The Difference Between a Technician and an Angel – Burns B.

I don't know how long y'all are going to be here, but I'm going to be here a while, so I'm just getting everything neat. I've been known to be the last one in the room, so hell, I just want to make sure I'm comfortable. When we were drinking, we were the last one in the room. Why not when we're talking? My name is Burns Brady and I'm an alcoholic. Hi everybody, good to be here. I need to tell you that coming down here and talking has been a great thing for my humility. I've been accused of having to have most of my humility by the enema technique, so this may be no different. obviously in Missouri I have to talk slower right I mean when I go somewhere that I have to talk slowly it really is backwoods when you're born and raised where I was born and raised you really got to talk slow the reason that my humility was increased is because I'm the second choice for your speaker and I'm the only one I know he could get in that short a notice who wasn't already booked up and the third thing is is my name spelled wrong in the program so if I want to say y'all talk slow Oh, by God, I got a right to say all that stuff. One thing we've got over in Kentucky, we can spell. Maybe not more than one-syllable words, but we're pretty good at this. Oh, Lord, it really is good. And you know, the example of this is just AA and its purist. There's always somebody. You know, the old-timers go down and then we come along and feel that. I remember when Jack S. was speaking for a bunch of our friends. Well, Jack's dead. Jack Sullivan. Many of you all may have known Jack. And Jack died with almost 40 years of sobriety. And he talked down in southern Kentucky about six men who had their birthdays and he'd gone down there for almost 15 years. And then Jack died and they called me and I went down. And that's AA. hey, when someone goes down, someone just comes in and fills in. That's the way it is. And so I really am grateful to be thought of, but this is just what we do for each other. That's just the way It is. I really Am grateful for being picked up by Mike and by Bill. We had an AA meeting. That's exactly what we had for two hours coming from St. Louis. It was absolutely wonderful. It is the epitome of what you see behind me. There were three of us men in a van for two hours, and it was a meeting, and it Was magnificent. It was just wonderful. If I don't get anything else out of this whole trip, and I'll get a lot more already had, that was worth the whole trip. I will leave one simple word of my experience with a couple of Mike's pigeons, babies as you call them, whatever you want to call them. Sponsees. But I met these two young men today, and they are delightful young men. And I really relate to them because I have two children. I have a daughter who's 41 who's been in AA 21 years and a son who's 34 who's been in AAA for almost 17 and a half years. So I relate to these young people. One of the things I would like to say is that Mike told me he had offered them an opportunity to come and ride to pick me up. And this is just using them as an example. I have no idea what their conflict was, but they didn't come. Don't do that again. And there are two reasons for not doing it. One is for them, and the other is for us. I mean, I didn't get a chance to really do, you know, Mike has worked with them, and Bill has worked with them and I didn't get a chance to enhance my sobriety and they didn't get a change or a chance to hear me that much because what I say from the podium is a snapshot. I'm always intrigued by circuit speakers because we're the only one with an ego enough to think we can tell a life story in an hour. I mean, that's insane but we're so narcissistic we swear to God we can do it and we pull it off so you won't get to know me the way I'd like to get to know for you to know me, and I won't get to know you. So those young men, they didn't give me a chance today to do something that God, that I love so much. So get the tape and call me and talk to me, okay? The other thing is, is that I want to thank the speakers here. I flew in this morning. I had the grandkids last night, and Bill called me. I had plans I had to do last night. Plans I've got to do tomorrow, so I'll leave early tomorrow. and I don't like to do that and I wouldn't have done it on a long-term commitment but I just, I'm sure God's okay with this. My sponsor's okay với it and I'm okay with it but I know what it's like to be a speaker and I knowwhat it's liketo be a lot in demand and I am starting to phase down a little and do some other things that appears that God wants me to do. Some of it is my age, some of itis my health and some ofit is just that's the way it's going but I got to tell you once the ego is over and a couple times when you get called an idiot the ego gets over pretty quick but it is a labor of love it is a labor and I really appreciate the speakers for the time they've taken, the courtesy you've given them and me and the joy and the sacrifice and the spiritual commitment to make these trips I got a chance to hear Mary Pearl in 1999 for the i've heard her many times we've been together a lot of times but i heard her 99 after when she was going through that great deal of trial and tribulation that she shared with us today and i hadn't seen her since then and to see the energy and the things that she has done spiritually using every one of god's tools every oneofthem she didn't allude to them specifically but she talked about all of these spiritual accoutrements that go with the book, the steps, sponsorship being sponsored, and using medical help and those sorts of things. And I see the energy back and the sparkle and the dynamic Mary Pearl. And she gave great talks during that period of time, but they were in agony. And I'm really glad to see you back doing great. I truly am. Thank you. For the other two speakers, Richard and I know each other And I've already made my apologies to him And the lady who spoke last night I'll try to get to talk with you But if I don't, please accept my apologies But I had two grandchildren last night And they are the joy of my life I miss my kids Because I was drinking and drugging But I'm not missing my grandkids and some of my own self-absorption has allowed me to start to go there, and I've got a wonderful wife and a good sponsor, and I'm not being allowed to go There, and praise God, I'm not. When I got up here to speak tonight, I noticed it when I got dressed tonight, and my damn pants don't fit. And I mean, they're the right length, but they don't fit in the front, you know? And I've gained about eight or ten I haven't worn these pants a little while and I put them on my first thought was my wife's having an affair and somebody left his pants in my house well that's the way I think I'm sure it's not the way you think but it's the way I feel I've either got to lose weight or he's going to have to gain more we don't have a deal but it brought me in mind of getting older And I'm being led into the night not quietly, I can tell you that. I mean, I'm fighting every step of the way. Not fear, just pissed, you know, that's how it is. And it reminded me of this wonderful doctor story that I need to tell you about an old fellow about my age goes in with his wife to see the doctor. Now he's hard hearing and he's going in to seethe doctor and his wife's going with him so that she can tell him what the doctor is saying so that he gets it right. So they go in, the doctor walks in the room, and he said, Mr. Jones, how are you? He said, What do you say? He says, How are you, honey? He said、Oh, I'm doing fine, Doc. I'mdoing fine. He said،Well, what's your problem? What doyou say? He says、What's yourproblem? He said、「Well, Doc, I got this problem where my sex life ain't no good no more. And he said, my bowels. I can't quite control my bowel. And he said, I'm just having a little trouble with my water too. It just doesn't seem to be working. And he's turned around and he said well I'm going to need a specimen of your semen of your urine of your bowels He said, what did he say? He says honey he wants your shorts That really isn't a cheap attempt To get lashed or to loosen you up I just didn't think of it Until I couldn't get my pants buttoned And I thought, hell, I'll just tell that If that's for me You've asked me to come and tell you a story. That story is supposed to be about what I was like, what happened, and what I'm like today. In other words, my experience, strength, and hope. This may not be your story. This may nicht sein der Weg, dass Sie sich an dem, wie Sie hierher kommen, verbinden. What I hope you'll pay attention to is as much about the recovery as it is about what got you here or what got me here. I promise you, if you're an alcoholic of my type or if you need to be here, if you come long enough, you will hear your story. My wife was in Al-Anon for six years until she heard her AA story. And now she is, as we say, a double winner, mostly going to AA. But it took her six years to hear a woman tell her story. So if you have any questions, if you feel like you need to be there, just keep coming back or if even feel like you're comfortably in here, come and you'll hear your story. I will tell you that this story my story and every story I've heard in this program is a story of evolution as Mary Pearl said, a story of change but it's an evolutionary change. It is not a cure it is not over I'm running into more wonderful opportunities truly for spirituality today than I've ever run into because I have better tools to be able to see the opportunity for a number of years it was either crammed down my throat or shoved in my ears because I had to get it and if you didn't have it I was through I'd run out of any other options so I stayed I stayed and I took the spoon feeding I took the force feeding and I assimilated it all and did just what I was told to do and now that is all paying off because I see the opportunity much quicker Still miss them, but I see the opportunities much quicker. And the ones I miss, I get to go back very frequently and either clean them up or work with them. So it's a story in evolution. It is never over, and it may not be your story, but just keep coming back. If you need to be here, if this is your home as much as it is mine, you'll find and you'll hear and you will do what you need find here and do. 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 lye water in the Mayfield City Jail in 1935. He was a bad alcoholic. My mother was molested physically, emotionally, and sexually in that home. She dragged the whole disease of alcoholism into our home, and I never saw alcohol or drugs. We were an absolutely wonderful family. If there is anything close to a normal family, we were it. We went to church on Sundays. We went through prayer meeting on Wednesdays. I felt loved. I was Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy. I mean, I swear to God, it looked like one day I might be Pope, but I wouldn't be a drunk, you know? And I'm not even Catholic, but I thought I might become Pope. I mean I was that good a kid. I was such a good kid and knew it that I remember laying in the bed the night before I went to college saying, God, if I ever have a son, I want him to be just like me. And that wasn't ego. I was THAT good a child. Now, my mother is what today we call an adult child of an alcoholic. Now, I don't know whether you believe in that whole concept or not, but I do know if you read the story of the family afterward, you'll be impressed by the fact that if you're around one of us, in essence, you get neurotic. And my mother was neurotic, why shouldn't she have been? She was molested physically, emotionally, and sexually. They had an interesting way of treating alcoholics in Mayfield in 1935. My mother never told me this, her brother, my uncle, told me. me this, that when my grandfather got drunk they'd put him in jail. When he sobered up they'd put him into a chain gang sweeping the Mayfield City streets and my mother used to walk past her daddy at least once a week in good weather in a chain game sweeping the mayfield city streets in the bible belt in the middle 30s. The scarlet letter for my mother was not adultery it was alcoholism and she dragged that entire thing into our home and the way this worked was I first learned from my mother conditional love. She lived vicariously through me and my brother. I mean, her whole ego state was poised and predicated on me and my brother, I was the first Brady who ever went to college, and somewhere in the eighth grade I decided I wanted to be a doctor, once I said, I think I'm going to be a doctor. Hell, after that, my mother would have killed me if I hadn't been a doctor And my brother was the lawyer designate. He was the second Brady who ever went to college and that's how mama lived through us and when we were perfect mama would pat our butts part our hair pick up our clothes and we were king baby and if we weren't perfect she just didn't talk to us daddy fixed our breakfast everything else if i made a b plus rather today mother wouldn't speak to me for at least a week or two so i learned very early on the way to get what i needed the quote approval if you ever read wilson's emotional sobriety this is the whole crux that he said after 18 years of sobriety is that approval-seeking. And Mary Pearl talked about that great talk she gave today, and I may allude to it over and over because it was right on target. Don't lose some of her messages in her wonderful humor. Get the tape and listen to it over andover andoverandover and then quit laughing long enough to hear what she's saying because she drilled it. She absolutely drilled it Now, the other place I got this idea conditional love was the church. And there's no question, this isn't my conception of what the church said. The church says if you believe what we want you to believe, you go to heaven and if you don't, you fry in hell. Now, if you think I'm against the church, you're wrong. When I came back from treatment, I was a lay reader and ministered to Chalice and the Host for eight years in the church until my sponsor and my priest said that my ministry was in AA. I didn't leave out of AA but I was trying to do them both and they said you're not big enough to do that your ministry is in AA so I absolutely believe in the church but I absolutely learned because I was born and raised Baptist and and that's not an indictment either string of medals down my chest for for 12 years I never missed Sunday school or church and I mean praise God because they taught me some great value they taught us a weird crap but they taught we some great value and I got to tell you at a time when I had a 12-gauge shotgun in my mouth, the very values of dignity that I learned in the church is what kept my hand off of that trigger. The very values is what keep my hand off that trigger because I had no more desire to live. I wanted out. And what they taught me pulled that finger off ofthat trigger. For instance, they said it's better to spill your seeds in the belly of a whore than on the ground. And I'm 12 years old for God's sakes and I've just found a pull toy and I don't know what the hell to do with it. And I'm not being smart. I've been baptized more than most of you have had water to drink. I mean, I would go I'd do what I did on Saturday night and then on Sunday morning I'd come in and go down and confess I'm 12 years old and they'd baptize me on Sunday night and I felt better on Monday and Saturday night we'd go through the same grim derail and that's the way it was. So it was all that crazy crap and the way I sorted it out and all that and you say, no let me tell you, you don't say, let me say, that didn't, I need to tell you that did not make me an alcoholic. I need you to hear that real loud and clear. It did not make me an alcoholic I truly am bodily and mentally different because that's what the book says a real alcoholic is bodily and mentally different. Now, I'm an addiction medicine doctor. I can put on the wall all the formulas that tell us exactly what the physical allergy and the mental obsession was about. We have nailed it since 1990 as far as everything Silkworth and Wilson and all of them saw. Nailed it with formulas and definitions. It's not a bit more or a bit less, but it's incredible. It takes all the smoke, mirrors, and magic out of it. And I may end up being perfect and I may be Pope, but I'll never end up where I can drink alcohol again. And I think everybody needs to know that. But I will also tell you that my thinking, which was critical to my drinking, because we say if you stop the drinking and don't deal with the thinking, you go back to the drinking. And my thinking started then. And the big book says clearly we go back through our lives, nothing counts but thoroughness and honesty. So anybody that says what's happened in the past doesn't matter, they can say whatever the hell they want to say, I'm just going to tell you, that isn't what AA says and that isn' t what your sponsor is going to tell you. And you go back and if you got pissed because Joey threw snowball at you when you were three he said, I don't see what the hell that had do it because it pissed you off. That's what it's got to do. And until you learn the whole process as I learned the whole thing, the whole whole process to deal with everything that pisses me off and I started it back then and learned the drill. Repetition, repetition, repetition repetition, do it over, do It over do it over. This isn't rocket science for God's sakes but for me, for somebody like me I have to do it over and over and because from day one to day two I forget and isn't it a miracle that this little piece of a book we've got tells us just do it over today. I don't get it I did it, it was gone yesterday now I got it again well do it today do it Today you cretin you know for god's sake and after 24 years i'm beginning to get it you know but this was a deal deal with the thinking so we don't have to go back to the drinking and my thinking started way back then the resentments the fears the self-centeredness all the tools of self-preservation that's where the survival tools came from and don't think for a minute that survival tools aren't great while they kept us alive to get here but they are the greatest single deterrent to spirituality because survival tools are totally self-centered they are absolutely self-centered and they will break your back as they've broken mine to find the god of my understanding because i instinctively go to a survival tool because it worked for me to stay alive become a doctor do everything that i was not mentally or physically or emotionally equipped to do, but would not quit because of my own willpower. Translate that into daily living and it'll gut you. It guts me. I'm about half nuts. I am not ashamed of it, I am not proud of it. I just am. You know? I mean I'm 65, I'm 5'9", I'm white, I I'm a doctor, and I'm nuts. And I'm an alcoholic, and I have to deal with the nuts. Mary Pearl's nuts. Look at her. I mean, and it's the truth. I mean... And this woman has an incredible spiritual program because she had to get it to deal would be in nuts. So if you think you're as nuts as we are, praise God you're home. This is where you belong. All right. Alcohol and drugs were no problem for me in growing up. They were no problems for me. In high school, occasionally we'd have a malt liquor beer and a bunch of us would go out and play Monopoly, have a couple of beers, go play Monopy. And that might happen every six or seven months and then go play a Monopoly and spend the night at each other's house. We were just good kids. We'd get a couple beers in us and sing gospel songs because we loved to sing gospel song. I still love the Gaither Quartet. I mean, my God, it don't get no better than that, Bill Gaither's quartet. I love gospel music. That's what we do. Now, alcohol and drugs were no problem for me in college. They started out being a problem. And it's interesting when I look back at it. When I started college in 1954, I didn't know anything about fraternities. I'd never been away from home. So I joined this fraternity, and that first semester of my freshman year, the women's campus on one side of town, the men's campus on the other side of the town. and on Saturday night, from Monday through Friday I'd study my butt off and make good grades and on a Saturday night we'd go to the fraternity house we'd get about six or eight or ten beers in us, get on the back of a flatbed truck, go over to the women's campus and serenade the women. And we'd just sing up a storm and I'd take off all my clothes get buck naked, just singing up a storm. Nobody else got naked just me. And I used to say for comic relief that nobody sent me flowers, nobody called, you know. I'll tell you who did notice. The dean noticed. It was a little college of about 500 students and he called me and said, Burns, you're a wonderful student and a nice young man but when you drink, you are not normal. And I remember thinking, I think he is right. So I quit drinking. I quit getting naked and we had a good school career. Then I started medical school in 1958. Now, I'm supposed to tell you what I was like, what happened and what I am like today. So this part of my story, for reasons that are obscure to me, seem to be offensive to some people because they don't hear the whole story. I'm a card-carrying, commode-hugging, quarter-whiskey-a-night-drinking, 12-gauge shotgun in the mouth, alcoholic drunk, okay? So I need you to know that that's what I am. Now, you're going to figure it out pretty soon, but I need to know it. But the first part of our story has to do with drugs. And I've had people around the country say if I come and tell all that story, they won't let me come, so I don't go. Because they want me to change my story. I've only got one story. And I've got to believe if it's worth a damn, it's the story that I've gotten. I don' t know that God gave it to me but I know he's told me now how to use it. And he's taught me to use so that somebody in this audience, it may just be me, needs to hear it because they say yes, that's me yes, this is home, yes, I belong rather than say no you can't come. Now I'm not going about drugs and alcohol and drug addicts and alcoholics says, I'm an alcoholic. But this part of my story has to do with drugs. And there's a lot of neat things that come out of this and I'll share them with you. When I started my freshman year in medical school, I started taking amphetamine to study. I didn't take it for a high, I'd never heard of it. I was hooked on it within less than a month. And I took it daily for my whole four years in medical school. And two weeks before graduation, my senior year, I was kicked out of medical school in amphetamine rage. I hit one of my professors. They took me to the department head of the Department of Psychiatry and the dean, and they said, Burns, what's wrong with you? And I said, I take too many drugs. They said, do you believe that? And i said, yes sir, I do. They said, we can help you. And I said, what are you going to do, Dr. Keller? We're going to put you in intensive psychiatric therapy. For almost two years, I was in two or three times a week psychiatric therapy, now psychiatry helped me. Psychiatrists were the first place that taught me about a feeling. They say anger is not a primary feeling. Anger is either a resentment or fear. It's either a resentment or fear and this was 13, 14 years before I got to y'all. This was 13 14 years where I'd ever heard of a fourth step but they taught me then about things like that. Now they taught my a lot of other crazy stuff like I lusted after my mother and I hated my little brother and I wanted a red tricycle rather than a blue tricyple and I'm telling you the truth that's what they taught and that's bullshit but that's what they talked about. That's what they taught me. But the good stuff, they also taught me. And I didn't use any drugs during that period of time. I did not use any drugs. And i didn't drink at that time. So after almost two years, I got back in medical school, walked in. I was completely prepared to be ready to do what I needed to do. I reviewed all of my notes. I read all of textbooks for four years. I didn' t have any problem with grades. And within less than 30 minutes, I strung out on drugs again. I knew exactly I wasn't even thinking of it when I walked in I was not thinking of it when i walked in but i knew i walked almost like a robot right straight down to the ob-gyn clinic where we kept stacks of amphetamine to give women who were gaining weight we gave them a diuretic a low salt diet and dexedrine that's the way we treated that in the middle early 60s sat on the steps of the medical school and cried because i didn't know what was wrong with me well you know what was wrong with me. Psychiatry brought me knowledge, but they didn't bring me a spiritual solution. We know today from our research that good 12-step treatment accompanying good 12 step participation, the recovery rate is significantly greater than either one by themselves. AA by itself is much better than just treatment, but both together are intensely and significantly more productive. Good 12 step treatment with good 12 step participation and they brought me knowledge psychiatry did but they did not bring me spirituality and the spiritual solution that's what you brought me years later and I'm very grateful because I haven't had my last great ass whipping yet and let me explain what I mean by that. When I was a little boy at 6 and 7 years old I used to go out to my Papa Brady's and they were very poor rock farmers and my Papa Brady rode a single plow behind an old mule's butt. And that old mule was named Lightning. And Papa Brady would ride that plow and I'd go around when I'd get bored I'd pick up a clod and bust the mule in the butt. And I'd do that about three times and finally Papa would say, Burns Mac, that's enough. If you do it again, you know what I'm going to do? I know Papa, I know Papa. And then I'd bust old Lightning again. He'd say, Burnsmack, go get me a switch. Oh no, Papa, get mea switch, Burnsamac. Yes, sir. And I'd get the switch. He said, I'm going to give you an ass whipping. And that's what we called it. And the people who get this program and get it quicker than other people are the ones who've had a good ass whipping." And that doesn't mean you've had to have it that bad like, you know, you'll hear in my story because it's just whether you've your last ass whipping, it doesn't have to be exactly like mine, but you'll be at a point where you can't think about living with it or you can' t think about living without it and that's in a vision for you read the first page of a vision for you and the first paragraph if you ain't depressed after that then I don't know what will make you depressed or overjoyed as I am when I think I'm not there anymore but I remember being there do you? when you couldn't live with it and you couldn' t live without it that doesn' t mean you have to get to that point but have your own butt whipping and if you do it'll be a lot easier for those people who come in this program that alcohol still worked for them I just marvel at how you stay sober I just marvel at it I'm grateful you do but I marvel at because when I'm powerless over alcohol not because I couldn't quit drinking but because I could drink enough to get drunk I couldn drink enough to make it work I could not drink enough to stop anything but withdrawal so in the tough going I've never thought about drinking except the thing why would I drink it didn't work for me then? Why would it work for me now? I still think about sex, and I still thinking about spending money, and I still thing about buying cars I can't afford. And I mean especially cars and sex. You know, if it smells good or drive fast, hell, I'm going to try to jump it. And I just have to work my little butt off at that. I mean fortunately God has slowed me down, but I still THINK about it as quick as I used to. I watched the countdown today and had three commitments in doing the whole countdown I mean, I was ready to get married on two or three occasions you're laughing because you know damn well what I'm talking about three years of sobriety and you're younger than I am and you know exactly what I was talking about it's hell, isn't it? go to men's meetings So my classmates enabled me that year. When I'd get too high, they'd take me home. I was married, had one small child, and Libby was born then, and Sally put me to bed and called medical school and tell them I had the flu. They knew better, but they told me some years later that if I didn't draw a line in the sand, they just turned their back because they didn't know what to do. I got out of medical school and started my internship in residency. I was put in a mental hospital four times, strapped down IV fluids, straight jackets, padded cells, might stay off amphetamine six hours, six days, six weeks, six months, go back, bam, be right in the mental hospital. And I was psychotic when I went in. We did not know speed drugs had tolerance in. We knew alcohol did. We knew the opiates did. But we did not knows speed drugs didn't. Today we know they do. Cocaine, the whole bunch will develop a tolerance. And they just didn't know that it would do it. it just ate me up. In 1967, I finished my internship and finished my residency, went in the army, almost got put in Leavenworth. Post commander came down, said, Burns, are you the one taking the amphetamine? And I said, yes, sir. And he said, if you don't quit, we'll put you in Levenworth. So once he explained it to me, I quit, you know. It was an interesting thing about the drug period because my story is significant. Every fifth step I've ever listened to, there's a peace that is unique. And I really have come to believe that's the peace that God is helping get that person sober for is to talk about that peace. And my peace is I took amphetamine for 12 years with no alcohol. Gutted me. I drank for 8 years with No Other Drugs. Guddied me. There were some significant differences in those periods and the biggest single one, and I've treated thousands, thousands of cocaine, opiate addicts, and alcoholics because I run a 300-bed men and women's homeless shelter in addition to doing the impaired physicians program for the state of Kentucky. I've been involved with hundreds of doctors and thousands of street people, and I go to four meetings a week and a half for 24 years, so I've seen it all. If I haven't seen it and haven't done it, it ain't happened, not in this culture. It hasn't happened in this country. I've seeing a distinct difference between drug addicts and alcoholics on various planes, but one for sure, and it was my experience, and there's rarely an exception. There is an exception, so don't one of you come up and say, that wasn't the way I did it. Oh, get a job. Of course it wasn't the way you did it then. If they named me the consequences, I could quit drugging. I couldn't stay quit, but I could quite. But there came a time in my drinking I could not stop. Consequences meant nothing. I could not stop. I could not stop. The other reason my story is so wonderful about this part, the part I'm going to tell you about alcohol, is if you are an alcoholic of my type, you will not be able to take the marijuana cure. You will not being able to use cocaine or do other drugs. And if you're a cocaine addict, you're not going to be able drink and get away with it. And I can tell you, if you ever want me to come down and do a four-hour workshop on the disease, I'll be happy to do it because more of us need to know it. more of us need to know it and we don't cross drugs it doesn't work now I will tell you one thing if we need drugs we have to take them I've had a kidney stone and I rolled in there with about six months sobriety and I said Casey my wife no matter what they do that stone had quit moving said no matter what they did don't let them give me morphine don't give me dimmerol just hold on to me and the stone started moving give me some dimmeral give me something and I won't tell you if some SOB had tried not to give me pain pills, I'd have killed him. I'd has shot his ass right on the spot. You know? Had a vasectomy. I'm telling you more than you want to know, but I had a vasctomy. I mean, it's just a small intimate group of friends here, isn't it? I had a vascectomy when I was about six months sober. I went in there and didn't call my sponsor. Rolled in. They said, we can put you to sleep or we'll do it under local. Do it under local. I can't take that anesthetic. So the minute they laid me down on the table and stuck that needle where they stick that needle to start doing a local. I thought, I've made a grave error. Now, what happens sometimes, and I'm going to give you a science lecture. If you take animals out and get them in a fight, they'll pull their testicles back up inside them. Well, the human can't do that, but we have a muscle that's still able to pull that's called the cremasteric muscle. Well, when they did that, my cremateric muscle went into spasm and that creates a situation where your blood pressure will just go out if you set up. It's called orthostatic hypotension. So for 72 hours, if I set up, I fainted. And I laid down and I peed in a number 10 fruit jar and my wife fed me through a straw out of a soup bowl. After 72 hours everything went back to normal and I called my sponsor and I said, Jim, you'll be so proud of me, you'd be so pride of me. I said I had a vasectomy and I had no blood pressure for 72 years but I didn't take any medicine. He said, you're an idiot. So the spiritual principles are not heroism. They're humility and having a sponsor and working with your team. Now, I digress. Now to go further. So in 19... So I came home in 1969. I got back on amphetamine. Came home from the Army. Got back on Amphetamine started my practice in Louisville, and I had a gallbladder attack. They took me down to the hospital, took out my gallblatter, and my surgeon, who's a good friend of mine, my internist, who was a good friends of mine—both of them about my age and still dear friends of mines— we held hands in Old Methodist Hospital in Louisville and prayed that I'd quit taking amphetamine, and that was my last amphetamine. Now, I'm sure the prayers had a lot to do with it, but let me tell you what I had to deal with. I started drinking. This is a real take-home story. I started drinking, first four years of my drinking wasn't alcoholic. I might get drunk, might stay sober, never thought about drinking, never thought About staying sober. It just was not an issue. I'm sure I drank more than most people, but it still was not An issue. My practice was just booming. I was a very successful physician. Next three years of My life, I was very much an alcoholic. Did not drink as much. Did not get drunk as often. But I knew every minute Of every day when my first drink would be. I knew the minute I got up in The morning, it's going to be at 4.30 In the afternoon. I walked out of my office at 4 o'clock, walked across the street My partner took care of any other patients that were there My appointments were over Got me a quart of beer, put it between my knees Drove 25 miles home, drank that beer Parked my car, walked in, got my scotch and water And got smooth Y'all remember smooth? Hell yes you remember smooth That's all you remember for God's sake There is a solution There will come a day, I'm paraphrasing, we'll be unable to bring into our conscious memory with sufficient force the humiliation of a week or a month ago. The man back there with 29 days and the man over here with 30 days or whatever it is, 24 days, let me tell you, you think you've had your ass whipped. There will be a day when you will not even remember this if you don't stay with us to let us help remind you. The book tells us that, and you've got to decide if you believe it. I believe everything that's in that book except eating chocolate, and that's bullshit. You know, the rest of it is right on target. And we know today that that's not even true. But the rest of that book is just written in stone. It couldn't be more clear. And those of us, we in medicine call that state condition learning. You learn what you learn when you're drinking and you don't remember it when you'RE sober unless we are reminded of it. Every time I walk, there are a lot of reasons I go to meetings, but not the least of which is every time I'm in a room or every time my walk in one of these rooms I know immediately what I am and you've taught me what I got to do to deal with it. Isn't that wonderful? I mean, I truly believe that God takes away the pain of memory but gave us this organization for us to remember because we know what to do about it. We don't have to live in the shame. We can correct the behavior. I certainly have been able to. And as goofy as I am, if I can do it, I know damn well you can. I mean I'm not unique. I've just developed it to a higher level. You know what I mean? But I mean that's exactly what coming into these rooms is all about. The last year of my drinking, I drank addictively and I drank a quart of whiskey a night. I told myself I wasn't an alcoholic because I never drank in my office. And I had to believe it. When I came back from treatment, I reviewed my charts for five years with my partner at that time and all of my charts would have passed quality assurance review. I did not practice bad medicine technically. If you came in my Office, I could strep throat, pneumonia, lump in your breast, all the stuff that doctors are supposed to be able to do, I could do except if you wanted to talk to me about your daughter who was pregnant or your daddy you had to put in a nursing home. I could not stop long enough to exchange those feelings. What I took in that examining room was a technician not an angel. I took in a technician and I knew that and it just gutted me time after time after time, but I could practice medicine. My first wife kicked me out of the house in 1975. I finally shamed her enough that she kicked me up. I was not a philanderer, but with alcohol in me and the way she and I hated each other, I did some things that I would not have done, and I finally ashamed her into kicking me out Of the house. She hated me from the first time we married, and i hated her. We stayed together for 17 years in mutual hate and had two children and that's where we live. Praise God I'm not there anymore. She still is she doesn't have a program and she hates me That I can tolerate now the kids are big enough they don't get poisoned by it and I'm very grateful for that. I do not hate her but y'all it's because I've worked what you told me to work to get to that point not of just forgiveness but of making my men's forgiveness hell it's going in and tell them I'm sorry and correcting the deal. I'm so arrogant to think I forgive? Who in hell do I think I am? I just go in and clean up my side of the street, and it seems to work out just fine, just fine. But Sally kicked me out. I womanized for about a year, met Casey, who's my wife and one of God's great human beings on the face of this earth. I mean one of the truly finest people I've ever known. And Casey and I drank together, drink for drink, for about a year and a half. She's 14 years younger than I am, and even though female alcoholism attacks more quickly physically than male alcoholism, she did not get as sick as I did. And in 1977, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was at the end of my rope. Casey andI had moved in together. The divorce wasn't over until Thanksgiving of 1977, so we had not gotten married. and we were very good people when my kids would come out to visit on weekends Casey and I slept separately now that may not seem like much to you but it seemed like a lot to me that was the way my mom and daddy taught me and that was right and you say well you shouldn't have been living together at all I don't know what shouldn'ts are all about but I just know that where we could have some dignity we had some dignity Casey had gone to work that morning and I was sitting in the chair and it was over I had reached a point where I wouldn't even go to sleep or try not to go to bed sleep because I thought if I don't wake up, then the day won't start. I would get home at night about 9 o'clock. I didn't get up in time to make hospital rounds. I went to see my patients and then went back to the hospital. Now I know it was because the real doctors were there and I didnít want them to see me. Also, it was so damn hungover I couldn't get there in the morning. And I'd come home and get my quart of whiskey and play my two records, Neil Diamond's ìI Am I Criedî and the Norman Tabernacle Choir and the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra doing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I mean, these are two real great... And I love both those records. Still do. You know, Diamond, if you don't think he had a problem, listen to that song. He said, I've got an emptiness deep inside and it won't let me go. I'm not a man who likes to swear, but I never cared for the sound of being alone. Every alcoholic in this room knows that. Everybody in Al-Anon knows that I never care for the sound of bein' alone. And that was the deal. Casey'd gone to work and I'm sittin' in that chair and it's over. it's over I pray for you if you're an alcoholic of my type you have that day because the one thing I've never been able to figure out in this program is how can I turn the key in your heart that's a very personal job but it turned for me and it was over I hated my guts I hated the line I hated compromising every value that I had and it wasn't over and I said God you gotta help me and I went into the bedroom knew exactly what I had to do and took a 12-gauge shotgun put in my mouth and I was out of here I was absolutely thrilled with dying terrified of living I knew I was going to heaven I knew I'd be with God I didn't know how to get God in my life to work with me about what was going on but I knew i was going to heaven and be with god I mean it doesn't matter what you know I knew that was what was going to happen, and I wanted to do that. And I sat on the edge of that bed, and I thought mom and dad would be better off without me. Casey would be better off with out me. My patients will be better off without mean. I got to my children and that's where it choked me. I've been in practice about eight years and I'd seen a number of adults who had come in impaled on their guilt and confusion about what they had done wrong or hadn't done right. That someone significant in their life had killed themselves. What did I do? What could I have done? And I didn't want my babies to be that way. I wasn't a Norman Rockwell father but I didn' t want my babies to be that way and I took the gun out of my mouth and laid it down. Now there's a big story here for me and it may be for you at that moment of complete self-absorption because that's what suicide is that's not a pejorative statement at that moment of complete self absorption where I am the only person who can figure it out at that moment of complete self absorption the thing that turned my whole insight around was thinking of another human being and that's what we're here for isn't it because by definition on a daily basis we're self centered and self absorbed I mean you have to decide if you buy that, I buy it completely and the only thing that gets me out of my self absorption is to fit myself to be of maximum service What is our purpose? Read it in the 8th and 9th step. To fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and our fellow man. You wonder why you're here with 29 days? It's about you. This is about your fitting yourself to be ready for my grandchildren. That's the whole deal. It doesn't mean you're going to be of service to them today because you've got some fitting to do, as do I. But this is not about me and you. We just happen to be a conduit. and if you don't agree with that, read that book. Pray over that book, do what you got to do. Grab an old timer and let them show you what they did, but please, dear God, hear me. It's not about me and you. It's about what we can do in God's army, what we Can Do in God'S Army. Thank you. This is so beautiful. this is so beautiful and if you don't feel it keep sticking around until you look at that do you look at that mural or whatever the hell you call them you look at that thing up there and you say to yourself my God I want to cry because how many of you when you walked in here and looked at it felt like you wanted to cry you know absolutely called a psychiatrist told him met him the next day with one of my classmates he immediately They told me I needed to go into treatment, and they flew me to New York, detoxed me for about two weeks. I was really sick, physically sick. And then I drank a quart of whiskey the night before I left for treatment at 7 in the morning. I drank two six-pack of beers on the way to the airport. When I got in the airplane, I started withdrawing. I called the stewardess, and she said, yes, sir. And I said, would you get me a drink? Sir, it's too early. Sir, you've got to get me something. Get me a cup of coffee and a drink. Well, sir, I said get the captain. you don't really know what I'm saying. You've got to give me a drink. She got the captain and he walked back there and looked at me and said, give this man anything he wants. And they said, should you get off the plane? I said, no, I'm trying to go to an alcohol treatment center. And the minute the damn plane landed in New York I grabbed the cab, a New York cabbie, and I jumped in and he said, where are you going? I said I'm going to Payne Whitney Clinic, but take me by bar. and this New York cabbie waited for an hour while I went in there and drank until I could at least get to the point that I wasn't shaking so damn bad I couldn't even hold on to the cab. Can you believe, do you think God wasn't there? This is a New York cab driver who waited for my drunk ass for an hours to take me to a treatment center. Hell I wouldn't have waited for him in Mayfield Kentucky for God's sake much less in New York. So God was in this whole deal. He must have been having a hell of a time laughing at me about that time. Then they shipped me to Atlanta and I was in Atlanta for three months and came home to Louisville. When I came into AA in Louisville, it was the best and worst of times in AA and Louisville The best of times because the fellowship was incredibly beautiful. We were in vans. We did run as a pack. There were about eight of us. I called us the little pygmy elephants. It wasn't just 30 minutes early and 30 minutes late. It was 24-7 I mean we walked around. If one of us ever stopped, I said everybody else's nose would be up the one in front of his butt. But we were getting around here Our wives came on weekends We cooked out together. I mean, we ran like a pack of thieves it was absolutely wonderful and I still have incredibly good memories it was the worst of time in AA and for AA and Louisville because we never read the big book and we didn't work the steps the marching orders in Louisville in the early in the late 70s was don't drink get a sponsor tell him what's wrong with you he'll tell you what to do and then go help a drunk left out that muddled middle didn't we so for 10 years in AA in Louisville I lived on a three in a third step. I had the first three nailed in retrospect, and I had a third of the 12th step where I was running off and they said, here he comes, drink a beer because he's going to take your ass treatment anyway. I mean, I was everywhere. I mean... I want to tell you, I was like a lethal weapon for God is what I was during that time. And I was carrying as much of the disease as I ever carried of the solution. And people who were sane stayed with us. We called ourselves Raleigh's Raiders. We were proud of the fact we were goofy as hell. And we ran everywhere. If you didn't believe what we believed, then you were a heretic. Get the hell out. We don't want to waste our time with you. And the smart people got away from us. But we stayed sober. Every one of us are still sober. One's dead. He died sober. We're all still sober but every one of those had to get to that book because 10 years in sobriety I did some of the most incredible some of most incredibly self-centered things you can imagine. Never even thought about drinking. Had an affair. Now affairs don't happen in Like relapses don't happen. You've got to plan the SOBs, you know? And you don't even know you're planning them. You don't Even know you plan them. When I grew up, my mother raised a king baby and I found out right there and this is where our psychiatrists took me back because I formed a way my relationship with women is you give them everything they want and then they'll take care of you and make you feel special. They'll take care of me and make me feel special so that was my relationship with all women. Hell, the sane ones didn't stay overnight. They got the hell out as soon as they could get a cab. I mean, I was ridiculous. I'm dead serious. But the goofy ones where the rocks in my head fit the holes in hers, we had a hell of a time. We had a wonderful time until we just absolutely choked the other one to death. It's who got the one by the throat first, you know? And all that damn hostage taking and everything went on till One of us just died and crawled off, and that's the way it was. And Casey, she was the same way. Her daddy was bipolar, and she watched her mother take care of her daddy. And Casey took care of me. And she was a pro at it. But Casey's got a great heart, and so do I. So God took two very, very sick people, and this is my take on it, and kept us together because now we're truly instruments in his army. And I know that because we've had more experiences with dealing with things that are not related to drinking than you can imagine, and a lot of drinking experiences to share too. our relationship was wonderful. I wanted Casey to have the best clothes money could buy, and I bought them for her and sent them to her. I didn't ask her what kind she wanted, just sent them. I wanted her to have nice cars. Every two years, I'd send her a new car. Never asked her what kinds she wanted. Wanted her to be a good person. Wanted to have great vacations and took her on great vacrations. I guess they were great. I never asked her where she wanted to go. We had wonderful sex. We must have had. We did everything I wanted us to do. It had to be great sex. In six years when she heard her story, and in eight years she came in and she said, Burns, I want to go back to college. I wantto go to my own meetings because we went to meetings together, and I wanttogo into therapy. And I said, I love you. That's fine. She said,I've never loved you more. But she knew she had a good sponsor. You remember, I'll tell you the man, I can't think of her name right now, Paul and Bonnie. You remember Paul and Bonny? This was Bonny was her sponsor. Bonny died, but Bonny, she was wonderful for my wife, and she says, Get a life of your own because one day he may die. Doesn't mean you get away from him, but you just got to do that. So she started this journey, and what I thought was, she's leaving me. She sure as hell broke the script, didn't she? Now, doctors have nurses, and there were seven of us in that complex, and my nurse, what do nurses do for doctors? They take care of them and make them feel special, don't they? Not the new ones. They ain't buying that crap anymore. In my era, that's what the nurses did, you know. and so Kathy was working there wonderful young lady, still is she was divorced, she'd been with me two years had two wonderful boys, nothing had ever happened and all of a sudden the whole energy was changed and in less than six months I fell head over heels with Kathy in love with Kathy, fell head over heels in love with Casey. I had a dilemma I loved two women, so my solution at 52 years of age with 10 years of sobriety was to try to figure out how I could get both those women to live with me at the same time and it made all the sense in the world to me now stay with this one because we're laughing now but i went to my sponsor this is the guy that didn't teach the book of the steps this is a guy that had been basically i had and let me tell you he's one of god's great angels if you think i got a resentment against this guy you're wrong he was exactly what god gave me because i learned obedience from jim he was one sick sob but he told me what to do and i did it and it was hard to teach me obedience. You don't teach me shit, but he taught me obedience, you know? And now I'm not then, but now you do. And he taught мне to be obedient and that was a very significant thing for me. But I went to my sponsor, Jim, and I said, Jim I'm having this affair with Kathy. He said, well you need to quit. And I said I know I did. I went home. By the time I got home he had called my wife and told her. Now, when I'm doing the classes at the healing place with those men and I tell them this story when we're in the fifth chapter and I'm leading them right to it and I say now what do you think I ought to have done? Shoot the son of a bitch. You know? Yeah. I said and boy I've got them. I've got them right there don't I? I've got them exactly where I want them because hey And now we're going to get a lesson in AA. It's not what he did to me. It's what can I do for him. What does it say? The bridge between the third and fourth column says this is a sick person. This is a sickness. This is sick man. How can I help him? Take away my anger. Thy will be done. The fulcrum of AA. Not what did they do to me, but what can i do for them. Next paragraph. It took me three weeks to get to it. We can't help everybody, but God can help us be tolerant. If this is new stuff to you, then get your sponsor and you get on your ass and you sit there and you live with it until you bleed. Because if you don't, you're going to get gutted sooner or later. This is the deal. And I praise God for the chances I've had to use it and I thank God forthe opportunities when I haven't and got my butt burned enough to go back. And praise God I never had to take a drink because it quit working. But if you dont' get this, If you don't get this, this is the deal. What did she say? It's not just about drinking. It's about living, and this is the living. This is the living part that this is all about. So, I didn't know what to do, and this was when I told the story that Bill was about. Don't ever leave before the miracle, or when the student's ready, the teacher will arrive. A little pigeon man walked up with eight tapes and said, listen to these and see if they're any good, and they were Joe and Charlie's tapes of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And as I listened to those tapes, I cried all the way through them because I saw the whole program for the first time. I got 11 of us together, made copies of the tape, and we started the first big book study in Louisville, Kentucky. And right now we have helped with God's power and our energy to rewrite the whole face of AA and 90% of Louisville Kentucky and the state because there's at least 25 to 40 big book studies going on all the time. And this isn't chicken shit big book stories. This is getting into the big book and making it live for each person willing to take the journey. Because it's right there. It's right där. You say, is this Big Book Thumping? I hope to God it's Big Book thumping. Is it preaching and teaching? You bet your ass it's preaching and teachin'. If it hadn't been preachers and teachers in my life, I'd be dead. Absolutely. We're all preachersandteachers. and teachers it's a problem is when we quit being students and i promise you from my own experience you can be preachers and teachers and students at the same time but if we quit preaching and teaching they ain't hearing it if they ain'T hearing it and they ainT hearing it we're dead we are dead so this is preaching and teaching but i've already learned as much from you and mary pearl's experience with me today and i know i keep gilding the lily on this woman but i just sat back there and cried watching that lady today being the strength and watching god's power bubble through her. So I've had plenty of miracles since I've been here, and I'm in the middle of one right now. You may be leaving, but by God, I ain't. When I got in that book, I found out my problem wasn't alcohol. My problem is my mind. It's the way I think. Wilson believed it so much he called it a peculiar mental twist, and it's so important that is what precedes all drinking and I got fascinated with that because except for Jim's story and more about alcoholism he really doesn't develop that whole scenario and I thought this must really be a big deal cause he says it precedes every drink what does it mean Burns? So I began as I always do. Not why am I an alcoholic but what did he mean by that? And beginning to look and talk to people and put it together. Peculiar mental twist I'm going to give it to you in the short version for Burns Brady and listen to it because of the thousands of people I've listened to and worked with, this is exactly how it starts. First part of the peculiar mental twist is bigger than the rules. Bigger than the rules. You think we don't have rules? Read Silkworth. If these men follow a few simple rules, by God, I'm glad they got suggestions. That's okay for you. When I crawled my sorry ass in here, I was hoping you had rules and would teach me what they were because I was gutted if you didn't. It was that simple. Don't talk suggestions to me. It's okay if they work for you, but for me, it's rules. Bigger than the rules. I've got nine points on my driver's license. That means three more points and I walk. I'm sitting at home in one of my pseudo-intellectual states about six months ago saying, why do I have nine points On my driver license? Well, that's because you drive 95 and 65 mile an hour speeds. Well, of course I know that, but why do I do that? Well you must be stupid. No, I got all kinds of degrees that say I'm not stupid. Well, then you must be crazy. Now, I've got all kinds of discharge summaries that say I'm not crazy. Then why in the hell do I do this? Because I'm Burns Brady. Now, you shouldn't park in handicapped parking zones, but I can. Because I's only going to be there five minutes. That's never occurred to a damn one of you, has it? Of course it has. You know? I mean, the rules were written for y'all. And I know intellectually they're written for me. I just don't do them. And how does that work in this program? You know, the rules are real clear. If I get up in the morning and do the 11th step opening, if I do the 3rd and 7th step prayer, if I lead my life today with the 10th step which leads me to all the others, and if I close my night tonight as I will if I'm alive with the 11st step prayer. my day's going to be fine, isn't it? It may not work out fine but it's goingto be fine. Do I do it every day? Well of course not because there are days I get up and I'm running behind I've got to hear it I get in the shower and say dear God please direct my thing keep it off and I jump in the car I'm driving somebody honks at me the red light and I go screw you! And I drive at least five exits to be sure they don't miss any of the signs I wanted to get. Yeah. So you decide for you what your spiritual rules are today and I'm going to guarantee you if you read that book, it doesn't leave anything to guess in. It'll just be constantly evolving of insight and beauty and answer. Second part of the... And wasn't Wilson called bigger than the rules? He called it self-centeredness. What the psychiatrists call us, narcissistic. Second part of the peculiar mental twist, victimization. You're my problem? For God's sakes, if she hadn't done this, Barry Pearl said today, the victim. The victim may not drink, they just don't get sober. I was born very poor. I milked that till I nearly died drinking. If you've been as poor as me, had to catty around and belong to that country club, work your way through college, work yourway through medical school, Stay married to that rich bitch for 17 years. Yeah, when I had my heart attack in 94 and almost died for two years, oh, I've had my hard attack, next will be my prostate and I'll never have another erection. And finally the support group said, man, you are a load. You are a frigging load. Get real. So your prostate falls out. Who gives a damn? all we want you on the first tee is to smile for god's sake victor i talked in an online conference in tulsa one time and i was a token aa speaker on on saturday morning came down met a bunch of drunks we had breakfast i'm in there and it was kind of a unique setup the waitress came over gave us a plate gave us our setups gave us juice and all that stuff and then we went over and got our food and i Was the first one through got my food came over and sat down all the setups were gone i thought why did that damn woman take my setups but I got up with my best spiritual tone to go tell her please help me well you know I need more setup and I realized I'd sit down at the wrong table my first reaction to the world is you're trying to screw me that's my first rejection to the word I mean you say well you're not very spiritual I know where I am or not I just know that's my first reaction. You're trying to screw me. I mean, I'll get my bag off the airplane tomorrow when I get to Louisville. The first thing I'll do, I say, well, I guess they screwed it up. Let me see if I can find out where they went. I'm sure they screwed me, you know? Now, maybe you're not that way, but that's the way I am. Victimization. What is that? Resentment and self-pity. The last part of the peculiar mental twist is square peg, round hole, bigger hammer syndrome. If a square peg doesn't fit in the round hole give me a hammer and beat that son of a bitch till it gets crammed it in there. Now, this is me and life. Now why in the hell am I doing that? Because you see, I don't really think my life is unmanageable, do I? No, see, I don�t really know if I trust God sometime. I did a fifth step with one of my first pigeons and he got ready to start and he started crying. He said, Burns, I�ll do anything God wants me to do but see if you can talk to him about not making me poor. And that was the whole deal. I'm afraid I'll lose what I got or won't get what I want right out of the 12 and 12. And I'm going to control life because I don't trust God. The seminal thing I have to look at every morning when I get up in that 11th step is to start with the first step and really be sure that I really believe that life is unmanageable. At least, at least 30 to 50 percent of the people hearing me talk tonight will get drunk and i may be one of them and it will not be because we drank over the first half the first step anybody in this room knows you got a drinking problem we'll get drunk because we don't buy the second half of the first step. We don't buy the fact that life is our own business. Please stay with me. Please stay with me every problem I've got is a first step problem and every solution I have is a 12 step solution don't sit in an AA meeting and say I think that's a 4 step problem no it's not it's a 1st step problem and it'sa 12 step soluton I will promise you it'safirststepproblem and it's a 12-step solution. Don't try to chop up the 12 steps. It is a process that Mary Pearl talked about, a true process. Do not get tied up in goals and pieces. Acceptance, spirituality, happiness are lousy goals. Please hear me. They are wonderful byproducts of a 12 step process. Don't tell me to accept you've just robbed my home, you've raped my wife, you've stolen my cattle you've burned my barn you've burned my fields well you'll just have to accept it screw you I don't have to accept it right then what I've got to do is begin the process acceptance is everything but I can't will acceptance anymore than I could will stopping drinking it's a spiritual awakening and you don't have to believe me you just gotta be curious enough to go find it out. And if you spend more than 15 minutes being pissed at me, you've lost a lifetime. I am not your problem. Please hear me. I am NOT your problem, whether you agree or don't agree. I'm not your solution either because I don't know how to walk on water because I ain't found the stumps yet, you know? Now, what did Wilson call square peg, round hole, bigger hammer syndrome? He called that fear and control. Solution, spiritual. Let me take the smoke, mirrors, and magic out of it for you. Let me takethetoutofitforyou because I've searched. I always search because God, like Wilson, gave me a mind that's always saying why I'm so grateful because I found the answer everywhere except the one about how do I turn a key in your heart and that is hopefully I'll show you an example of God's love and grace in me and you'll want what I got. but everything else I've found in this program it is magnificent and when I look the answer to spirituality stay with me is having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps keep it that simple keep it that simple when I try to complicate that and I can complicate a one car parade I get crazy spiritually I began to study Bill Wilson five years ago let me tell you why I did I truly we laugh at it but I really am not right I mean I'm sure you're not too surprised about that right now but I am really not right and I just didn't know what that meant and about five years ago I came to believe that Bill Wilson was just as insane as me and I began to study this man because I wanted to know what he had found in that insanity and it's been one of the most magnificent five years i've ever spent studying this incredible man dr bob i love i don't relate to him bill wilson i love and i relate to him the man was psychotic he was absolutely psychotic and he said spirituality somebody asked him what part of this program spiritual he said it is not a part this program is spiritual and spirituality is humility and responsibility humility and responsibility. Say the prayers and do the action. The power comes from God. I have to get off my ass. There used to be a wonderful guy, an old timer in our program said, if you want to get goosed by the Holy Ghost, you got to get of your ass. As I studied this incredible man, as I studied this incredible man, I began to see the magnificent pieces because I thought I would never know peace. I thought I will never know the calmness that I wanted to know. And I was led to read this incredible story about Ed Dowling and Bill Wilson. And history has recorded one of the most beautiful stories for me. You may not even, I don't know how this will affect you, but it's part of my experience. Ed Downing, Jesuit priest, St. Louis. The Jesuits, Ignatius. Ignatious devised a whole series of spiritual exercises that took roughly 14 days. He developed the two standard of meditation, meditate on God and you'll feel sustenance, meditate on the earth and you will feel weakness. And when Dowling read the big book, he said, my goodness, this man has reduced the entire Ignatian spiritual exercises to 12 steps. And he made the trip to New York to meet Bill Wilson. He had a couple of other things, but he came to see Wilson. and a cold rainy night in November and this is in our historic literature. Pursue it and read it because we have an incredible wealth of history and when Dowling came to New York to meet Wilson, cold night in December, he went down to that little place that they had for a meeting place. The name escapes me, it doesn't matter but went down there. Wilson's upstairs on the bed. The caretaker's there who's working for just a place to stay. Lois is gone and I've never found out where she was that night and they'd be working But it was real late because it was about 10 o'clock. Caretaker came up and said, Bill, there's somebody here to see you. And Wilson said, oh no, not another alcoholic. But he said, send him up. Dowling comes up. Dowling, if you ever see a picture, is a little pugsy looking face. They called him Pugsy with shocky white hair, short man, had severe arthritis in his spine and walked on a cane. And he could hear this cane popping coming down the hall. Dowling walked in and had an overcoat on. And Wilson says, would you like to stay? Please take your coat off or something to that effect. fact Dowling took off his coat and he saw Dowling's collar. Wilson loved men of the cloth because Wilson was a seeker and he even tried to convert to Catholicism. He loved Shoemaker because these men were men of God and he wondered what they could teach him and he fell instantly in love with Dowling and that love affair probably gave us some of the most memorable literature we've ever had because Wilson stayed between the curves from 40 to 60 with Dowlings help when Wilson went through his LSD period and other things like that. And don't you criticize this man, not in my presence, because this was not his weakness. This was his strength. This was His strength. If you don't believe it, keep studying and pray, and you'll see. And Dowling kept Wilson between the curves. And as they loved and touched that night, finally Wilson said, Will I ever know peace? And Dowlings said, No. And Wilson said why? He said, Because you have been blessed. with divine dissatisfaction. Your seeking may never bring you total peace, but you'll never know the people that you bring peace to because your seeking will reveal to these people the pathway to the truth. I have never known peace, but I've known satisfaction because in my seeking, and I am a seeker, and I pray that each of you will be seekers because in your seeking, you'll never know. You may never see the life you'll change, but I know in my own life, I have seen the equivalent of the Holy Grail in the people that I have touched. When I watch my little four-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter run around, I know with her family history, her chances of being an alcoholic are 97%. I also know that by the time she makes it to us, she will be well instructed because I was the one that God chose to break the cycle. The first person in six generations who got sober or at least got sane because mom and daddy didn't get sober but they didn't gets sane. Be a seeker. Take your divine dissatisfaction as a mantle of grace so that that young man and that young men and my granddaughter will hear the truth. I'll close by telling you a story of my daddy. My mother died in 1978 of breast cancer and I got to go down and see her for eight months before she died and we made our amends and my mom and I loved each other. I miss my mother more today than I have ever missed her but the difference is I'm so grateful I had her rather than being resentful that she's gone. I miss me. I miss God every day. I miss him. I miss his name. I miss he's my daddy but so grateful I had them rather than they're gone. My daddy was like me. He's male-oriented and female-dominated, and he married within at least six months to eight months to Peggy, who was one of God's great gifts to us because Daddy began to lose his mind. Alzheimer's or an Alzheimer picture. I would go down and try to see Daddy. He didn't know me, didn't Know my mother, didn't No my brother, and this just tore me up because I wanted Daddy to recognize me more than anything, and I didn't notice. I wanted Danny's approval. Tell me it's okay, and he didn't even know who I was. We put him in a nursing home. We put them in a nursing home and I would go down every weekend to see Daddy. Now this is a period of time when I'm about 12 or 13 years sober. The program is becoming alive in me. I've made my amends to Kathy, I've made my Amends to Casey. Casey and I are in therapy to work on the marriage that I nearly destroyed and praise God and I mean that with the work of this program and everything that's there. Our marriage is better than it's ever been. Yes, some of the passions gone but that may be age but the trust is back and the true love is there so all this miracle is happening in my life and I drive down to see daddy and I'm driving down every weekend it's a 250 mile drive and I am saying dear God take away my pain please take away me pain I pull up go in and see daddy for the whole day and get back in the car and drive back just crying because it didn't work this one Sunday I drove up and parked the car and it just there it was I said dear God let me be for my daddy what you want me to be I walked in he's sitting in a wheelchair I didn't call him daddy that confused him I said how can I help you he thought I was his brother Uncle Buster he said yeah Buster would you shave me and I shaved my daddy I said would you like some lunch he said please and I rolled him out and fed him he's too weak to feed himself when we finished eating I'm sitting there talking to him Peggy came in sit down daddy used to love to watch me and mother talk Peggy and I just sat there talking talking daddy's watching daddy was real quiet daddy was always real quiet he's one of those men who never said anything but he was so powerful he would just be there when I needed him. He would just BE there. Daddy would just watch. I said, would you like to go out on the porch? He said, please. And I rolled him out on a porch and Peggy and I were talking. Daddy raised up in his chair and said, Son, today you're just like the little boy your mother and I raised. I love you very much. Thank you for coming to see me. Ten seconds later he didn't know who I was and he never did again. We buried him in 1992. too. As a doctor, I can tell you how that happened. I can explain to you how the brain works and how that can happen. As member of Alcoholics Anonymous, what I can tell you is not that I know how Daddy recognized me but I can tell you the miracle of my salvation when I said dear God let me be for my daddy what you want me to be. Thanks for the drive. I love you very much.