and directors anymore in this program, but when I came in, I had an alcoholics and alcoholics and I had spiritual director and he said, I want you to come into church. We're having a series of lectures on the spirituality of alcoholics and on spirituality. So I went in three months in the problem And I sat down, and this Episcopal bishop who was a theologian and was on sabbatical in Lexington stood up there, and he said, for 40 years I have been a theogian in this church. He said, I've never seen a perfect recorded program of spirituality, but the one that comes the closest to it is the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I just sat there involved because this wasn't a therapy session. This wasn't an treatment center. This wasn't an AV, this was someone not even associated with Alcoholics Anonymous or Alcoholism Society. The best is AlcoholicsAnonymous. And that's what I found. The roadmap of the Big Book, please don't ever walk away and let me leave you. I asked God after I became aware of this program and the Big book about eight and a half, almost nine years sober at that time, I said, God, I'm not arguing with you. I'm not even angry, but I'd really like you if you would tell me why you left my ass hanging out there for eight and a half, nine years. I mean, you don't have to tell me, but I sure like it. And I felt that voice. You know the voice we feel? You know it, Bob. You know that voice we feel. And I felt God's voice say, more will be revealed to you, but I don't want you to ever walk away from me and that you don' t tell people that the way you did it, it don't have to be that way. It don't have to be that way. It don't have to be that way. And I promised him I'd never leave a podium or never leave a meeting if I didn't share that. He told me to get a sponsor. I got a sponsor who looked like he could walk talk and chew gum and make some sense. And he gave me a list of names and said What do you want me to do with it? And he said, I want you to call these people every day. And I said, I don't want to call them. He said, call them now. I said what am I going to say? He said you're going to ask them how they are. And I told him I won't give a damn how they are. And he says you're gonna call them anyway. You'll learn to give a dam. He knew we talked about being in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous not around him. So I'd call him first one up there was Bob P. Been sober 17 years. Hell I thought he's probably born sober being sober 17 year. I'd called him every morning. I'd say Bob how you doing? He'd say I'm doing fine. Start laughing. I said why are you laughing? Six months into this program, Bob's dog died. And he and I cried over the phone about that dog dying. And when I first started calling him, I wouldn't have cried if he had died. That's right. Exactly. I mean, I drive down the road and I get weird sometimes. I'm sure you all don't think I'd never get weird. But I drive downhill to get weird sometime. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking about Alexander Graham Bell. He's sitting there, and the officer hears a voice. He says, Alexander. He says what? I said, this is God. He said, what do you want, God? He said. I want you to invent the telephone. Well, what for, God. It's because I'm getting ready to start Alcoholics Anonymous, and they've got to have some way to talk to each other. it's weird but it works because that's the way it is isn't it wonderful last year my drinking was pretty much always the same I would get up at 11 o'clock I couldn't get up any earlier my office hours started at 8 but I couldn'T get up at 8 because I didn'T go to bed till 8 and I'd get up and I would be shaking so bad and I take a Valium and I didn't like Valium but it's the only thing that would stop my shaking and I took that Valium to stop my shaking and then I'd race into the office and I was doing about two hours what it takes me eight or ten to do today then I would race home from the office and get into the apartment in case they always had me a broiled steak and baked potato because I'd ask her to fix me one because I knew I was destroying my liver if I didn' t eat I gave some fleeting thoughts and not drinking but that was out of the question so then I decided to eat my brawl steak and baked potato and I'd sit down and eat it as quick as I could and take my quart of whiskey and I would sit down with my glass and I started drinking and it would take about five minutes to where I'd just stop and shake and bad enough I'd put on my first record of the evening which was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra doing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming and I just cried. Oh, I'd play it for four or five hours blasting wide open, you know. I still cry. It's a great song. It's the tears of hope today. Boy, there was no hope then. I'd just cry. And I'd take that record off after about five hours and I'd get my next one which was Neil Diamond's I Am I Cried and I put that record in there. In this record, Neil Diamond is somewhere hell and Joplin or Mayfield in a motel and he can't figure out whether he belongs on the west coast or the east coast. He's talking to a chair. And he said, I am I cried and I'd go, God, Neal, I know what you mean. Neal had a problem about that time. I mean, I could relate to it. Listen to that song. It's a wonderful song. It's from Hot August Night in the Middle 70s. It's great thing. Best thing he ever did. Certainly I can relate to this. But listen to that psalm. Because about three quarters of the way through he says, I'm not a man who likes to swear but I never cared for the sound of being alone. I never care for the sound of Being Alone. When I was drinking I could be in a crowd, and I'd be all alone. Today I can be by myself, and I'm never alone. I'm ever alone. And for those of you who are out in this room tonight, if that has not happened, stick with us. Because I will promise you, as it was promised to me, and it will happen, if you're willing to go to any lengths to get what we have, there will come a day when you'll never walk alone. take it to the bank you will never walk alone I can drive to work today fly in an airplane and reach over and take God's hand and the real joy is when I'm taking a trip with Casey I can hold his hand and hers and what an incredible joy what an incredibly joy thank you for that that morning I got up in case he'd gone to work put the gun in my mouth became aware of a desire to live went to see the psychiatrist he looked at me and said Burns, how do you feel? and I said, I'm depressed he said, do you think it's the drinking? I'm DEPRESSED well maybe you drink too much David, I know I drink too mucho but my problem is I'm DEPRESSED I'm trying to shoot myself what more proof do you want? he said just don't I'm DePRESSed can't you hear? I've never seen a person walk in this program who wasn't depressed. 95% of us are going to get over it. 5% will not and will need medicine. Trouble is, you can't tell the difference for two years, so you treat us all alike. You know? But he could not get to me. He could not bring the cart or the horse back in front of the cart. All I would say was, I would cry and sound depressed. So he didn't know what to do with me. He had to do his homework while I was off in New York to find out where to send me. But he said, Burns, you've got to go in the hospital. And I said, I don't want to go to Our Lady of Peace, but I'll do anything you tell me to do. He said, You're not going in there. So he sent me to a psychiatric hospital in Newark that made one flew over the cuckoo's nest look like a walk through Central Park. And he sent be there because he said Burns, I didn't even know what to do to you. He said I decided I'd just try to scare the hell out of you. And it worked. I got there, and I was on the fourth floor of this place, and they had us all together, the manic-depressants, the schizophrenics, the pillagers, the plunderers, the rapists, I mean, the skydivers, all the people. They had us off, the alcoholics, all on one floor. And they didn't really believe in detox. They gave me some vitamins, and they sent me down to eat. That was a joke because we had a plastic plate and a little hole in there you put your plastic plate through, but I couldn't get that plate through that hole. And then they had another keen idea. They took the plate around behind him, put the food on it, brought it back and gave me a knife and a fork. That's watch the beans, watch the peas, you know. Trying to get the beans in the peas. I'm sitting there having a hell of a time, you now. I don't know, maybe they're watching, watching. Look at his eyes. Finally, after about four days, I go through that period. They send me down to this little TV room. They've got a black and white TV with a co-hanger antenna, eight chairs. The little boy from Kentucky sits in that chair up there. Now the guy back here on this back row is a catatonic schizophrenic. And literally these people have a brain chemistry problem not dissimilar to ours. Now they need medicine. We don't, with rare exception. But they have some similar brain chemistry problems like we do. And they'll get like that, and they'll starve to death. If you don't give them medicine, they literally will starve to dead because they're not able to overcome their catatonia. Well, they'd given him his medicine and he was back here and he wasn't quite in this world and I wasn't quiet in this World. We're sitting there and he stands up. He's 6'6", weighs about 270. I hear something rustling and I'm sitting over like that and I turn around and look and he's taken off all of his clothes and he'S standing there butt naked watching the television set. And I look at him and I think, oh my God, what if he wants me? And then I say, what if they give me to him? I don't know the rules, but I've heard bad things. You know what I mean? Oh, no. So after about five or six more days, he does it every day and I'm getting used to it. Nobody else pays attention. So, hey, we're just watching television. About ten days in this rehab program, I'm playing ping pong with a guy and he goes back to his room and asks me if I've seen him. And I said, no. And they go find him and they find him hanging dead in his closet. And they come to me and they say, let's go sit in the rehab room and let's talk about our feelings. I said just get the hell out of my way. I said there's something bad wrong here. I'm going to my room. And I went in the room and I closed the door and I sat down and kneeled down and I said God what is wrong? What's wrong with me? I'm on the inside. I ain't on the outside. They didn't send me here to monitor this program. I'm here. I'm a patient. What is wrong with you? What's going on with me and I heard that gentle voice say, Burns, you're an alcoholic. What a gift. You're an alcoholic. I went to David and I called David the psychiatrist and I said, David, I'm an alcoholic and he said, do you believe that? And I said I really believe it I'm going to come home and get in therapy with you and I'll be alright and he stood up wrong what do you mean wrong? He said I'm gonna send you to Atlanta I figured out where you should have been at the beginning of it I'mma send you down to Atlanta to an alcohol treatment center down there and I was like oh David and he trusted me so much you sent somebody up to get me. You know? And he flew me down, and I couldn't... I was so mad at him. What do you mean you don't trust me you're sending somebody up? See, he had 21 years of history on me, and I had five minutes of inspiration. And I couldn' figure out, have you seen these new people come in the program? Well, I told my wife this morning, I'm through, I've had a spiritual awakening that, right, she's going to forgive you for those 14 traffic tickets those three periods of infidelity and that 21 years of bad road. And I love it when somebody comes in that's new in the program and they can't figure out why we don't believe them on the first day, you know? That was like David saying, no Burns, I'm sending somebody up if you don't trust me. Hell no he didn't trust us. He didn't want to trust me, why should he? I had trouble getting to the convenience, much less going from New York to Atlanta. Went down to Atlanta, got in the treatment program, went to the halfway house, lovely experience, came home, got into AA. The first year in Alcoholics Anonymous, oh, Lord God, was I lost. I shared with you the toxicity. The night I got my token, I sat there and cried. And they said, are you grateful? And I said, I don't know. They said, how do you feel? And I says, I do not know how I feel. Well, do you want to be with us? Oh, yes, I want to with y'all. But I just do not feel. Well, are sure you are not grateful? I do know. Casey had a party for me that night after I had my birthday. And we went home. And there were a bunch of people that I dearly loved then and love today. I went to bed. They had the party. Then after about a year and a half, it started to clear up and I became little Mr. A.A. Get up on time. Eat your breakfast. Read your meditation. Go to your office. See your patients. Call your wife. Eat your lunch. Call your sponsor. Get home at five. Eat your supper. Go to you're meeting. Come home. Read your big book. Go to sleep. And that was it. And I've got to tell you, folks, at the end of the eleventh step in the sixth chapter it says, Alcoholics, we are undisciplined. We allow God to discipline us in this way. And it took that discipline. I was having a 180-degree change in my thinking. Common sense was becoming uncommon sense, the things that were told. And it looked at me about four years in the program and these young people would come to me, and I was giving them some good stuff. And I was like a bull string inside, and they'd say, you don't have it yet, do you? Hell no, I don't want to have it here. This is a small asshole, can't you see it? I was down in South Georgia visiting this dear friend of mine, the priest Jim Law, and and he'd been my spiritual advisor, and boy, I was just flying apart. And I dropped down on my knees in the Holiday Inn Motel in case he was with me. I said, God, take away the pain. Drinking did not enter my mind. Just take away that pain. And she put her hands on my shoulder and she said, call your sponsor. My first sponsor in AA, I need to tell you this, is one of those people who believed in the group was his higher power. I'm not taking his inventory. I'm just reporting to you. He believed in that first step and that 12th step in the group being his higher power. And I tell you that because I want to tell you what happened. I called Jim, and I said, Jim, I am literally miserable. And he said, Burns, you're the most compliant person I've ever known, but it doesn't seem to take in you. And I said... Jim, will it ever take? He said, yes. He said... When you get home, we'll talk about it. As I started to hang up, he said... Let me ask you something. And I asked him, What's that? He said.... Do you believe if you get drunk tonight, it'll make you bad? And I says... Yes, I do. He said,... You're wrong. He said..... Do you believe you work these steps perfectly today? It'll make you good. And I said, Yes, I do. He said, You're wrong. I said. I don't understand. He said. Burns, you've been trying to buy something that isn't for sale. It's given for fun and for free. God loves you just the way you are. You can't earn it. You can kick it away. You're God's child. You were born that way and you will die that way. He loves you just the way you are. I tried to be perfect for Mama, but she couldn't handle it. I tried to be perfect for me, and I couldn't do it. I tried to be perfect for God, and he didn't need it. All those years in the church, the one parable that jumped at me was the parable of the prodigal son. And yes, it is a parable of a drunk who comes home. And yes it is the parable of a brother that has to deal with his resentment. But what it means to me is the Parable that says there is a Father who waits and He will be there whenever we're willing and ready to come to Him. Without strings, without conditions, He loves me just the way I am. For the next three years of my recovery, God was preparing me to be able to live for fun and for free. I didn't know at the time what was happening, but he was preparing me and he knew when I was ready he would send me a teacher. All of my life I've taken hostages or I've been one. My first sponsor, I manipulated him into being my keeper. I took him every single living problem I had, and he loved to do it. He was the control king, and I picked him because I wanted him. He solved every living problem for me, and I'd turn around to my pigeons and solve them the same way he solved them for me. He told me what to do. I told them what to. They were my hostages. I was his. But the biggest hostage I had was my wife. You're talking about perfect. You're taking about the ideal family. I mean, we were held up as a paragon of what a happy marriage could be. And we were happy. Every morning I would go to work and I'd call her at 9 or 10 in the morning and tell her how much I loved her. But she better be there. At 3 in the afternoon I called her to tell her how much i loved her but she better be there I didn't know that until she came to me at 8 years in the program and she said to me, Burns, I've never loved you more but there's some things I want to do. I want go back to college. I want start going to women's meetings because we went to meetings together four or five a week. I want get into therapy. I looked at her and I said, Casey, whatever you think you need to do, you do it. And what I thought was, you kissed my ass. I mean to tell you, my hackles raised up in me and I didn't even know it. And by this time, my first sponsor, I couldn't accept me anymore living that way. And that truly, I know what codependency is. It's not a bad word to use, right? And I know it's a bad thing to do. I didn't know what it was. I didn' t have any idea who I was. He told me, I told them, and I told her. So I got me another sponsor, and I went up to him, Brian knows him, and y'all do. I walked to him and I said, Jack, I'm gonna get me another woman. I don't need this one, I'll get me another woman, and he looked at me and he said, you can do that. He said, but if you don't change your attitude, you're going to run that one off like you're running this one off. And I sat there and started crying because I didn't know what he meant. And about that time, the teacher came. A little pigeon of mine with seven months of sobriety walked up and handed me some tapes. And he said, would you listen to these tapes and let me know if you think they're any good? And they were Joe and Charlie's tapes of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And as I listened to those tapes, I cried all the way through them realizing the program I didnít have and what I would need to do to get it. I had 20 copies of those tapes made, and I gave them to 20 of my closest friends, and 12 of us began a big book study group six years ago. We studied Joe and Charlie's tapes with a big-book reading right along with it. Then we did the 18-week big book. Then we just read it again with each other, sharing our experience, strength, and hope. And I really did become a student of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean a student. And then it came from the book to my head to my heart, and it became a way of life for me. What I found as I read through that book was exactly why Burns Brady is even on the face of this earth. Always, I wondered, why am I even here? And as I reading through that Book, it jumped out. You are here to prepare yourself to be of maximum service to God and your fellow man. You can't give away what you don't have, but you do your work well and be right with Him, and you will be ready. You will be Ready. and I knew why I was here. I even knew what I needed to do with Casey. I literally changed completely to support her in the things she wanted to do. I fixed breakfast. I did the little things that you talked about. I'm more verbal than your husband, but I did those little things. What I said wasn't as important as what I did. And I really supported her and as it came through me it came to everybody I touched being prepared to carry God's message and today what I know is God, what is your will? And I used to think I don't understand what his will is until I realize every single day his will is in every situation for me to be prepared to be of maximum service to you. There's a magnificent magnificent sentence at the end right before the promises Almost no one ever mentions it. It's the very sentence before the promises which says, as God's people, we stand on our feet. We don't crawl before anybody. That statement is made with sensitivity, tactfulness, consideration, and humility. No word does it tell me I have to accept unacceptable behavior, but everywhere it tells me I am to prepare me to be ready to serve you. It doesn't say I haveと deny me, prepare myself to serve ye. And I became a true member of Alcoholics Anonymous, the way it works in my life today. The next thing I found is tolerance. It took honesty to get me sober. It has taken tolerance to enable it to grow. If there is one Achilles heel in the program of Alcoholic Anonymous that I see over and over, it's the intolerance that rips this program. Watch it. We have opinions on everything, and sometimes it doesn't matter a damn whether they are informed, ill-informed, spiritual or just my own self-centeredness. People, institutions and principles. I have a responsibility to this program, the traditions and steps tell me. But boy, when I stomp on you simply because you don't do it my way, I get everybody sick. It took tolerance to make it grow. I walked in this program and you said, Don't drink, go to meetings, read the big book. When I read the Big Book, it said, Trust God, clean house, help others. So incredibly simple and so incredibly profound and certainly in my life so functional and beautiful. I'll share with you two or three stories, and then I'm through. First is my daughter. Fifteen years ago, my daughter sat straddling my chest. I was drunk. I had gone home to sit with them because their mother was in an institution, in a mental hospital, a lot of which was either trying to deal with me and those kids, and I wasn't helping. She straddled my chest when I was passed out, and she tried to shoot me with a shotgun. The reason she didn't was because it was an automatic and she couldn't load it. She was strung out on amphetamine, Darvon, Valium, and whiskey. Three years ago she got married. She'd been in the program ten years, and guess who she asked to give her away? Daddy. Daddy. She married a man in the program with an eleven-year-old son, and she is an incredible mother. She is an incredibly mother, a beautiful daughter, and a beautiful lady. My son came into the program five years ago. I guess he has been about six right now. Through a series of events that were well directed and spiritually thought through, Burns had to be on the streets for about three months. His mother kicked him out and should have. He came to me, and I already laid the ground rules, and he knew it, and he couldn't live there. After three months, he came and asked me if I would help him get into treatment, so of course I did. A year after he was back in treatment, we were sitting in a meeting discussing one night, and this lady said, My son went off to camp with two other boys, and they found him smoking dope. I know my boy smokes dope, but I don't know what to do to help him. They just didn't catch him. And we all talked, and my son raised his hand. He said, I don't know what to tell you to do for him, but I'll tell you what turned my life around. He said I watched my sister, who I loved her so much, and she became somebody I was ashamed of. She came into Alcoholics Anonymous and became a lady, and I knew that it would work. But the thing that turned my wife around is I hated my daddy's guts. He lied to me. He lied To my sister. He beat up my mother. came into Alcoholics Anonymous and he quit lying to us when he told us he'd be there he showed up he came in one night and he didn't even know I heard him but he sat in the living room and talked to my mother and told her how sorry he was and made some arrangements financially to do a whole bunch of things that I knew were not his fault and mother told him to get out of her house and as he left he said Sally, I'm sorry I really love you and I'll try to help you with the kids the best I can. He said, when I was on those streets, it dawned on me that what I wanted more than anything else was to be just like my daddy. Just like my dad. I want to tell you this last story. I've never told anybody this because it didn't happen that long ago. I grew up in that home where my daddy was an absolute rock. He was beautiful. He was so strong. He didn't communicate much, but he was so stronger. daddy has been ravaged by age mama died in 78 daddy has never been the same he married a beautiful lady who is my stepmother and she she really takes care of him because about four years ago daddy really started to lose his memory in his mind he doesn't know me anymore he thinks i'm my uncle buster his brother he thinks my brother and i have one brother is uncle carl his brother He doesn't know me anymore. I go down at least once a month and visit my daddy, and we had to put him, my stepmother had to putting him in a nursing home, and she should. And I went into the nursing home about a month ago. And as I sat out there in the car before I was getting ready, it's about a 250-mile drive, and I prayed all the way down because I really missed my daddy. And I had many of those same feelings about daddy being gone and not knowing me. and I prayed God just let me be of service to this man for all the things and the love he gave me and as I walked in I sat down with him and we talked and he said well Pastor it's good to see you guess we'll go out and see mom and papa Brady pretty soon as soon as I get out of here I got a little bit of chores to do then I'll be out right we talked for a while finally we went we went back in the sun room and I was talking to Peggy my stepmother and we were carrying on I was joking like you've heard me do here because I really feel it that's just the way it is in my life and I was always that way got awfully bad when I was drinking and drugging but a happy man again as I was talking he looked at me he said son I said what he said Burns Mac where have you been you're just like the little boy your mother and I raised thanks for coming to see me and he still doesn't know me today but for 30 seconds I was the little boy he and mama raised and you gave it to me. You gave it. Alcoholics Anonymous is the language of the heart. We feel we don't have to talk. We know what's beside us. We know when we don'T even see, and we know when WE DON'T talk. For the next five or ten seconds, I'd like you to help me do something that I've never closed a meeting like doing. Close your eyes and feel the power of the person next to you and the power of this room the language of the heart for just a few seconds. I close every talk the same way. When I literally was unable to think or to do anything except follow directions, I used to listen to a lot of tape. Father Martin had a tape called the Twelve Steps, and he closed that tape the way I feel about you. You people are in my thoughts frequently. You're in my heart and you're in my prayers always. I love you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for asking me to come and talk. I thank you for just loving me when I couldn't love myself and allowing me to love you until I could learn to love myself. Most of all, I thank you for delivering me the message that gave me my life. For those people that I've met again, it's good to see you. For the people that are new in my life, welcome. Pull up a chair and let's talk any time. For these people I may never see again, if we walk in this faith and in this program, we will meet again. Godspeed until that time and good night. Thank you.