Burns B. – A Three Step Program vs a 12 Step Solution – 2011

My name is Burns Brady and I'm an alcoholic. Most of y'all don't know me at all. Some of you may know me a little bit by tapes and whatnot over the years, but if you knew me you'd know that there's a real iron in me. There's a real irony in this because I've always wanted to be a preacher. And when I walked in and looked at this setup I thought, thank you God. I mean, if my sponsor were here tonight, he would not let me speak. I can promise you that. Because it'll take him at least three months to get me off of this. I mean, it is really amazing. Honest to God. I had a good friend one time. He's been dead for a long number of years. He had a treatment center in Texas and we would run across each other periodically over the years. We were at a conference one time and they had a call-up meeting on Wednesday night. And they called Gene up to say something and this was on the east coast or the west coast. I was going to say he was from Texas. He got up there and he looked around a minute and he said, you know, he said, I just thought of something. He said, I've traveled 1500 miles to talk and I'm not sure I'd walk across the street to listen. And that's just the way it is. So here we are. Here we are. There are a lot of people here that I know tonight. A lot of people that I've known for a significant period of time. And some of them I've known very, very well. And I'm grateful for that. And I'm grateful for that. And I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful to see them. I'm grateful to be back with the people in Atlanta. Atlanta has a real strong spot in my heart. I was in treatment here in 1977 at Ridgeview when Doug T ran Ridgeview and his treatment center wasn't in existence. And my halfway house experience was at the Metro Atlanta recovery program. This has been a distinct part of my recovery. For 11 years, I went to a conference here in Atlanta, my wife and I did. For 11 years, I went to a conference here in Atlanta, my wife and I did. And I'm not sure if you all are familiar with that. But certainly back in the 70s and 80s, it was the premier conference in the United States as far as the scientific distribution of information. And then the spiritual solution that we did all night. We had science all day and AA meetings all night. And it was an absolute love end. The fellow who ran it is now dead. His name was Conway Hunter. Conway was a dear friend. And we used to call it Conway's Love End. Because all day it was science and all night it was meetings. And I was a baby in recovery at that time. I wasn't a baby chronologically. I was a baby emotionally. But I wasn't a baby chronologically. But I saw the great heroes or the ones that became my heroes go across that stage and taught us as best they could about this disease at that time. And many of the principles that they taught me still hold in good stead in the scientific field. Uh. I come down quite often for various reasons. I really do love Atlanta. I'm very grateful I don't live here. Because I mean I really enjoyed tonight in the traffic. We had a lot of good talking. But if I had to do that every night, I'm sure I'd be in jail because I would have given at least four or five people the finger just on General Princeton. I mean nothing. I mean nothing. I mean nothing. I mean nothing. And I came from my understanding that black people have the advantage. Some things are just DNI or just death certificate, make you for the afternoon and make you Richard. But whatever it is, gettingause, you know, just being enough to know that you're not going to be addressed for it. And quickly don't get anyway growing up. Just so that everybody understands this. Can't wish me to do it again. And I promise you I won't ever do it again, because we love night and day. This is the end. Last time, our talk personalized. With creator and publisher to do a great job. and I interpreted God's will that I would spend most of my time at home. It was about 15 or 20 years that I traveled pretty extensively all over the United States talking at AA conferences. Whatever my motive may have been, it was a lot of fun. I made a lot of friends and gave some pretty decent talks. I've listened to a lot of them from early back in the years when I was talking, and they were great talks. They weren't mine. They were Father Martin's and Sandy Beach's because I listened to their tapes, and I thought they were my talks, and they weren't even close to my talks. But they were better than what I say today because they had a lot more to them. But I've slowed down, and I would only go pretty much where it's accessible. I've got a wonderful wife who's been in the program with me for 33 years and a real pretty kitty cat, and I just hate to be away from that. And with the kitty cat and the prisons and the homeless shelters and the AA community in my own backyard, that's where I spend most of my time. But it is an absolute act of love to be here in Atlanta with you all because so much of it is about you. Thank you. And so much of my recovery took place, started, and was kindled in this town. And thanks for letting me come. You've asked me to come tell you what I was like, what happened, and what I'm like today. I will tell you as I get started that I'm a big book thumper. I'm not a big book lawyer. I very rarely look for loopholes, and most of the time I don't try to tell you what you've got to do in that big book. And I won't tell you that I don't slip over that every now and then. But most of the time I just talk about what this book means to me because it means everything in the world to me. Because it gave me a design for living that I didn't have in the first 10 years in this program. I came in absolutely whipped. I mean kicked to death. I'm a fast learner. It took me 21 years to get there, but I literally was kicked to death. And I crawled in just willing to do anything that anybody asked me to do, just praying that somebody would tell me, what I was supposed to do. I spent almost four months in treatment here. Went back home to Louisville, got into Alcoholics Anonymous. At that time in Louisville, the marching orders were don't drink, get a sponsor, tell him what's wrong with you. He'll tell you what to do, and then go save a drunk. We left out that muddled middle. For the first 10 years that I was in AA, oh, I read the book once or twice. But we didn't really do the steps nor did we read the book. It was a total mess. It was a total mess. It was a total fellowship program. 99% of fellowship program. A great time. My wife and I became very close with about five or six other couples. We ran almost 18, seven. We cooked out on weekends, played golf together. We were just inseparable. And we didn't drink. We didn't even much, give it much consideration. And we talked to each other daily, frequently. But we were all crazy as hell because we didn't have a design for living. We were whipped and we knew that we needed each other. We embraced that, but no one could quite figure out why we were so crazy. Even we couldn't figure out why we were so crazy. I will tell you what happened during that period of time. I became a lethal weapon for God in the city of Louisville in the state of Kentucky. They said, here he comes, drink a beer because he's gonna drink a beer. And I said, well, I'm gonna do that. They said, well, I'm gonna drink a beer because you're a lethal weapon. I said, well, I'm gonna do that. They said, well, I'm gonna drink a beer. And I said, no, I'm gonna drink a beer. They said, well, I'm gonna do that. And I said, well, I'm not gonna. I said, well, I'm not gonna do that. You don't have to drag your ass off the treatment anyway because that's just the way it worked. And I had no reservations about telling you what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous was. And you were an idiot if you didn't do exactly what I told you to do. And we got a lot of people into treatment. A lot of them came home. Some of them stayed with us. Most of them went somewhere else because they began to realize that we were crazy. We really didn't have a design for living. My wife, who is 14 years younger than me, my second wife, and we have been married 33 years, I met her when I was out there womanizing after my first wife kicked me out of the house. I realized this was probably one of the best human beings I'd ever met in my life. Still is. I still feel that way about her. You may never get the privilege of meeting my wife, and you've missed something. And I absolutely adored her and adore her. For the first six years, she quit drinking when I quit drinking and went to Al-Anon for six years and then heard her story at a women's retreat at St. Simons and went and switched AA. Her sponsor was a devout friend of mine, had about 25 or 30 years of sobriety, one of my great heroes, and she sponsored Casey and said, Your whole life is burns or you won't... You want a life of your own. I love burns. You should love burns. But you right now just he's your whole life. What do you want to do? And she said, Well, I want to become a therapist. She only had one year of college, so she went back to college. Then she went to school to be a social worker. She's now a licensed clinical social worker. And when she came, told me that's what she was going to do. I said, I think that's absolutely wonderful. Well, about about six weeks later, when I came home, multiple nights and the lights weren't on and my meals weren't cooked, I thought that was bullshit. I mean, that wasn't... You know, I mean, this... She just had, she had just forgotten to continue to read her script, which was exactly the way it had been written. Now, I'll tell you how we did it that time. We came in and she hooked up at my hip and we were inseparable. Our love was supreme. It is today. It's a lot more mature today at that time. There were no scars. We had to do a lot of work between age 10 and age 15 in our recovery because of some things I'm going to tell you and because of our growth within a 12-step program. But she hooked up on my hip and she just followed me everywhere. And that was the way I wanted it. Every season change, I sent her a new outfit of clothes. I never asked her what kind of clothes she wanted. Every two years, I sent her a new car. Never asked her what kind of car she wanted. At least three or four times a year, we went on magnificent vacations. Never asked her where she wanted to go. Basically, I was Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy wrapped into one and she was my little Koopy doll. And that's the way I thought it was supposed to be. Every day was Christmas for her because I was going to make it that way. Every day was Christmas because I was going to make it that way for her. Then she went off and started doing stuff on her own. The first thing was that I had a deep resentment. I had a deep resentment. But I didn't have any steps to deal with it. I talked to my sponsor, whom I talked to four or five times every day. I said, Jim, I'm feeling this way. He says, well, pray about it. And I just pray, I just pray, and it never worked. Then I got real scared because my wife was, as I say, younger than me and is an extremely attractive lady. At that time, we were both a lot younger, and my wife was an exceptional from Runinger High. You know, 30, 30 years of age. But still, I always said, you know,손ny, you know, a band of I had just started some sort of family mayors. I hadn't even got all that old to early. I was almost five anymore. I was on full steam. And that was what got me willingly into this thing. In their<|hu|> employers, the sih vacuum. I knocked somebody off in those halls, he жизney funeras. And he unlimited the union. I thought, we had moregam of money. mean I was a cold spring, even worse than I normally am. So I went for relief, didn't I? I didn't go for alcohol or drugs. I went for an easier, softer way. I had an affair for about three months when I was 10 years sober. And after three months of doing that, I thought, well, I'm going to take a drink because I'm telling a lie. I'm living a secret. I didn't want to have a drink. I didn't think I was going to take a drink. But we read if you can't be honest, you can't get it. So I told my sponsor, I'd suggest you tell him before the fact. But I told him after I'd done it. And he called my wife and told her. Now, there's a lot of things that, you know, everything that we have in our life gets to be an opportunity. I mean, it really does. And it says in the book, a place to demonstrate God's omnipotence. Well, come on, God, we're a little bit behind here. We're in some real big trouble. And I don't know how many spares you're counting right now, but man, you got a guy in real trouble down here. Leave those birds alone. Come help me. I'm in real bad trouble. I found out that sponsors aren't God. We're drunks. One drink away from being drunk. I wouldn't be without a sponsor. I've been sober 33 years. I've had three sponsors and I've never been without one except two months to three months between gym at that time. Because obviously after that, there was nothing we could do anymore as a sponsor and sponsee. I didn't have any steps for the book. I had the first three. I had them in about 15 seconds between Thanksgiving and December the 1st, 1977 with a 12 gauge shotgun in my mouth. And I really didn't know the first three steps even before I knew they were the steps. And they've never faltered. They've never faltered. They've grown. And you've taken me on a journey for me to grow up with them, but I've always had them, but I didn't have the others. But sponsors are not God. For me, they're wonderful angels. If I sponsor somebody, I tell them going in, if you expect me to walk on water, you better show me where the stumps are because you and I are both trying to live one day at a time, dealing with the very, very things that those last nine steps show us. Self-centeredness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. That's what the book teaches me. Self-centeredness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. Right after that it happened, I didn't know. I had no way to talk to Jim. I didn't know what to do. So I said, God, please help me. And one of my little sponsees came up with eight tapes, and they were Joe and Charlie's tapes of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And as I listened to those tapes, I realized what a 12-step program is. I had 11 copies made and 12 of us sat down with our books. I had 11 copies made, and 12 of us sat down with our books. And I had 11 copies made, and 12 of us sat down with our big book and with those tapes, and we did our steps together for the first time. It was the second big book study in Louisville, Kentucky. Today, there are 40 or 50 going on at all times as a result of what happened at that time. My wife and I got deeply involved in our own 12-step programs, went into therapy through the 12-step process and the therapy to help us know where the bullets were coming from because we told the therapist the only solution was to get the book out of the book. And we did. The counseling program put her on a coll smarter, so she could take the book before people disappeared. Then the rest of us put off payments and paid for the compost pick-up, had to visit track again, without even having to run for house movement to see a nurse. Then I'd have these other couples talking with someone about her, and that well, I didn't even look at the оперative lessons yet, there was stuff all over the place that was stuff that I never knew if it worked out well or not. guard, this lady makes bottles, or if not, strawberries or other sharpropol in her home, everything that I could buy or sell. Woman's shoes, peony shoes, I couldn't buy them at all for a year. She said you, I'm inihuaronana or if It's not, you know me. Thatание. So he said you, you want them or we what? – And I said Well, good. Then I instinctively the young lady I had the affair with, with my wife, across the board. It's a level playing field. I can meet both of those women on the street and not have to cross to the other side. It's just a nice, clean place to live. It's all been cleaned up. So I'm a big book thumper because I know what it's like to live with three steps, and I know what it's like to live with 12. And I need to tell anybody who's not living a 12-step program, based on my experience, it's all in the book, and it is the design for living that makes this program really work. Remember what Wilson said, those of us, and I don't know pages, but I do know concepts out of this book. Those of us who spent much time in the world of spiritual make-believe have eventually recognized the childishness of it. This has been replaced by a great sense of purpose and an ever-growing awareness of the power of God in our lives. He also said, remember when he's doing a 12-step call on a preacher? If you go look at working with others, he doesn't say he's a preacher, but he is. The preacher wonders what you can tell him about spirituality. But he really is kind of curious why he's drunk and you're not. So we ask why. And Bill says, you know, he may be an example of the fact that faith alone, is insufficient. It must be followed by self-sacrifice and unselfish constructive action. What I've come to know in that book is self-sacrifice is the first three steps. Doesn't mean I'm going to be a medical missionary in Bolivia. I mean, it might be where I'd end up. But it's to decide each day who's running my life. Self-sacrifice and unselfish constructive action. Self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice. One, two, and three. Unselfish constructive action. Four through 12. Faith without works is dead. I knew Smitty pretty well. Many of y'all did too. Actually, I knew him real well. Dr. Bob's son. The last person who was there when Bill was with Bob. In May of 35. And each time we'd sit down, I'd pick his brain because I wanted to know the things that weren't in the history books. What was going on? What was going on? What was going on? What was going on? What was going on? What was going on? What was going on? What was going on? And I asked him one time. I said, tell me what it was like. And Smitty said, well, I'd come down the stairs if you've ever been to that house. You recognize, you know, pretty typical 1900, 1915, 1920 house. Three dormers. Front porch. Banisters. You go in the front door. There's the living room. There's a faux dining room with columns over here with a dining room table here. And then a chair, a door that goes into the kitchen. And steps at the back that go upstairs. And Smitty said, Burns, I'd come down in the morning. Smitty's obviously dead. And he's 15 years older than I am. But he said, I would come down the stairs and there would be Mama sitting at the dining room table. And Bill would be sitting on the floor with his back up next to the wall. And Daddy would be sitting with his back up next to one of the dining room table legs. And said Mama would be reading from him from the book of James. From Paul's letter to the Corinthians on love. And from Emmett Fox's sermon on the mount. And of course the book of James or the gospel of James as some people call it. States that faith without works is dead. I had a lot of works going on for the first 10 years. If just saving drunks was what it was. I had no works going on if it had to do with a design for living. I remember asking God. I said, God. Why did you leave my ass out here? I absolutely adore you and I adore you. And I really believe you love me. But why did you leave me out here? And I could almost feel, almost hear his voice say to me. He said, you may impress a lot of people with what you know. But you'll help heal a lot of people with your experience. Tell them what it's like to live with a three-step program. And tell them what it's like to live with a 12-step program. And I can tell you it's daylight. It's night and dark. That's my experience. So that's why I'm a big book thumper. I was beaten so bad I never wavered in staying clean and sober. I was beaten so bad that I never wavered from running with my people. And I did what I was told. But I wasn't told what this story is. And I made sure that nobody else would ever hear me that didn't hear the story. I grew up in a little town in western Kentucky named Mayfield. I grew up in a home where there was no alcohol and there were no drugs. My grandfather, my mother's father, died drinking bleach in the Mayfield City Jail in 1934. He was a bad drunk. He was the town drunk. My mother was molested physically, emotionally, and sexually in that home. She was wracked with the waves of resentment and fear and anger and confusion. And no trust and insulation. Our home was dominated by alcoholism and there never was a bottle of whiskey in it nor was there a pill. But it was dominated by alcoholism because my mother was an untreated person from an alcoholic home. Now today we call that an adult child. If a person has a problem with that therapeutic term, just go read the first page of the chapter of the family afterwards. It said if you're around one of us, you get neurotic. Those were Wilson's words. You get neurotic. You get neurotic. And I adored my mother. She died prematurely in 1978. And I absolutely miss her more than I can tell you. Miss her more today even than I did then. And I really missed her more than I thought I could tolerate then. I really loved my mother. But my mother was goofy. And there wasn't any doubt that she was goofy. Because she didn't have a chance to deal with the very things that we deal with. Thank God she went to church. She didn't become one of those people that was a revolving door. But she took me. And my brother to Sunday school. She took me and my brother to church. And for 12 years I never missed Sunday school and church. And I'm very grateful when I had that shotgun in my mouth. Those were the values that kept me from pulling that trigger. So mother dominated our home. And it was the first place that I ever experienced conditional love. And the conditional love was that I had to be perfect. Because my mama lived vicariously through me to get her credibility back. And the little town of Mayfield where she always thought no one forgot that she was the daughter of the town drunk. Almost nobody ever remembered my grandfather. But my mother lived in the memory of my grandfather. And the belief that everybody else lived in that memory. So she regained her credibility and her dignity through basically me. I'm eight years older than my brother. And again there was no alcohol or drugs at that home. My brother, just the two of us. And both of us are in AA. I have two children. My daughter is 50. She's been in AA for 30 years. And my son's 45. He's been in AA for 27 years. They could have been in AA by the time they were 10. But they still had a way to, they still had a little bit of things to, anyway. They could have been in a lot earlier. They could have been in a lot earlier. So there's no question if you want to know about the genetics of this illness, just ask me. The textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous, let me tell you, without any reservation, is still the best medical book that's ever been written about alcoholism. And we'll get into that a little further in the future, this talk. But it's amazing how much they were right on target about this illness. But my mother, I made a bee when I was in the third grade. And my mother didn't talk to me for two weeks. Daddy had to cook my breakfast and do my clothes and everything else. That's the last bee I ever made. Until I got home. Until I got to medical school. Through high school and college. Because I desperately needed my mother's approval. I don't know how many of you have ever read what Bill Wilson wrote in 1953 called Emotional Sobriety. But when he wrote that, it's the second best thing that Bill ever wrote for me. I'm not saying it is for everybody. The big book's the number one best thing he ever wrote for me. And Emotional Sobriety was number two. And in that letter, which he wrote in 1953, it was put in the affairs of the heart. In the language of the heart in the late 50s. But in that, he said that he had finally figured out all of his trouble. Now, remember where Bill had come from. When he and Lois lost Clinton Street in 1939, they didn't have a place to live. They lived in 55 different places between 1939 and 1941. They didn't have a home. When they finally did get a home. They took off on a tour of the United States. And when Bill got back to AA, part of what was going on in the country. Bill went into a morbid depression from 1944 to 1954. I mean, he had to breathe and count his steps just to walk. And it was incredible how he gave us some of his best literature during this time of incredible depression. In 1953, he's beginning. To come out of it. And he writes. He had found that every one of his problems came from his need for approval. He wrote money, power, prestige, and sex distilled into approval. And I've listened to I don't know how many fifth steps of men. I've held men in my lap big enough to eat that wall from the prison and from the homeless shelter. And I've stroked the back of their head and told them how much I loved them. And what they're doing wasn't a bit different from what I've done or what anybody else has done. Even they needed. The approval. I've never seen an alcoholic male. I don't work with women. For reasons that I think are appropriate and have nothing to do with sex. Well, in my case, it does. May not in her case, but it does in my case. I mean, that's another whole story. But never. But nevertheless, I think there's no question that there are a lot of young women today that could maintain their appropriate relationship with me for a lot of reasons. But I'm not sure I can with them. So I just work with men. But there's a lot of other reasons besides he and she. That really make it really necessary to have, at least in my hometown with the people that I'm familiar with, to have some men's meetings and some women's meetings. And certainly to have treatment centers that have gender-specific tracks and living conditions. It's just a part and parcel of a whole bunch of things. But this need for approval is so deep. And it certainly was in me. And this conditional love drove me to try to be perfect for Mama's approval. Then for everybody's approval. It was just an overwhelming obsession. When I got to you people, you're the first place that ever said, number one, you can't be perfect. Number two, you don't have to be perfect. And number three, we're going to give you a set of living. Tools where you can deal with the fact you can't be perfect. It is all the way in my core. The need to be perfect. Whatever the motive. And it can be dissected by a psychiatrist till hell freezes over. And they're right. But the bottom line is that's what I want more than anything. And these tools and rules are able to help me deal with the fact that my life's unmanageable. And I'm not in charge of the universe. Every problem I've got. comes from the second half of the first step. Every problem I've got comes from an unresolved second half of the first step. And every solution I have comes from all 12 steps, not 4 and 5, not 6 and 7, not 8 and 9. 12-step solution to a first-step problem. Who's running my life? And every day it has to be resolved on the front end, maintained during the day, and closed at the end, and the steps are built for that. They're built exactly for that for me. It's how to start it, live it, and end it so that I stay very much aware of who's in charge. When we got in the car today and we were talking about it, I said, well, there's one good thing about all this traffic. It's letting us know that life sure as hell is unmanageable. Another great opportunity. Just blown all to hell, wasn't it? I mean, second place I learned about conditional love was in the church. And I told you I grew up in church, and when I first came home from treatment, I sat with my best friend, who's an Episcopal priest, and we sat in chairs opposite each other and held hands. And this was, his name was Jimmy Law. He's now dead. And Jimmy played golf with me, and we drank beer together. He was an old football coach who had a spiritual experience in the Korean War, came home and went to seminary, loved his church and loved his God. And I said, Jimmy, take me back to my church. And we sat there and held hands, and he said, I can do that, Burns, but you gotta go to AA. They have better success with alcoholics than we do. Now, I knew that from four months of treatment, but here's a preacher, a priest, my best friend, telling me that AA was a better place for me to be, to learn how to live spiritually with my alcoholism and drug addiction. What the church said was, you believe this, or you go to hell. You believe this, or you go to hell. There wasn't any wiggle room. It was a Christian church, and what it says is, you have to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and if you don't believe that, you will go to hell. Now, I didn't have a real big problem with Jesus, but I had a real problem with sin. Now, I was 12 years old and was having a real conflict with sin. You know, at 12 years of age, I would go to Sunday school, and they'd say, it's better to spill your seeds in the belly of a whore than on the ground. Yeah, and at 12 years of age, I just found this new book, and I said, I'm gonna read it to you. I'm gonna read it to you. I'm gonna read it to you. I'm gonna read it to you. I'm gonna read it to you. I'm having a hell of some conflict with this new pull toy, and I'm having a hell of a lot of conflict. You know, I mean, I'm just doing what 12-year-olds do. But I think it's a sin, but I couldn't get away from the way it felt, and there I was in sin and in confusion. So I would just sin all week and then go down on Sunday morning and confess my sins, and I'd get baptized on Sunday. And I'd been baptized more than most of y'all has ever had, so be glad I could. a glass of water. I can tell you that. But the church is screaming at me that I am a sinner. I have no room to wiggle. Conditional love. If you're perfect and believe this, you can go to heaven. So I'm wracked by this conditional love deal. Now this didn't make me an alcoholic, but I was told when I came in, you stop the drinking and don't deal with the thinking. You go back to the drinking. And my thinking started way back then. And our big book tells us clearly in the fifth chapter and the fourth step, we go back through our lives. Isn't that what it said? And I'm going back to deal with that thinking because it started way back then with the self-centeredness. I've got to be perfect. The dishonesty, lying about the things if I thought mama wouldn't approve of it or if the preacher didn't approve of it. Resentment. Why are we poor? Why are we eating off of crate boxes? Why did that little boy in the third grade call me white trash? Why did I have to caddy rather than belong to country club? Why hadn't any of my people ever gone to college? I had that whole list of victimizations and self-pity and resentments. And the fear was almost, you could cut it with a knife. And this is when I was traceа in the family out at work through my엔 which it was extraordinaryfair to the war to prevent denzeuts Uh, he, uh, he mourned being a dad for five years and suddenly being a child of a lifetime. Uh, nice one. carry that message. First time I ever read it after I'd gone through the book and sat down and read that chapter, I thought, my God, I don't have most of those things. I can't explain that from my experience, strength, and hope. I can now. As a specialist in addiction medicine, which is what I am, I can put all the formulas on the wall that tell you and tell me why we have an illness. And we have one. We're a cork low. We're a half a pint low, whatever you want to call it, but we're playing with one arm tied behind her back, and we're going into a gunfight with a knife. We literally are a cork low, and when we drink and drug, we not only go back to normal, we get above normal in some of the major brain chemistries. I remember telling my parents, I was a kid, I was a kid, I was a kid, I was a kid, I was a kid, I was a kid, I was a kid, first sponsor he said you've got an illness and I said I don't give a damn if I've got an illness just tell me what I got to do he said you better give a damn you got an illness because knowing you one day you'll get so spiritually perfect you'll think you can take a drink and that's a critical message we seem or I seem to see that we're not getting across that I have a fatal illness it will kill me AA said back in the chapter more about alcoholism we're bodily and mentally different we're irritable restless discontented and we drink and we drug it doesn't say drug but we do for the effect and the effect is to change the brain chemistry and it does it beautifully and we drink for the effect we drink for relief we drink for the way it makes us feel I know I did in the book and chemistry and and neuroscience tells me that we drink for the effect we drink for the way it makes us feel that's exactly what it is big book said young people will drink differently from older people I can go around this room and pick out you young people and I can give you a profile of how you got here name it right down to the jail you got out of you know and I can take you older ones and tell you you drank more whiskey than you could possibly buy but you tried your damnedest to get to work without a drink in you because that's the profile of the adult alcoholic as opposed to the adolescent alcoholic and the big book described that in 1938 it said women would be affected much more severely physically quicker than men and and we know they are today we know why no that's why I'm an alcoholic because I have this strange way of thinking to allow me to justify my behavior to get relief and anything that will change my brain chemistry I will do sex work whatever drinking recognition whatever it takes for me to get the relief that I want we know that many of these activities today actually change brain chemistry one of the biggest producers of beta endorphin one of the major chemistry's in the brain and I'm not going to go into that but I'm going to talk about the main thing that's going to change the brain is orgasm why do we put women and men on opposite sides of town because physiologically if they get together they find they can get relief a couple of good orgasms and a cigarette and man they don't have to worry about drinking for about 15 minutes and what's better than being held by somebody that you've known for 15 minutes who tells you you're the greatest thing that ever happened in their life I mean I'm not surprised we get in the jackpot I'm not surprised I got in the jackpot anyway no that's why I'm an alcoholic but if I don't deal with that thinking I go back to the drinking and that thinking is what this program is all about to help me deal with that thinking that gets so peculiar that it allows me to get out of the way of my life and I'm not going to do that because I'm not going to do that because I'm not going to do that because I'm not going to do that it allows me to go back and do the totally untenable look at Jim's story he said he's going to tell us how he thinks and then he goes into a magnificent example of self-centeredness dishonesty resentment and fear read it one little paragraph he is so spiritually bankrupt with self-centeredness dishonesty resentment and fear and he ends up putting scotch in milk his relapse wasn't when he put the scotch in milk his relapse was when he put the scotch in milk and he ended up putting scotch in milk is when he didn't deal with self-centeredness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. It's a beautiful example of the way we think to get back for the relief. Whatever I've got to do to get relief. There's a certain way, there's a certain woman, I can draw them. I see them in my mind. They're exactly the same. And when one of them walks in that room on one side for a meeting, I go out the back door. And somebody says, well, if your spiritual condition was right, you'd talk to God. And I said, I did talk to God. He said, what'd he say? He said, get your ass out that back door. Because the devil always comes dressed in his best clothes and he doesn't walk in there with a broken baseball bat or a 50 cent golf ball. Man, he sends the best. He sends, at least in my life, that's what I've seen. He sends the best. I mean the best. Alcohol and drugs were no problem for me in high school. They were no problem for me in college. I started medical school in 1958 at the University of Louisville. I was literally flying apart, getting ready to study for the first gross anatomy exam. One of the upperclassmen came down and gave me a little pill called amphetamine. The drug was dozoxin. Now, I'm tired carrying, commode hugging, 12-gauge shotgun in the mouth, two quarts of whiskey a night drunk. But part of my story is about drugs. It's one drug for 12 years, which was amphetamine with no alcohol. It was alcohol for eight years with no amphetamine and both of them kicked my butt right over the moon. And I've asked a lot of people about, should I tell my, the story about my drugs? And I've had people say, absolutely not. I've had people say, absolutely so. New York won't tell you anything. My sponsor says, what's the problem with that? I'm telling you the story about my drugs. And I've had people say, Absolutely not. I've had people say, absolutely so. New York won't tell you anything. My sponsor says, We'll pray about it. And all I know is that my best, my best, my only asset is my experience. So I'm going to tell my story. And maybe nobody in this room will get anything from it but me, but that's good enough. But I can tell you I've talked a long time and worked with a lot of men, and I can look across this room and I can tell you there's a whole bunch of you men in here that I know for sure needs to hear both of them. Because I can tell you if somebody's addicted to alcohol, if they're an alcoholic, there ain't a single Moodalton drug that you can take successfully. It will kick your ass over the moon. The marijuana program, all these other, the marijuana maintenance program, all these other things, and I can sit here and explain to you scientifically why that's true. But listen to my experience. Twelve years. Twelve years of amphetamine kicked out of medical school. Almost court-martialed in the Army. Two years at four different times in Our Lady of Peace, the mental hospital. It just destroyed me. And in 1969, I quit taking amphetamine for a lot of reasons. Mostly I was tired of the consequences, but that's about it. And then I started drinking. No more amphetamine. First five years, no problem. I drank a lot, got drunk a lot. But I didn't sit out to get drunk. I didn't sit out to stay sober. It just wasn't an obsession with me. In fact, I had some incredibly good times in those five years. The next two years, I drank alcoholically. I drank every day. I didn't drink as much. I didn't get as drunk. But when I got up in the morning, I knew when my first drink was going to be, it was going to be at 4.30. I mean, it was going to be at 4.30. I didn't have to worry about drinking during the day, but I knew I was going to have my first drink at 4.30. If you stood between me and the 7-Eleven where I bought my first beer, you got run over. I had a very successful practice. I mean, very successful practice. I had one partner. I would walk out that door. I'd come in and see him. I'd see the emergency in the morning, see my hospital patients, see the patients that were on appointment. At 4.30, I clocked out. He took over for the rest of the day and saw the emergencies. And I wasn't staying past 4.30. Went and got my quart of beer, drove home, and got my scotch and water and sat down and got smooth. You all remember smooth? Well, hell yeah, you remember smooth. That's why you're here. I mean, the brain is a very selective deal. It's called state-conditioned learning, and you will remember the good times. And our book describes it beautifully. We will remember. I certainly do when it was fun. But if I go to enough meetings, I keep getting reminded of when it was terrible. It was horrible. It was as bad as I thought anything could ever get. But I got to go to meetings to hear you tell me. If I don't go to meetings, I won't hear it. If I don't hear it, I'll forget it. Book says I will. Isn't that right? Isn't that what it says? We'll come a day when we'll be unable to bring it to our conscious memory with sufficient force, the humiliation of a week or a month. But we are defenseless. We are defenseless against the first drink. My first wife kicked me out of the house in 1975. I was so grateful. I really hated her. And, man, I tell you what. She really hated me. The reason we got married was because she was the first woman I ever had sex with, and I was the first man she ever had sex with. And our preachers told us we had to get married. We didn't even want to have sex again with each other, much less get married. But we got married, and we spent 17 years trying to make chicken salad out of chicken crap. But, I mean, that's the way it was. It just wasn't going to happen. But we just worked at it and worked at it and worked at it. Finally, I drank enough whiskey. It embarrassed her too bad, and she just kicked me out of the house. And I left with great glee. I was so happy. I mean, I womanized for two years. I got me a white Corvette with a light blue leather interior. Got me a sky blue leisure suit and a case of Scott, Chevy's Regal Scotch and a sterling silver mint julep cup. And I was one cool dude. I mean, I got pictures of it. Man, I was cool. There's just no way around it. And for the 70s, that outfit I just described, man, that's what got the door open. I'm telling you. That looked good. I mean, and I met Casey. Man, this was special. We had one date and moved in with each other. But I knew that this woman was the purest thing I'd ever seen. And honest to God, she is. And the hearts that were put together between me and my wife were almost unbelievable. I mean, it was unbelievable. We drank together. Drink for drink. We had a big time. Then I got really sick. Really bad sick. I can start the day most any time. But I can tell you, it was the same. The last year my drinking was addictive and alcoholic, I drank two quarts of whiskey a night. The last six months were almost unbearable. And the last three months are just a blur. I start the day by saying I'm in a recliner. I don't even go to bed. I've drunk two quarts of whiskey and I'm sitting in this recliner. And at night when I'd get in that recliner, Casey would come in and say, Burns, please come to bed. And I'd say, Casey, I'm crazy and I'll drive you crazy. Just get away from me. Go to bed. And she'd cry, go to bed. And I'd try not to go to sleep because I thought if I don't go to sleep, I won't wake up. If I don't wake up, the day won't start. If the day doesn't start, I won't have to go through this again. I'd finally either pass out or whatever I did. And I'd wake up about 10, 30 or 11 o'clock shaking so bad I couldn't even get out of the chair. I usually would set a Valium, a 10 milligram Valium on the table beside me. And I'd take that Valium and give it time so I wouldn't shake. And then I would race to the hospital in my office and see my patients in about two hours. And then race home because I was going into withdrawal. I reviewed all of my charts for five years when I came back from treatment with my partner and I practiced technically good medicine. I'd ceased being a doctor about a year and a half before that. I was just a highly trained technician. I absolutely am so grateful that I'm a doctor. I've revered this profession ever since I was a little boy. And I'm so grateful that I am a doctor. I take it very seriously. I did family medicine by choice because that's what I wanted to do. I love families. I really did love the families. And toward the end it was mostly adult diagnostic medicine. But I really did treasure it and really honored it. And I'd ceased practicing medicine. My nurse would put up the chief complaint, the vital signs. I would walk in, look at the chief complaint and the vital signs, do a thorough examination, order whatever lab test I wanted, drew my conclusion, wrote progress. I'd take all the prescriptions, gave them to my nurse and told her to take them in. And then I went to the next patient. I could listen to your heart. I could read your EKG. I could read your chest x-ray. I could read your blood count and lab work. I could examine you and knew what I was doing. But I had no time to talk for two reasons. One is I was going into DTs. And the other is I didn't want you to know just how scrambled I was. And I hated my guts. I absolutely hated my guts. My whole critical mass was building to that wonderful, mystical time when we hate our guts enough to come in, enough to come home. I don't know if that's true with every one of you all. I don't know if it's true of any of you. But I know it's true of me. And it's been true of thousands of people that I've been privileged to work with. Finally one day, the way I felt about me because of what I was doing to you was no longer bearable to me. I couldn't live with that anymore. I was just real close to being there, not quite, not quite. Then I would race home, Casey would fix my bra steak and baked potato because we were trying to save my liver. I would sit down on the floor with my two quarts of whiskey and my two records, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra doing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and Neil Diamond's I Am I Cried. And I'd play those all night long. Now if you listen to Neil Diamond's record, he remembered Neil had a lot of problems in the 70s and in that record he said, I've got an emptiness deep inside and it won't let me go. I'm not a man who liked to swear but I never cared for the sound of being alone. That's the alcoholic lament, at least that was this alcoholic's lament. I could be alone in this crowd, totally alone, and I was just alone. Now, I would drink my whiskey and I would cry and Casey would cry. That one morning I got up and she'd gone to work and when I got up I knew it was over. I pray for all of us that that day comes when we know, we know it's over. I'd had nine years of psychiatric therapy. I'd been deacon in five churches drinking two quarts of whiskey a night. Two years in Our Lady of the Holy Spirit. I'd been in the hospital with my sister nine years, nine years in this world. I'd been the patron of this community for five years in the last four years. I had had a childhood of peace out of medical school for two years while I had to get back in staying off of drugs. I had had all of that process and it had never ever been over. I wanted to stop. I wanted it to be over but I never knew it was over and that morning I woke up and I knew it was over. I had not a clue what to do about it. I asked God to help me and I felt immediately what I felt he wanted me to do and I walked in and got my 12 gauge shotgun and put it in my pocket and I upset my mother and I said, it in my mouth and I was out of here. I believed in God. He lived on a cloud and looked like Charlton Heston. I really believed in God. I had no idea how to get his power into me. I lived in a whole world of self-absorption. I had to run it because I didn't know how to bring this power into me. And we talk, aren't we? Lack of power, that's our dilemma. What I found through this fellowship in the steps, that's how this power comes into me one day at a time. I start my day with the 11th step on awakening, the seventh step, prayer, and the third step, prayer. And then I spend a lot of time on meditation, especially prayer, talking to the Lord. The God of my understanding. For me, that's what works about love and tolerance. If I give myself 15, 20, 30 minutes in the morning, that's what I'm, this is my story, then I leave the house in pretty good shape. Obviously, the vicissitudes of the day are going to give me conflict sometimes within a minute, sometimes within hours. Sometimes really bad, sometimes not quite so bad. I've learned today that I'm not going to be satisfied. I'm going to be satisfied. I'm not going to be satisfied. I'm going to be satisfied. So I start my day with the 10th step. Every time that I leave from one place and move to another, I do a 10th step inventory, just like the first paragraph of the 10th step. Just like it says, self-centeredness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. What I do, ask God to remove it, talk to somebody, make my amends if necessary, and help somebody. Every time I move, I do that inventory. It's a great way to do it for me because I can tell you every time I can look at self-centeredness, I think, God, I haven't said a word. I haven't said a word. I haven't said a word. I haven't said a word. I haven't said a word. I haven't said a prayer to you in the last hour. I haven't even asked one time, how can I best serve thee? So I'm saying to you, I make my amends, and I'm getting back in between the curves. Now, I got to tell you, it continues to grow in effectiveness. It's an amazing thing. How can I best serve thee? Right out of the 10th step. And I do that till I go to bed at night, and I'm going to bed at night. On retiring, have I been self-centered, dishonest, resentful, or fearful? Is there somebody I need to talk to? Is there somebody I need to make amends to? Have I been kind and loving toward all? That's what it says. That's the design for living for me. It's wrapped in a magnificent book to explain virtually all of it to me. But boiled down into its essence, that's it. Start it, live it, end it in spiritual condition. And God knows I need it. But if I don't do the 11th step, I'm going to be in a state of disarray. I'm going to bed at night. I get up. If I don't do it tonight, I'll get up in the morning. I'll have the same crap from today, getting ready to get on the next load of crap. And pretty soon, I'm going to take a drink. Now, the relapse isn't going to happen when I take a drink. It's going to happen when I didn't do my 11th step tonight. That's my experience. I get crazy when I don't do that. I just get really, really, really crazy. Casey had gone to work. I went in and got the shotgun. I sat down, and I said, God, if you don't want me to pull this trigger, give me a reason not to. Mother and Daddy will be better off without me. Casey will be better off without me. My patients will be better off without me, and I got to my babies. Now, I got to tell you, you're not looking at a Norman Rockwell father. God, I wanted to be, but I wasn't. I'm still not what I want to be, but I'm so much more than I tell you what, than I ever thought I could be to both my children. I'm still not what I want and my grandchildren. But I'd been in practice for eight years and I'd seen people come in impaled on their own spirit. Why did daddy kill himself? Why did sister kill herself? Why did somebody kill themselves? Why didn't they love me enough? What did I do wrong? I thought if I pull this trigger, those babies will wander forever. Why didn't daddy love them enough? At that moment of complete self-absorption, because that's what suicide is. That's not a pejorative term. Self-absorption is the complete failure of the only power that I know and that's mine. At that moment of complete self-absorption, I asked my God to give me a reason not to pull the trigger and what he had me do was to think of another human being. If your book says the same thing to you that my book says to me in the eighth and ninth step, it says our major purpose, our primary purpose, our purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and my fellow man. That's what it says, isn't it? That's not about me. It's about my getting ready for you when you're in the middle of it. It's about me when you get ready to come home. What's my story going to be? What's the story I'm going to bring to you of hope and your illness and your disease and the wonderful spiritual solution that I've found in Alcoholics Anonymous? It was years after I got into the, it was years, as I told you, before I got into the book and when I had the spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, I reflected on that event that happened that morning in that apartment when I was in the middle of it. And I had a major spiritual experience of incredible depth. I thought of another human being, the very essence of this program. And you know it over and over and over. We hear it, we see it repeatedly. To fit myself to be of maximum service to you and my fellow man. Laid down the gun, Tara came back, called a man the next day who was a classmate of mine, who was a psychiatrist, was 5'9", wore glasses and stuttered. And he was my first higher power. I called David, went in and I said, tell me what to do, I'll do anything you tell me to do. And I meant it. My second higher power was the man who ran the treatment center here in Atlanta. I said, you tell me what to do and I'll do it. My third higher power was my sponsor. You tell me what to do and I'll do it. Those 10 years that I spent with Jim with no steps, I reflected on it after I'd had the spiritual awakening and the spiritual maturity to see what was in that message. And boy, I see it so clear. I love Jim. He and I never spoke but two or three more times throughout the rest of the 10 or 15 years that he was alive. We had nothing else to say. But I go to his grave at least once a month and I get on my knees and I thank him. I did my inventory and I prayed, how can I best, how can I best help him? That's what it says, isn't it? That's the prayer in the fourth step. Or the, you know what I'm talking about when I'm doing the steps. You know that when we're looking in there at that fourth step and we get to the spiritual, we get to the spiritual bridge between the first three columns, this is a sick man, how can I help him? That's the prayer. It softened my heart. Then I saw what Jim gave me and the only thing God knew would help me. I learned for 10 years obedience. And for a little 5'9", terrified doctor who wore his white coat and stethoscope and had at least 50 or 60 people a day telling me I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It was essential that I have one person in my life who kept saying, you're Mr. Brady, not Dr. Brady and here's what you're going to do. You don't have to agree with that. I just know it. I know it. That was what God knew I needed and that I would not get well. I might not ever take another drink or drug, but I wouldn't get well. I would live on the back of the praise, not walking hand in hand with the God of my understanding. The evolution is unbelievable. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. Like T-Boat said, and T-Boat was a psychiatrist that was very much an influence in AA. And he was talking about compliance and surrender. And he said, for the alcoholic, when the dust settles and the crisis is over, the ego does arise unscathed. And of course, that ego, for me, is just nothing more than who I am and where is the source of power. Is it me or is it a higher power? Is it me or is it a higher power? And when the ego does arise unscathed, it's when I assume the need to control the outcome of anything. Planning, yes. Control the outcome, deadly. So, as I said, when I came home from treatment, got directly into AA, it was fortunate because as Bill Wilson said, for a year and a half, he couldn't get a job. He was wracked with waves of self-pity and resentment. That's what we know today as the post acute withdrawal syndrome. It will last anywhere from six months to two to three years, depending on how old we are, how much we've been drinking, any other drugs involved. Most of the adolescents don't have this. Most of the adults will. Antigradement, simple problem solving, stress management, sleep patterns. I could practice medicine because that was like riding a bicycle, but I couldn't remember where I parked my damn car. I went in to see the psychiatrist, and I went in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And when I got in there on Thursday after the first month, I said, Homer, where do you want me to start? And he said, go back to where we were on Tuesday. And I said, I don't remember where we were. And he said, you're blocking your therapy. And I went, oh, God, I'm a piece of crap. I'm blocking my therapy. I got in the meeting that night, and if I got a problem, I got a problem. What's your problem? I'm blocking my therapy. And they said, tell me about it. So I told them, and finally one of the old-timers said, do you remember where his office is? And I said, yeah. He said, that's as good as it's going to get for about two years, so don't worry about it. I called my sponsor six and seven times a day. I would break out crying between examining rooms. First year was a fit. But I never wavered about drinking. I just was so confused and so scared. But my brain was rewiring, and it will. And it did for me. Told you the rest about the story into the steps. I'll tell you where I am today. I left practicing medicine after 25 years in 1992. I developed a program in Kentucky for helping doctors with alcohol and drug problems. We saw 1,500 doctors over a period of 16 years. Three years ago, I knew it was time to move on. I loved my job. I thought it was effective. I thought it was part of God's army and part of what God wanted to be done. But I didn't think it's where he wanted me. I talked to my sponsor. I prayed. I talked to my wife. And they said, we just don't know. And then one night, I went into the prisons to give a talk. I didn't normally go into the prisons. I went in to give a talk. There were eight people. There were eight prisoners there. Six of them were asleep. Two of them were awake and listening. And when I got out in the car, I started crying. I said, this is where I want to be. I went home and talked to my wife. And she said, if that's what you want. Talked to my board of directors. Talked to my sponsor. And they said, if that's what you want, you think that's where God wants you, go. So we went through the process. The process of replacing me. And I went into the prisons three years ago. I spend four days a week in the prisons and in the homeless shelter that I've talked with you. I don't go in there just for meetings. I go in there to teach the textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous and then to share with them as they teach me. We have eight and ten member big book studies. And we have now 15 of them in two major SAP programs, substance abuse programs. It is the most incredible joy I've ever known. When you read a vision for you, it will say, though we must work with others if we are to stay sober, this thought becomes secondary to the happiness we feel in giving ourselves for others. If you want to know where somebody is in the program, they say, well, I made a clear step because he got drunk. But by God, I didn't. That's okay. I'm not criticizing him. That's the way it works. The day that he sits and cries. Over the fact that that person. Got drunk. Knows he can't do anything about the cries. Then you'll know the shift in his heart. Then you'll know the shift in his heart. I've driven away from that prison. Just sobbing with joy. Replaced by a great sense of purpose. At least for right now, I'm exactly where my God wants me to be with the people he wants me to be with. Doing exactly what he wants me to do. And the joy. Is almost incredible. If there is a fourth dimension, then this is good enough for me. If it's somewhere else, I can't wait to get it. But if this is it, man, I'm just tickled to death to be here. As I am to be with you tonight. And I appreciate your patience, your love and your tolerance. It's good to be back to my second home. And it's good to be with the people that I know and love. You are my people. And I love you. With. All. My. Heart. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.