Burns B. – Step 4 – Three Step Program Vs 12 Step Program – 2013

Everybody, I'm Jerry from El Cajon. We'd like to welcome you to our sixth anniversary of the Primary Purpose Group. We meet here every Monday. We encourage you to come and study the big book with us. We have a great time. Being that we are a book study, every year when we pick our speaker, we try to get someone that is representative of someone in recovery that really is in the book. And tonight is no different. We have Dr. Burns Brady. You'll get to hear him in a second. Many of you have already heard him speak before. And I think, amazing man for sure. One of the most amazing things about him, he's probably the only one I personally know on the planet that can talk about brain chemistry and the physiological reactions to drugs and alcohol once they enter your body. And at the same token, say, well, that's great, but what we really need is a spiritual solution. And we get that right here in El Cajon, some of us who work in the 12 steps. Thank you. He's a big book thumper. So proclaim. I spent a little time with Burns, and I can tell you that he's definitely one of us. He is definitely a maniac from the word go. Don't let the 76 years fool you. Seventy-six? Seventy-six. Yeah, he's still like a 19-year-old kid at heart. Hold on. You're going to have a great time listening to his story. With that, I give you Dr. Burns Brady. Thank you, Dr. Burns. Thank you. My name is Burns Brady, and I'm an alcoholic. Hey, Burns. Actually, I've had three heart attacks, and about 80 to 85 percent of my heart's been knocked out, but I'm still 19 between my ears. Somebody said the other day, do you still get in as much trouble as you used to? I said no, but the time I get to where the trouble is, it's moved on. And that is just about the truth. I'm going to give you that. I get so lonely sometimes looking for the crowd. It's really great to be here. It's great for me to be here because this is where it all started for me many, many years ago. My AA birthday is December the 1st of 1977 and I started in Ridgeview. Actually, I got detoxed in New York and then they shipped me down here. When I came in, many of my memories for the first 30 days are here, what memories I had. Then I was transferred over to Marr for the last two months in the halfway house system or whatever you want to call that extended system. This is where it started for me. Doug Talbot was here at that time and was very gentle and very kind to me. I've always told him that and I've always been grateful for it. I really enjoyed being here when I came to treatment. I had been here for a long time. I had 20 years of field training, but once I got it, I've never looked back as far as knowing what I am. The rest has been the journey of trying to deal with that and all of its ramifications of alcoholism. So I'm grateful that Jerry asked me to come. I really wanted to come here. I really wanted to come back because at 76, I am beginning to lose a certain amount of weight. I'm beginning to lose a step or two. I know it's hard for you to believe, but I'm beginning to lose a step or two. I don't know how many other steps I've gotten. That doesn't bother me too much, but there are just certain places I really want to spend some time at that I probably won't get another chance to spend some time at and this is one of them. Also asking for permission to work with the patients this afternoon and basically how we're bodily and mentally different and that's a real joy for me and he allowed me to do that and they allowed me to do it. So I'm really grateful for that. Thank you. So that was a lot of fun. And tomorrow morning, before I fly back to Louisville, I'm going to go over to Maher and do it with their patients. And that excites me in doing that. And my take from a standpoint as a physician and a dictionologist and an alcoholic and a drug addict is what Wilson was writing about at a time before they could have known what we know about the science of being bodily different. But it makes so much sense when we look at it today. It really takes all the information. It really takes all the smoke, mirrors, and magic out of this disease. A spiritual solution for a physical problem. I know the big book says we have a mental, emotional, and spiritual deal. Clean up spiritually, and that's the take-home message from that in the fifth chapter and the fourth step. But basically, I've always thought of it as a spiritual solution to a physical, mental, and emotional problem. Because that's what it is for me, and it's what it is for anybody who's in AA. No question about that. That's just the way it is. So I get a big kick out of doing that with patients because I like to watch their eyes when they light up. That offsets the ones who are sitting there asleep, but that's okay. I can understand that. Because some of them are still trying to figure out which is their left hand and their right hand, or at least I was. So I got a chance to talk to the patients, got a chance to be with y'all, and had a great dinner with Chris and Jerry. And that was a real treat. I mean, for many, many reasons, but it was just a real treat, and I enjoyed it very much. And I enjoy talking about me, and that's what I'm going to do. I couldn't be happier that I'm an alcoholic because I kept trying to be humble when I would go to regular medical meetings and talk about science or a patient. Now I'm in an organization that allows me to spend one friggin' hour talking about me. And... And... Y'all can leave, but if you're part of this organization, they'll take your name and give you a telephone call by the time you get home. So I will talk about me, my experience, strength, and hope. What I was like, what happened, and what I'm like today. I am a big book thumper. And I'm a big book thumper because when I came in the program in Louisville, Kentucky, when I left here, there was virtually no emphasis on the big book. It was all the personalities. Don't drink, go to meetings, get a sponsor, tell him what's wrong with you, he'll tell you what to do, and then go save a drunk. And I tell you, during that first ten years that I was in AA, I had a three-step program, and I probably took more people off to treatment than I do today. And I am privileged to work with a lot of people and help them get to where the solution is. But at that time, I did just as much with people. But you didn't really have to be a drunk. You didn't have to be a drunk. Just the old saying was, drink a beer, because here comes Brady, he'll drag your ass off to treatment anyway. And if anybody even for a second disagreed with me, they were, by definition, wrong. Because I knew what this program was, although I only had three steps. And I went to seven meetings a week, got deeply involved in my church with my best friend, who was an Episcopal priest, and was on the vestry, youth group, sang in the choir. The whole deal. And I had a new married, new wife that I'd known, that we'd been together for about two years. We've been married 34 years now. And we drank together, drink for drink. Had a great time drinking. And we've had a great time in recovery. But those first ten years were full of insanity with no alcohol. They were replete with alcoholism with no alcohol. Having a three-step program is like having faith without works. There was no design for living, which is what four through nine basically is, at least for me and basically what the book says. That's the design for living after accessing the power that comes through the first two steps for my lack of power. And so I didn't have a design for living except go to meetings, pray, even though there was no discipline in my prayers, like we talk about in the Bible. I had to pray the eleventh step. And there was no consistency in my prayers. I was grateful. I thanked God for this. I thanked God for my wife. I thanked God for my sobriety. But I had no discipline through the twelve-step mechanism for the twelve steps. And so I was just a loose cannon. There have been people during that first ten years that knew me. I'm not talking about in the program. I'm talking about some of my physician colleagues and whatnot. That they said during that first period of time, oh, they didn't remember it was ten years. But they said, when you first got into recovery and for some years after that, they said you weren't any better sober. You were drunk. They said, in fact, your attitude was worse. Shame has a way of quieting us down. Arrogance seems to make us mouthy, you know. And that's where I was. Based on a whole bunch of fear and no game plan for living, I became loud, controlling, and arrogant. And it was a tough time. I got into the program at ten years in sobriety. And I'll talk with you about how I got there. Because I damn near destroyed my marriage. I never thought about drinking, but I was awful close. I cannot imagine that I would have lasted much longer without drinking or drugging. Because I was about as far away from any spiritual solution as anything as I've ever been, even when I was drinking. At that time, I was led into the steps through Joe and Charlie's tapes. And as I listened to those tapes, I knew what a 12-step program was. Cried through them all the way. I got 11 of my best friends that we all went to meetings together and whatnot. And we sat down with our big book and Joe and Charlie's tapes. And we did our first step study, or did our first step work at that time. I was 10 years sober, 52 years old. And it was the second big book study that had ever occurred in Louisville. Right now, there are probably 40 or 50. And they sprang out of that big book study. And I'm very grateful for that opportunity to have been a part of that deal. Because we're seeing more big book work in Louisville today than we have seen in my entire years of being there. And I know it had a lot to do with that particular thing. Because virtually all 12 of us in the program are fairly influential in AA. We go to a lot of meetings. We sponsor a lot of people. And it just spread from us because we had an experience to share about what it's like to live in AA with a three-step program. And what it's like to live in AA with a 12-step program. When I asked God, when I got into it with Joe and Charlie's tapes. And my buddies, I remember I said to God, you know, why in the hell did you leave me out here? I really bought into you when I was a kid in Sunday school. But I really bought into you since I came into AA. And I still buy into you. But I don't know why you left me out here. I said, man, I could have gotten drunk. I don't get it. And I felt his voice. What I have come to know many times in that communication, and many of you have had it. I felt his voice say, son, you may impress a lot of people with what you know. But you're going to help heal a lot of people with your experience, strength, and hope. Don't ever talk to another group, whether it's your sponsee or whether it's a group, without telling them the difference in a three-step program and a 12-step program. And if AA is going to survive, and I'll throw this in as an editorial, it's that we keep pushing for 12 steps rather than three steps. And that may sound like an interesting statement, but think about it. Because I can tell you, going to AA as much as I do, which is at least four or five times a week, there are an awful lot of AA meetings I go to. And the only resemblance between that AA meeting and a 12-step program is purely coincidental. And our biggest threat to unity in Wilson was terribly. And I'm not saying that. I'm saying thank God and recovery and service and unity. And at that time, he felt that unity, our biggest threat to our unity was drugs. I don't know what he would think if he was here today. But I personally, with a ton of experience, have not seen us being nearly as threatened by drugs as we are by garbling the message. When Wilson wrote the big book, he wrote it for a lot of grandiose ideas, as most of us know who have studied this data. He was going to build a treatment center and he was going to train evangelists and whatnot. He had to make a lot of money. But he always maintained up to the point where he wasn't cognitively able to maintain it that his main reason for writing the big book was so the message wouldn't get garbled. Just like me for the first 10 years. I had a garbled message. I was putting out a garbled message. On page 164 and other places, we can't give away what we don't have. And that's what I was doing. I don't feel good or bad about it. It just was a fact. And today, that's not where I am. But I can tell you what it's like to be there. It sucks. It sucks. The fear goes into terror. The resentment goes into pure victimization. The line probably is not all that big a deal. But the self-centeredness is choking. The self-centeredness is just choking. For me, self-centeredness doesn't mean that I'm an a-hole. I'm a-B. But self-centeredness is where is the power. And in self-centeredness, if I've got the power and if I'm full of fear, I'm going to have that power because I'm going to grab that thing like a chicken deck and choke it so that chicken can't get to me. Because if I turn it loose, it's going to eat me. And that's a hell of a way to live. My arms get tired. And people get tired of me. And it's just a crappy way to live, even in AA. I grew up in a little town in western Kentucky named Mayfield. I grew up in a home where there was no alcohol and no drugs. My grandfather died drinking bleach in the Mayfield City jail in 1934. He was the town drunk. My mother was molested physically, emotionally, and sexually. And I was a little girl. And I was a little girl. And I was a little girl. And I was a little girl. And I was a little girl. And I was a little girl. And I was sexually in that home. And she was what we call an adult child of an alcoholic. Sometimes that doesn't sit well with some people in AA but if you read the first page of the chapter of the family afterward it said that if you're around us you get neurotic. And my mama, who was one of the finest people I've ever known, she died in 78 and I miss that woman more than I can tell you. I missed her from the day she died, I missed her even when I left to go to college. I adored her. but she was a goofy little lady. She was goofy because she never had a chance to deal with all of that shame and rage and all the thing that went with that abuse. And she felt in the little town that I was raised in that everybody knew and remembered that she was the daughter of the town drunk. And I grew up in that town. I was named for him and I don't think anybody knew he was my grandfather. And how many people in a town of 10,000 people are gonna be named Burns? But I don't think anybody really gave a damn. I didn't sense it but mama lived in that shadow forever. Praise God she got in the church. Now she wasn't one of those people that walked around with a hair shirt mantra but she went to, we went to Sunday school, we went to church and we went to prayer meeting. It was great. I'm very grateful because when I sit with a 12-gauge shotgun in my mouth somewhere between Thanksgiving and December the 1st of 77, if it hadn't been for the values I learned in the church and in my home, I'd have blown the back of my head out. The pain was that great and the hopelessness was that bad and there seemed to be no help. I'd had nine years of psychiatric therapy. I'd been deacon in five churches drinking two quarts of whiskey a night. I didn't think there was any help for me. I'd done it all and that's where I was. But Mama joined the church, I went with her and went to Sunday school and really enjoyed it and it's where I first learned about conditional love. When I sang and danced on cue, Mama patted my ass and parted my hair and made me king baby. And I can tell you sociopaths are born, narcissists are made and your looking at one of those narcissists who really believed from the beginning. Just salt to my art.ство je m'aime voilà. conditioning that I could do anything and that I was better than anybody. And I'm not talking about socially, I'm talking about intellectually, physically, athletically. I was it. And when I sang and danced, mama confirmed that. It was a great place to be. Mama's approval. I made a B when I was in the third grade. Mama didn't talk to me for two weeks. That's the last B I ever, first and last B I ever made. I learned the game without even being able to define it. You sing and dance when they call for the play and mama pats your butt and parts your hair and makes you king, baby. You give her what she needs, she gives you what you need. I didn't know that. I found it out in AA and I found it out in therapy, but that's exactly what it is. The second best thing that Bill Wilson ever wrote for me was what he wrote in the Grapevine in 1958 called Emotional Sobriety. Now he started playing with that in 1953, but he finally wrote something about it in 58. In Emotional Sobriety he says clearly his problem, his major problem, remember he had been severely depressed from the 41 and 42 up until the early 50s. Some of his best wishes were to be fulfilled. He was a great man. He was a泰poopp weit he had a dance boy who was like crazy about getting in theBA. NasalHHH kannma planned for these type of missions. What makes it so important to be able to continue our movement quickly afterwards? Japan guidance policy 27. Call 911 atожалуйста. protect your parents Regards to Chris Roseo. Thomas Hoyt A beautiful, man who frustrated me and was able to get me onute she. He had missed his job . But this work in AA was written when this guy sometimes went off and played with the Huxley boys and had a hell of a time. He never was depressed again, but had this morbid, morbid depression trying to control everything for approval. He said clearly his number one problem was his dependency on the need for approval. I don't have any fifth steps I've listened to. I've held men on my lap big enough to eat that wall out of the prison, out of the homeless shelter, out of our regular meetings, and damn near every one of them, by the time I'm listening to a fifth step, are terrified to tell me some of the stuff they're going to tell me because they're going to think I'm going to kick them out. I'm going to reject them. And they finally cry and tell me, and then I hug them and tell them what we tell them. If we've had an experience, we share it with them. If we haven't, we talk about there is relief through the process. I mean, isn't that the way that we do it? That's the way it is. But that's the first time that I really got in touch with my need for approval, inside or outside. The second place I learned about conditional love and didn't know it was the church. I had a string of medals for 12 years where I never missed Sunday school and church. When I came home, I told you, I went right straight into the church and loved it, absolutely loved it. But when I was at home, and I'm not going for cheap humor, but this means a lot to me. It's funny. You may not think it's funny, but I think it's funny. When I was going to church, I'd be in Sunday school and they'd say, it's better to spill your seeds in the belly of a whore than on the ground. And I'm 12 years old and I've just found a new pull toy and I've got a hell of a contract. You know? I mean, this is real. You're not going to get away with it. I'm going to tell you, you're going to hell if you do this. But when I do this, I feel better. Now, if you understand our disease, which means we're born to court low in the chemistry we can now name, we're irritable, restless, and discontented and we drink our drug for the effect because it changes the brain chemistry. You know what is the second best thing that can change our brain chemistry other than alcohol and drugs? It's orgasm. It produces dopamine, beta endorphin, everything else. Look at COVID. It's the second best thing that can change our brain chemistry. It's cocaine addicts. Ask them how many times a day they masturbate when they're on cocaine. I was a meth addict. I was a meth addict and I don't have the world record, but I'm second, fourth, eighth, and tenth. I mean, because it brings that stuff up and there is relaxation. So I've got this terrible thing going on. Every Sunday morning I'd go down and confess what I'd done and every Sunday night they'd baptize me again. Well, I was grateful they did because we didn't have a priest. It was a Protestant church so there wasn't anybody to confess to. So they'd re-baptize me. And that kept me from just absolutely probably killing myself because the shame was eating me up and I'm geared for hyperactivity. We're called stimulus augmenters in the scientific community. We take two and two and make it ten or forty. Sitting at a red light and it turns green and somebody honks behind me and over the next 30 seconds or 15 seconds I have to decide if I'm going to kill him or he's going to kill me. But there has to be some resolution to this son of a bitch that embarrassed me about that. You hear what I'm saying? You know what I mean. And so basically I'm in the middle of this terrible, terrible dilemma and getting conditional love and getting baptized and doing all this stuff. Two major places, my home and the church, had brought me what to me was conditional love. And I brought this into y'all. God won't love me if I can't be perfect. Mom and Daddy want me to be perfect. Mom and Daddy want me to be perfect. Mom and Daddy won't love me if I can't be perfect. My patients won't love me if I can't be perfect. How many people have you sponsored, worked with or lived with in yourself where the whole overriding compulsion is to get it just right? My God, I've been sober 14 years and I've had this kind of thought or done this kind of thing. Will I ever get it? Well, the book says clearly, yeah, we get it one day at a time for the rest of our lives. And I'm going to get it the rest of our lifetime. Looking for self-centeredness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. So today I cussed the pope. I guess I'm going to get shot. God said, no, we're going to change popes. You can try it on the next one. But this is the deal. This absolute need I had to be perfect for approval. This didn't make me an alcoholic. But it is the thinking that precedes the drinking. And the book teaches us that. So I've got to deal with that thinking or I'll go back to the drinking. Now, I'm an alcoholic because I'm bodily and mentally different. And I can put the formulas all around this room just like Chip can or some other people in this room showing you how we're bodily different and why we drink and what that does. That's why I'm an alcoholic. My thinking is not that different from anybody else except they have it on a scale of one to five, I've got it on a scale of 500 to 2 billion. And I deal with it or it deals with me. And that's what the whole 12 step process is about in my experience for me is to deal with that thinking that precedes the drinking. Alcohol and drugs are no problem for me in high school, they were no problem for me in college. When I got to medical school, 1958, I was sitting there studying for a gross anatomy examination and I was about to fly apart. One of the upperclassmen came down now I'm a card carrying commode hugging 12 gauge shotgun them out two quarts of whiskey and that drunk. But the first part of my story has to do with drugs because I took methamphetamine for 12 years with no alcohol nearly destroyed me. I drank for eight years with no other drugs nearly destroyed me. The cesspool smelled the same way. And the solution has been the same. And the reason it's so important because I work four days a week right now in a homeless shelter that we started in 1950, which sleeps 400 men and women at night, we've got 350 in a year long program of recovery teaching them the big book. And I sit there and listen to those guys and I did some work in the prison for two or three years before that and then ran the impaired physician program in Kentucky for 17 years, we dealt with 1500 doctors. Same story and now we're going to talk about it. One of the most important points of your life, early childhood, and I'll say it until someone gets it is Well, I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a drug addict. Or I'm a drug addict. But I am an alcoholic. And I'm gonna tell you right now, from the standpoint of being a specialist in this field, if you're a drug addict, you're an alcoholic, you just haven't had enough drink yet. And if you're an alcoholic, you're a drug addict, you just haven't taken enough drugs yet. So let me take that stuff out of your mind. So you don't go out of here and try a marijuana maintenance program, or try some other as well, if you have any of that, help me. method of dealing with whatever you're going to deal with because it's going to grab you right by the soft spots and it's going to drag you right straight to hell now I can put that on the wall too but listen to my experience because that should help you even more than your scientific answer which I as an addictionologist can put on the board for the first 12 years methamphetamine kicked out of medical school two weeks before graduation in 1962 two years with no drugs while I saw two psychiatrists a week got back into medical school and within less than an hour was on amphetamine again and just sit on the steps of school and cried because I didn't know what was wrong with me you know what was wrong with me psychiatry brought me knowledge they didn't bring me a spiritual solution and for an alcoholic of my type there is only one answer a spiritual solution which may indicate that I'm not a good person but I'm not a good person and I'm not a good person and I'm not a good person and so I threw a dent in my surgerygood so I threw a dent in my surgery and said I was better off работы in trajectory stadium not only that but I was better off not only in trajectory I had a institutional name I 팀 tại इwd because I didn't know the some of my colleagues were physicallyprechen them and on the unconscious but didn't know so I thought to myself that is reference what kind of person are you in the chercheurs group and we get put on medicine because we look just exactly like how we're acting. But psychiatry didn't keep me from getting right back on the drugs because they didn't bring me the spiritual solution. Now, if you look at their contract, it doesn't say they're supposed to. That's not what psychiatry is about, unless it's a Christian psychiatrist or some sort of religious psychiatrist. No, they're there to bring us knowledge, and our book is real clear, isn't it? Knowledge won't do it. We're not afraid of knowledge, are we? I'm not. So long as I understand the spiritual solution one day at a time, how to begin my day, live my day, and end my day with an absolute awareness of a higher power in my life and the need to be sure that I check out self-centeredness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear multiple times throughout the day. The book's written that way. And if time permits, I'll get to what I do today doing that, how I do that in my program. I drink from each day to deal with the insanity that's in my head, with or without drinking. I drank to deal with the insanity. And if I don't do the design for living, I've just got the insanity with no medicine. Not an alcohol. I mean, alcohol's not my problem. That's what it said. Alcohol was my solution. Methamphetamine was my solution until it quit working. Then it was a problem. I had to deal with it. I had to deal with it. I had to deal with that. Then I had to deal with the problem that started the problem, and that was me and my thinking. When I'm a quart low, the world's too damn loud. Gave me that meth, and the whole world got quiet. I'm sitting there thinking, damn, I never knew it was loud. But the whole world got quiet. And from that time on, my brain's never been the same. There's an area in my brain and in your brain that contains the same thing. It's the same thing that contains every memory we've ever had. And under certain, not all of them are conscious, but under certain conditions, that can come to the front, like PTSD. I put together a word called PIRD, post-euphoric recall disorder. That's why we tell you the only two things you gotta do to stay sober, don't drink, don't grunt, and change everything else you're doing. That's a new way of thinking. That's a new way of thinking. That's a new way of thinking. That's so you don't walk by the crack house. That's so you don't try to play games with the people who are still drinking and drugging, even if you think you're in fit spiritual condition. What the book says, we can do it. I think if Wilson, well, doesn't matter what I think, but he wrote that, but he did put it at the bottom of that paragraph, said, if we're in fit spiritual condition. I gotta tell you, many of us for the first five to ten years are not really sure what fit spiritual condition is. I'm not a big buddy of Clancy's. Not a bad, I don't have a problem with Clancy. He doesn't with me. I don't think we came off the same boat, but nevertheless, Clancy said one time, I don't let anybody bring me a cup of coffee till they've been sober at least ten years. I'm serious. Certainly, I'll buy five, because the post-euphoric, or the post-traumatic, or the post-acute, withdrawal syndrome is, you know, we got all kinds of problems while our brain heals. My classmates enabled me. I graduated in 64, went into my residency, still on drugs. It was interrupted four times. I was strapped down, IV fluids, strait jackets. I spent a cumulative two years, I spent a cumulative two years, I spent a cumulative two years, I spent a cumulative two years, I spent a cumulative two years, in a mental hospital called Our Lady of Peace. Finally got out of there and finished my residency, started my practice, still on drugs. The Vietnam War was raging. I was pissed at the Vietnam War, and in a methamphetamine stupor, I was on any soapbox that was there. End of war, get out of here. Finally, one of my good friends in a doctor's lounge one day, when I was pontificating, said, if you don't like the way they're running that war, join. And I thought, you know what I did? I sat there and thought, that's a good idea. Went out and got in the car and drove to Frankfurt and joined the Army. Didn't tell my wife, didn't call my office, just joined the Army. One of the many psychiatrists who have seen me over the years said I suffered from an impulse disorder. Anyway, anyway, got in the Army, amphetamine, I was in charge of the dispensary. I was in charge of the dispensary. I was in charge of the dispensary. I was in charge of the dispensary. I was in charge of the dispensary. I was in charge of the dispensary. I could get double hands full. Finally, the post commander came down one day and said, Burns, are you taking that amphetamine? I said, yes, sir. He said, quit or I'll have to court-martial you. Once he explained it to me, I quit. Now, I could always quit drugs. I don't know if it would have gotten to a point where I couldn't, but I've seen most drug addicts, and I've been around a lot of them, and based on the consequences, I don't say that you stay quit, but I've watched them quit for extended periods of time. But I know that when I got to the point where I got to the end of my drinking, it was impossible to quit. And I've worked with hundreds of people who just couldn't quit drinking. Now, I don't have a good scientific answer for the difference, but I have a lot of anecdotal and personal experience. Came home, got a year. Second year I was in the Army, I never took any drugs. Went back to teaching Sunday school, the whole deal. So I stayed off the drugs a lot. Two years one time, one year one time. Came home in 69, got right back on the drugs. Had a gallbladder attack. One of my best friends took out my gallbladder. Another good friend was the internist. And I was in the hospital a week at that time, and at the end of that week, we all sat in the room, held hands and prayed that I quit taking amphetamine, and I quit in 1969. That was my last one. Then I started drinking. First five years of my drinking, it wasn't a problem. I drank a lot, and I got drunk a lot, but I didn't set out to not drink. I didn't set out to drink. I ended up drinking, but when I got up in the morning, that wasn't my thought. It wasn't in my mind. I went and did my job, and then I drank. The next two years of my drinking was pure alcoholic. I didn't drink as much. I drank every day. I didn't get really bad drunk that often, but when I got up in the morning, I knew my first drink would be at 4.30 that afternoon, and if you stood between me and the door in my office, you got run over. I had one partner at that time, and I'd come in early, see the patients, see the emergencies, and he would stay after 4 o'clock and see the emergencies, but I was leaving at 4. I'd go across to the 7-Eleven, get my quart of beer, drink that beer going home. I'd get home, get my scotch and water, and get smooth. My first wife kicked me out of the house in 1975. She should have kicked me out sooner, but she was as sick as I was without drinking. She was trying to raise three children. Our two and me. And I was married to somebody that would have made Attila the Hun look like a saint. I'm telling you, this was a mean woman. I mean, she didn't get a prize, but this was a mean woman. I mean, even sober, when I've gone through the whole deal and can pray, how can I help her? And I really mean it, and I don't have resentment anymore, but I can look realistically at this. That's a mean woman. And somebody always says, well, why did you marry her? Well, that's a nice question. That's another story. We won't get into that, because time doesn't permit it. It's not that involved. But nevertheless, I did marry her out of my own dependencies and need for approval and all that kind of stuff. And we were married 17 years, had two beautiful kids. My daughter's 51, been in AA 31 years. My son's 47, been in AA for 30 years. They should have been in AA when they were three. And I'm very grateful for that. But anyway, my first wife kicked me out of my house, and that just suited the hell out of me. Gave me a chance to drink more, womanize more. Told this story all over the country, but it got me a white Corvette, but it was a blue interior, not red. Had me a white Corvette with a blue interior, got me a light blue leisure suit. Now, in the 70s, that's pretty cool. And I got me a light blue leisure suit, and I always carried me a case of Chevy's Regal Scotch in the trunk. And I was a dog. I'd get in there and grab one of those Chevy's Regals by the neck and walk in there. And if there wasn't a party, I'd start one. If nobody was there to start one, I'd just be the party. But I was pretty cool. I really was. On a scale of 1 to 10, I was pretty good. And I found there were a lot of people who wanted to party with me. And I had the time of my life to do that. And I was a little bit of a party boy. I was a little bit of a party boy. I was just enough whiskey in me to take off my cortex and didn't have to deal with that conscience that goes with that kind of behavior. I wasn't stealing or hurting anybody, but I was sure sleeping with a lot of people. All of them, so far as I know, were women. And none of them had anything to do with it. But I ain't sure. You know? No, I really am sure. And then I met Casey, my wife. We've been married 34 years, and I knew this was the way. I knew she was my one. I mean, this is one of the finest human beings you'll ever meet in your life. You may not meet her, but I hope you do. Because if you spend five minutes with her, two minutes with her, 30 seconds with her, you know she's truly one of God's chosen. She's 14 years younger than me. She'd watched her daddy, who had severe bipolar disease, watched her mother take care of her daddy. I watched my daddy take care of my mama. I took care of Casey. Casey took care of me. And our dependencies. Our pathology kept us together. Our pathology brought us together. And our hearts have kept us together. And we didn't have a scar in that relationship. And we've had to work with a lot of them since then. Just part of living. Especially if you don't have a 12-step program. If you just got three steps, your mind can tell you to do shit that just don't float. And you can believe it. For the first. You know? You know, I mean, he was a little bit. I mean, you know. We drank together, drank for drink. We had one date and moved in with each other. That was a typical alcoholic relationship. Then I got really sick. Casey would've gotten there, but she hadn't gotten there yet. But I got really sick. And I started my day at 11 in the morning in that last year of drinking. I would be in a recliner. I didn't go to bed. Just be in a recliner. Casey the night before would come in there and beg me away from me. And she'd go to bed crying. And in that recline, 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, this craziness won't happen again. I'd finally either go to sleep, pass out, whatever I did. And then I'd get up the next day, take a Valium to quit shaking, run out to the hospital to make my rounds, see my patients, do all that in about two, two and a half, three hours. It normally took me six to seven. I've reviewed all of my charts when I came back from treatment, terrified that I'd hurt a patient. All of my charts withstood medical scrutiny. But I'd ceased being a doctor about two years before. I was just a highly trained technician. And it ate my heart out. Because I've always been so grateful to be a doctor. I grew up very poor. Doctors and preachers lived on the right side of God. And I knew that I wanted to be one of them. I knew that I wanted to be one of them. And I knew that I wanted to be one of them. And I knew that I wanted to be one of them. And now I know I'm a doctor. Now I can't tell you what the difference is between being a doctor and a preacher. I'm a true preacher. And that's the difference. I know I'm a true preacher. Now, if I'd been a televangelist, I'd be like Jimmy Swigert. They'd have to keep me out of all the motels. But I think he's the best communicator I've ever seen in my life. But I mean, I have that gift. And so I he would have been I don't know. My sponsor probably would have charged me overtime to run around behind me. But anyway, I really revered and still do. a doctor. I think it's a real honor and a real privilege. And I had ceased being a doctor. Nick was tearing me up. I'm talking about how to take care of patients. My nurse would take the chief complaint. I would come back, get the chart, look at the chief complaint, walk in, examine the patient, order the test, interpret the test, come out and write my prescriptions and my diagnosis, give it to my nurse, and go on to the next patient and never said a word to the patient. Most of these people had been patients of mine for years because I practiced for 25 years. So they put up with me and when I came back sober after that, most of them were there. And we would laugh about it. They said, Dr. Brady, we knew you were drunk. But you were as good a doctor drunk as anybody I've ever seen. Now, I don't know if that was true, but nevertheless, that's how they felt about me and how I felt about them. I didn't know what that was doing. It was tearing me apart. But I had to get home. Why? Because I was going into DTs. I had about two and a half hours outside of that apartment. And if I didn't get home, I'd be going into DTs. I'd race into the apartment. Casey would be home by that time. She'd fix a raw steak and a baked potato because it was going to try to save my liver. I knew I couldn't quit drinking. I was going to save my liver. And then I'd eat that and I'd sit down and I'd think, well, I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do that. And I'd be able to do that. And I'd be able to do that. And I'd sit down with my two quarts of whiskey and my two records for the evening. One was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra doing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. My eyes have seen the glory of the... I just cry. That's a great song. I still cry. It's a great song. But I guarantee you that tears are a hell of a lot different today. Second song was Neil Diamond's I Am I Said. My hero, Neil had a lot of problems with drugs and said, Neil's talking to a chair. Now, I got to tell you, in that song, listen to what he says. 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. You remember the loneliness. Read the first two pages of a vision for you. Go back and remember what it's like. Can't live with it. Can't live without it. Hopeless. Absolute hopelessness. Well, that's where I was. That morning, I was in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom. Cases gone to work and I got up and I knew it was over. I asked God to help me. Knew immediately what I thought he wanted me to do. Went back to my bedroom, got a 12 gauge shotgun, put it in my mouth, and I was going home. I believed in God. He lived on a cloud and looked like Charlton Heston, the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. I'm serious. He lived there, had his power, and he was going to work that with me when I got home, but in the meantime, he had told me my soul was going to die. I told myself, I'm going to die. I'm told me my job is to take care and run my life. Now what has happened in AA is I've reached the point I had no way of bringing this power into me. Through the 12 steps and time on a daily basis I can bring this power for my lack of power. You know Wilson addresses that in probably some of the most profound writings in the big book. He says 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. I'm here. Why am I here? I promise you it's not my ego anymore. If it is I can't name it tonight. Maybe sometimes it is. But I'm here because somebody needs to hear this story. Maybe it's me. But somebody needs to hear this story. I gotta ask. Now I don't always say yes anymore. I don't always say yes. I don't always say yes. I don't always say yes. I don't always say yes. I don't always say yes. I don't always say yes. I don't always say yes. I don't always say yes. I've always said yes. You know when we say you never say no with 85% of your heart knocked out, you say no sometime and that's okay. Even if you got all your heart, you better ask your sponsor before you say yes every time. That's my experience. That's not my opinion. And see if that's really what God wants me to do. The ever-growing awareness of a purpose and the presence of God in our lives. He says in working with us that God wants us to have our head in the clouds with him But our feet must be firmly planted on earth. That's where our fellow travelers are. That's where our work will be done There's another place that he talks about that. I think it's so profound It is to me and it's in the seventh chapter working with others and Right after he talks about the spiritual solution he talks he's talking about a preacher You remember where it is If you don't go look it up don't know where to find it then ask your sponsor He doesn't work to find it y'all both need to be in a big book study, but I'm serious and And so right right in right after a spiritual solution said you're talking to a guy who's obviously a preacher He knows more about spirituality you do and he wonders what you can tell him He doesn't already know But he's what he's really curious why he's drunk and you're sober And said he may be an example of the fact that Faith alone is insufficient Wow Faith alone is insufficient It must be followed by self sacrifice and unselfish constructive action what self-satisfying self-sacrifice one two and three An unselfish constructive action fourth and twelve faith without words. I knew dr. Bob's son really well Smitty was the last one Who was there and during the time that I was crazily running all over the country talking for about 15 years sometimes? 35 40 weekends out of the year I would run across Smitty somewhere and when he we did I'd always we have Dinner together one night and I was picking his brain every time we got together Tell me this tell me that blah blah blah Well, I remember the first time we met said tell me what it was like when Bill came and visited your mom and dad And if you ever been to their house you recognize this but you go into the living room. There's a full dining room over here There's stairs back at the back you come into this living room And he said burns he said when I would come down those back steps He said I'd look over there in the dining room and there'd be bill with his back sitting next to the wall and daddy's sitting On the floor with his back up next to the table leg and mama sitting at the table Reading from the book of James or the Gospel of James as some people call it and In that book it says clearly faith without works is dead and he repeats it in the big book faith without works is dead one two three faith Four through twelve works Faith without works is dead For the first ten years even though I didn't have the steps I was running on a better moral code and a better philosophy of life But I had forgot to surrender Lack of power that's my dilemma. So what the book said What the second step said lack of power that's my dilemma Do I now believe in a power greater than myself? What sets us apart is if he said to Bill? You pick it You name it That's the most distinguishing characteristic of the alcoholics anonymous Rest of it comes out of church Comes out of the Bible But he took religion and moved it over to the side and put spirituality on the table with it I can be a Catholic and in a I Can be a Buddhist and then a I can be a Baptist in NAA But if I'm in a a you got your God, I've got my God. I've got my higher power and That's it Wilson says we become all-inclusive never exclusive Everybody's welcome. I Just got to believe I need it. I've got to have it Alone I don't get it and it doesn't work I'm sitting on that bed and I said Casey will be better off without me My mom and dad will be better off without me much. My patients will be better off without me and I got to my babies They were about 11 and 7 or something like that at the time and I've been a doctor for eight years and I've seen a number of people who have committed They've had loved ones commit suicide and they come in to see me because they as adults they were impaled on what did I do wrong? Why didn't they love me enough? And I knew if I pulled that trigger those babies would never ever know again why daddy didn't love me enough I Want you to hear what I'm getting ready to say I Don't know if it'll mean that much to you, but it means everything to me That was the moment That my life changed for the first time Certainly in 20 years and maybe even longer than that the pain I would cause those children That more to me than the relief of my own pain and when that happens We began to get well Or we pulled the trigger To live an alcoholic to live a spiritual life or die an alcoholic death and that what it says It's not an easy decision to make with that kind of shame And I felt ashamed for and a lot of the stuff I've done. I should have felt ashamed for it It was against all of my values. I'm not saying that my values and yours were the same I'm saying I had stomped on every value I had Hurt everybody I could hurt and At that moment my life changed it was some years later When I got into the book and had a spiritual awakening that I realized what an incredible spiritual experience That was in the rest of my life has been lived with some rare exceptions Processing the pain I will cause you and is it worth that to relieve my pain and If it's not And then ever Then I'm gonna have to get right with God and get right with me through the steps of my sponsoring the fellowship so I can go on with it and I'm gonna have to get right with God and get right with me through the steps of my sponsoring the fellowship so I can go on with that. But relapses There are a lot of reasons they occur But the main reason is I decided you say it's self-centered absolutely quit going to me exactly But the bottom line is we decide we can run our life and at that point in time nobody else's pain means shit to us Just the relief of my own and we got it We got it Laid down the gun Called my first higher power was five nine wore glasses and stuttered Psychiatrist I called him that night met him in his office the next day and I turned my life and my will over to him He sent me to New York to be detoxed. They sent me down here and the miracle started my second higher power was Doug Talbot who ran this place and Doug Talbot told me to go out there in the yard get naked and go around eat Whatever I had to eat dog manure or whatever I thought that's a strange request but show me the power And that's my third higher power. God was there and I was praying to him But my instructions came through the psychiatrist then Doug Talbot and his system and finally my sponsor and the AA Fellowship and I totally committed to it what I learned in those ten years There's a lot of things I didn't learn but I learned obedience If my sponsor told me to do something I did it I was that desperate Was that scared and I did it Casey and I she went to Al-Anon for six years and then heard her story down at Saint Simon's Island, Georgia Came home said burns. I need to be in a a I Said that's cool For those first six years she fit right here on my hip everywhere. I went she went Ever season change I sent her a total outfit of clothes and never asked her what kind she wanted Every two years I sent her a new car and ever asked her what she wanted At least four or five times a year. We went on incredible vacations, but I never asked her where she wanted to go I had me a little Koopy doll and she sat right here and I gave her everything I could give her But I didn't know that the script was she's supposed to give it back like mama now I learned if some therapy and fourth step but that's exactly what I was then she came to me at six years in sobriety and said burns I'd like to go back to school. I want to be a therapist She don't have one year college. So there's gonna be a long time. I Said I think that's great After about a month of that iced pissed She wasn't there to cook my food she wasn't there to have the lights on and I was pissed but I didn't have any way to deal with the resentments, did I? Remember, I didn't have the steps. So I'd call my sponsor and he'd say pray and so I'd pray. I didn't know what I was praying, but I'd just pray. I don't remember what I prayed. Finally, after about two and a half years of that, my nurse who was divorced and had two small children, she began to look absolutely wonderful. She was a neat girl. But I decided that what I needed was to get this nurse and me go to seminary, become a priest, and we would travel the country and bring help and hope to you sufferers. Sometimes we would go to South America. And since Casey wasn't a nurse, we basically, I'd just have to go ahead and give her plenty of money and she'd go be a therapist. It made all the sense in the world. You hear how much bullshit's in that? That's called the peculiar mental twist. It's my rationalizing a drink without ever thinking of one. Like Jim. He wasn't thinking of a drink, but you know he's going to get there because he wasn't dealing with his resentment. He wasn't dealing with his fears. He wasn't dealing with his self-centeredness. Read it. He said, here's his thinking. And I was going to get me another woman that was a nurse and we were going to heal South America. I remember riding home that night after I'd been with Kathy for about, oh, this went on for three months. I was coming home and I thought, damn, I'm going to drink. Not that I was going to drink that night. I meant we read every night how it works. First paragraph. If you can be honest, you can get it. If you can't be honest, you can't. I had a lie. I had a secret. I told no one. First time I'd not talked. I'd not talked to my sponsor before I did anything, but I knew if I did, he'd make me stop. So I called him and told him. He said, well, don't do that anymore. I said, okay. And by the time I got home, he'd called my wife and told her. Now, there are a lot of lessons to be learned from that. Sponsors aren't God. Sponsors are drunks. In thinking and in acting, if we're not in fit and spiritual condition, and he didn't have the steps any more than me. And if I'm sponsoring somebody, say, I'm sponsoring Jerry. When he said, Burns, would you sponsor me? And I'll sit down and we'll talk about what he'd like to have. I'll tell him what I'd like to do with it. I said, now, if you expect me to walk on water, you better show me where the damn stumps are. Because you and I are going to try to stay sober helping each other. Don't make me God. The book is real clear. If you put this on a service plane, instead of God being working through me, then you and I both got trouble. That's what he said. That's in the book. That's when I went, left him. I mean, I changed all my meetings in one week. I didn't know what to do because he had solved every problem for me. And one of my sponsees came up with a bunch of tapes, eight tapes, and said, listen to these. And they were Joe and Charlie's tapes, and I told you the rest. I made all my amends to everybody that should have been had amends, except when to do so would injure them or others. And frankly, there were none of those that that would have injured. But that's a real distinct part of talking to your sponsor. In my experience, before you make any amends, be willing to make amends for the Iranian war. Don't make amends for crap until you've told your sponsor and talked to them. You ought to be talking to them really close because you've come through these steps together. Hopefully you have. Hopefully you have. Made all my amends. We were in therapy. We were in therapy for three years. We both got deeply involved in the big book. We took a 12-step solution into three years of therapy. We knew no other solution, but the therapist helped us find out where the bullets were coming from. I treated all women like my mama. Give them everything they want, and they'll take care of you and make you feel special. The crazy ones would. The sane ones got the hell out. I was more than they wanted to screw around with. Because they realized whether quickly that conditional love was the only way I knew how to work. You got everything I got. Here's what I need. Rest has been kind of good. Going through the vicissitudes of life with a good program, continuing to grow. Ran the impaired physician's program. Left in 2008. Went into the prisons for two years. Came back to the physician's health program because the guy that took the job, he didn't want to go to prison. He didn't work. Stayed there for nine months. Got a new director and then came back. And now I spend four days a week, five days a week, in the homeless shelter that we started in 1990. I left the prisons and there were reasons for that. And my greatest joy comes out of watching the light come on in somebody's eyes. When I was out at the prison for those couple of three years, I remember driving home one afternoon after I'd been there working with him, doing big book studies. I was out there, kind of like we did this afternoon. And on the way home, I just pulled over to the side of the road and just absolutely sobbed with joy. It wasn't a rapture experience. I didn't glow in the dark. I don't think it was like Bill Wilson's hot flash, but I knew joy that I'd never known. And I said, if this is a fourth dimension, thank you. We know that working with others, it says, clearly, if we don't know what we're doing, we're not going to be able to do it. And I said, clearly, if we want to stay sober, we work with others. And in a vision for you, it says what I want you to hear from me, and you'll get there if you're not already there. Though we must work with others if we are to stay sober. That becomes secondary to the happiness we feel in giving ourselves for others. Pure joy. And if you're not at that point yet, that's okay. I don't give a damn why you're doing 12-step work. Just do it. Go into the prisons. Go into the homeless shelters. Go wherever your sponsor thinks you're ready to go. Carry that message. Don't worry about your motive. Just carry it. And then one day, if you've bought the rest of the deal, the other 11 steps, to deal with the only problem I've got, which is a first-step problem with a 12-step solution, then one day that joy will be there. And if you've already had it, share it. I'm so grateful to be here. It's good to be back home. Probably will never be back down this way again. That's okay. We'll see what God does with me and with you. But for tonight, we've spent it together. And from my heart to your heart, I am so grateful that you gave me the opportunity to come. I love you very much. Thank you. Thank you.