Abilene, TX

Introduced Burns B from Louisville, KY and I hope you like him

at home. When I put my watch up like that, some of fellows always stream work. You put it down there, but you never pay any attention to it.

And they're probably right. My name is Burns Brady. I'm an alcoholic,

appreciate very much being here. As Bowie said, he loves to come to places where they talk like he does. They y'all,

it's a little more fundamental even than that for me. I like to come to places where when we say the Lords Prayer, I finish at the same time everybody else does.

I've got some real good friends that are Catholic and, and we have a, we have a minute meeting on Tuesday, on Thursday night that I go to and, and some of these men are really very near and dear to me. And we end up, we say the Lord prayer. And I told him one night that every one of them finished first, second, 8th, 12th and 15th out of 20 and saying the Lord's Prayer. They got through quicker than anybody else. I've never seen anything like Catholics saying the Lord's Prayer. They just get through just like that. If you ever you know,

no problem with that, except I just run like hell and never can finish. Full safety. When I come down to Texas, when we say the Lord's Prayer,

I finish the same time y'all did. So I feel real comfortable being here. I mean, I mean a lot of y'all mean hell a lot to me. For some reason

the I really like the flowers Somebody I really like the flowers. I have to know, as you get older and, and you attention span fails and you start looking for little things to focus on, You know,

I, I do think it's kind of how I Frank, I never would state to a group like this that it's yellow and pink and a little bit WAVY because I saw this table over here go hysterical about that. So

let your mind wander over that for a while.

Never did promise you'd be spiritual. I just said it'd be probably on time.

I left to watch the look at the flowers of you. I appreciate being here, the privilege of being here. This with this bunch of speakers, it's been really outstanding.

Each person is belts up a lot of his own pain. The common denominator, of course, has been the pain, and the common denominator has been the joy and the relief from daily living, starting with having to quit drinking and then going on through the death of the child.

Absolute fear and projection of death of a child and the other things that we've heard that are all part of living. Is this thing cutting in out on me?

It's happening again. Oh Lord,

I prayed that it wouldn't happen. God promised me it didn't promise me anything into it anyway.

Fortunately, I don't have as much gas as I have, so this thing coming out

said no worry. You know, this is one of those crazy mornings

where I was sitting there with Bo and Shirley and Marty and Shirley turn around wanted Marty name. And he said, yes, I was, I will write it down for you and said surely goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life. And I thought that was cute. And I said I personally prefer mercy and I've always gone for dark headed women, but I don't know why.

Back spirituality. OK, it's a Sunday morning talk thing. I found out about Sunday morning speakers. They always leave town later than anybody else. But no, something else. I'll reflect on something

today. I'm going to talk about

the demons advanced on my head. I'm going to talk about the joy and the love that answering our heart.

I do not intend to preach or teach in any of my talks. I end up doing both, and I apologize for neither,

because if there hadn't been teachers and preachers in my life, I wouldn't be alive today.

Separation, annotation, if I stay honest with what you've asked me to talk about, will be my experience, and I think that's generally true.

That will happen today.

Some of it's very powerful and very painful for me. Some of it's a lot of joy.

I know there's nobody else in the room needs to hear what I'm going to say. Certainly I do. But I got to believe there's some people in this room need to hear what I have to say.

It's not just that newcomer comes in whom I really feel a great deal of empathy and a great deal of love for, but it's that person that we sometimes forget with five, 10/15/2025 and 30 years of sobriety that we think walk on water

as they fall prey to our own

demands. And they began to believe that same delusion. They're just as vulnerable as that newcomer,

in many instances even more vulnerable because of the delusion of the length of sobriety.

The long drive takes over. The fascinating thing about it is I fight the demons. They just dress up different

and we'll talk about how they may come dressed.

I've become intrigued recently about the miracle of recovery

because there's no question that to get before I came to where I am can't be done.

And the stories that I've listened to pretty much say the same type of thing to get to where they came started into where they are can't be done.

And I found that no longer does the miracle of recovery take on kind of an aura of invincibility.

There's a great mystery to AA. There's no magic. People who talk about a A being magic don't understand it. A A is not a matter of slight hand, sleight of hand and smoke and mirrors.

There's a great mystery because something happens is not possible.

And look at this miracle of recovery. I became intrigued with it some time ago, but I was talking somewhere. I've gotten work, you know, things all run together. And as I've gotten older, some of my memory really has slipped. Part of it may have been a severe heart attack I had 2 1/2 years ago and some of the stuff I went through then, and probably just because I'm older. So a lot of things run together and I don't remember so much about page numbers, nor do I remember even names. I remember concepts and feelings

and I was talking at a conference with Peggy M from from Nebraska. I think he was telling a story about when she first came into recovery.

It was in the winter and she was so sick. And many of us have been through that, remember very well. I certainly remember very well-being so sick and so disjointed in that early, early part of recovery, I mean, physically.

And she said there was, they lived on a farm and there were these little family of foxes that would come up to see them each day. And she would go out and put out food for the foxes and they would eat the food. And she would go in and said in the spring she was feeding much better. But she continued putting food out and the fosters would come and eat the food. Then one day she went out and put the food down and the foxes came to eat the food. And as she turned to go inside, she felt a presence behind her. And she turned to look behind her, and there was this box sitting about 5 feet from her with both of its four paws or four legs sitting out in the front,

his back leg punched up under it, looking right straight at her. And she said as she looked in this box, his face, what she saw in the eyes of that fox was, thank you, Peggy, for saving my young ones in the winter.

And I've haunted all my life, interestingly enough, in the last couple of years, it doesn't seem to be as much fun. I find that interesting. But in any event, I've haunted all my life. And I've seen many dogs and wild animals sit with their feet out in front of them and their legs bumped up behind, sitting very close to watching.

It's a very common thing for wild animals to do,

and in most instances, I'm completely convinced that the reason they're doing it is they're watching to see if you're going to hurt them.

What she saw looking at that same natural stance, was the look in that phosphorus attitude. Thank you, Peggy, for saving my little ones.

And I came to know that the miracle of recovery is not a change in what I see. What has changed is how I see it.

See these concepts up here. Faith, hope and love. Add to it acceptance, serenity, happiness, joy, freedom.

What I saw in these things when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous were gold

aspiration things to be attained.

I've been around since December the 1st 1977 and in this process, with a miracle of what I've come to know and how I see it today, is they are byproducts of a process.

They are loudly gold. They are wonderful byproducts of the process,

and while we don't spend a lot of time talking about anymore is the process.

You let anybody in this room set out to attain these things just on the basis of their own willpower and as a goal. I can promise you, you in for a rough ride and a lot of pain.

You follow the rules and the tools and the process and they always happen. A lot of change in what I see. I really want these things and frankly today I have most of them,

So what I see is not changed. What has changed is how I see it. I was around when when, when Bo and Shirley's boy got killed.

And I've known going surely ever since that time, I guess.

And I remember they were on the circuit and I'd hear him talk to you out there. And they really weren't able to string together a sentence, much less a paragraph.

It was a real joy to listen to them this time on this trip talk about that event.

What they saw has not changed their board that

what has changed is how they see it.

Instead of it being a curse,

it has been an opportunity on the blessing.

I don't know much about virgin births, and I don't know much about the crucifixions, and I know even less about resurrection

now. I choose to believe that all those things happen

and they are truly miracles. And I'm really, I'm really very devoutly

committed to those miracles. But let me tell you what I do know. I know alcoholism

for the last I'm a doctor and for the last 15 years of my life I've studied our disease intensely and as dramatically as anybody in this country. I'm one of the top five speakers in the world and lecturing on alcoholism to doctors and groups like that. I know about alcoholism because I've lived it. I'm 60 years old and I've lived it from the minute I hit the delivery room floor.

And what I know about alcoholism is something happened in May of 1935 that can't happen. It ain't possible.

Here's a drunk in a little old hotel in Akron. He's gone up there to pull off a deal at the shaky and shady as anything it's ever done. He's lying through his teeth. He's trying to cheat. He's trying to get back to the big Lick so he can come back and be the Big Wheel again. The deal is fall through the damn near soon. He can't say to get out of the hotel, and he's about five months sober and he doesn't have a sponsor. He doesn't have a meeting to call. He doesn't have a central office. He hasn't got any way in the world to deal with the thing that he knows will stop

a shame and the confusion. And he's walking up that hotel hall to decide what he's going to do, and he sees the bar and he doesn't drink. Take that to you computer and put it in there and see what's going to happen.

He turns to the right

and looks up a name of a drunk.

And because of that great miracle that happened, of course, in 1935, we're all here today.

Yeah, I know that miracle.

I know that miracle.

What I have become more deeply committed to in the past couple of three years is the preservation of the simplicity and the integrity of that miracle. Because see, after four years, what Wilson recognized and what that first 100 recognized is they were carrying a tail by word of mouth

and it was already becoming deluded. Even in 100 people, they were screwing up the story. You know, now we got two or three million and we wonder why we hear so many different stories.

So they decided to sit down and record the process

and end it. Amazing how many of us forget that there's a, that there's a, there's a set of directions,

yeah. But I've become absolutely committed

a is not being threatened from the outside. I love it when somebody arrives and used waiter on the front of the Wall Street Journal an article on suspicious not a genetic disease. It's not a disease at all. It's an act of will and everyone else will blow out of the woodwork and we're going to write a hate letter, get on the plane, castrate this kind of bitch who wrote it, and we're going to set the world right.

They don't represent us. When I order the threat of the threat to us is the first who's decided that he doesn't have to live by the rule of don't talk about me

sitting in a meeting not too long ago and put newcomers in our raised handset. I've got a resentment.

How do you all deal with remember, do there people talk about this one guy think so we're about 14 years to well, when I have a resentment, there's an oak tree out in my backyard and I'll go out there now run around that oak tree and I run around it and I run around it. I run around fine. I just get the tired up all day off and he said I feel so much better. I go in, I go to bed and they said, what's that? The next morning? Oh, it's still and I go there. I run around that old friend. I run around and I thought, hey, this man don't kill himself out there in that backyard running around that damn oak tree.

And a week later I'm in a meeting and I thought about a resentment and it's got to well I'll tell you what my therapist told me to do. That I have to sit down and write a letter

letting this sucker know everything he's done to me, at how much I hate his guts and everything. And then when I finish, I feel it and mail it to it.

How do you feel about that? I feel better. And the newcomer said I know what this program is. It's oak tree. Hates males. Anonymous. That's what it is,

yeah.

When I came in out No Economics 1977 in Louisville, KY at that point in time, it's what I call the dark ages of a A in Louisville.

I came in and I was dedicated saying sober, I'd had all that fun I could tolerate and I serious hell didn't like me. And I was I was just anything that would work. And I got in there and I asked and they said don't drink, go to meetings, get a sponsor, tell him everything is wrong with you. That'll clean it up and then go save a drunk.

And I heard that message so that I was willing to follow directions just like that. And I mean, I got out there and I told my sponsor everything. He'd tell me exactly what to do, and then I'd do it. Then I'd go save a drunk. I became a lethal weapon for God. I was everywhere. You know, they said here he comes. If you hadn't had a drink of beer, have one, because he's gonna put you in the treatment center. Anyway. Here he goes.

And I lived nine years that way on three steps. No, three in the third steps. The first three steps came easy. Whitkey, Whitney. I spiraled, took a fire greater than me, and I was willing to turn my life in my Willow. He was my sponsor. And then I ran all over Louisville saving drunk. Two things kept me sober in that first nine years. One with alcohol.

Alcohol whipped my butt, left me nothing. And I'll tell you what was even worse about being powerless over altar me. It wasn't that I couldn't quit drinking. It was that it couldn't. I couldn't make it work.

It reached the point where it would stop the diarrhea and it would stop the sweating, but it wouldn't stop the noise

and I'd get enough relief in my gut, enough relief from my bowels and enough relief like that so I could at least keep drinking a quart of whiskey a night.

So alcohol with me. The other thing that so I didn't even think about going back to drinking because the damn stuff didn't work

doesn't get me sober was working with newcomers. I mean, I was always somewhere working with a newcomer.

When I was a newcomer, I was working with eachcomer.

Most of the stuff they heard for me was was a bunch of bull, but that, but they heard, they touched, they felt and I was there and we were together like that. But after nine years in the program, a lot of these newcomers I've been working with, I found we're going off and leading me. Well, everybody lead me, 'cause I was busy with a three and a third step program. In this program, you're goofy, and I was goofy.

Finally, through a series of circumstances that were totally self-centered, I was driven to my knees

and it was real, real, interesting circumstances. Nine years in the program, All Alcoholics take hostages. We all take hostages.

It may not look that way from the next year. And my number one hostage was my wife.

I was the most wonderful benevolent dictator that ever lived.

And I mean, all this woman had to do to have life eternal was just take what I gave her. All she had to do was give it right back to me. I put her on my hip and we went to the Bahamas and we went here and we went there and we did that. We did this. And I mean, it was wonderful. We prayed together. We when I wanted to pray, we had sex together.

Sometimes I was alone, but most of that is right,

sex together, it was always on that turn. I had her right here on my hip and you know at 9 years this program she came up to me and she said Burns I never loved you more but I wanted to see she was in that. He said I want to go to my own meeting, but we always went to the meetings. I wanted to go to

shit. I want to go to my own meeting. I want to go back to school, and I want to go into therapy.

Well, see, what I heard, what I said was that's OK, honey. But what I heard was you're leaving me

all the way back from my mother. My relationship with women has been real well defined. I didn't know this until I did the number 4th and 5th steps and when it was in therapy. But my job description for all women in my life was take care of me and make me feel special.

Real simple. Not a hard job description but you sure as hell had to do it or you were history and there was another brought in. All it was a lot of subtle crap that went on before that happened. You know I leaked people off till they threw me out and I blamed on them and got me another one. But I ended up getting another one. Always did

no different. This time, nine years. The problem with three or third step broke. Three and a third step. What am I going to do? I'm gonna go do the only thing I know how to do. Change women.

But I've got nine years of programs I know you can't glass, so it's going to be a lot more subtle, right?

Lot more so.

So I, you know, in our setting we had seven doctors and there was a nurse that always worked with each one of the doctors. This nurse had worked with me for 2 1/2 years.

Perfectly normal relationship. But as soon as Casey was going to go back to school, go to her own meeting, Kathy began to look like an entirely different person. Not overnight,

but one day at a time. It evolved into this and this and shared about her boys that were growing up and her husband that she had divorced some years before and the next. One thing led to another and I was remember turning the key in the Holiday Inn room at the Holiday Inn and started crying. I said I don't want to get drunk,

but I knew I was screwed up.

My heart said you're deeply in love with this new woman and my head says you're crazy as a goat.

That's the first time I knew that feelings are always to be acknowledged. They're never to be trusted in isolation.

Do you trust defeating an isolation? You have about a 5050 chance that you're delusional.

If you're an alcoholic now, maybe you're not.

Maybe not an alcoholic and you're just a genius who knows it. I don't know.

But there's a series of circumstances that were brought on by total self centeredness

from the students. Credit teacher will always arrive in this program and a little patient amount came up with eight tapes

handed me said would you listen to these and see if they're any good and they were when Charlie's tapes, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And as I listen to those tapes, I realized the program I didn't have and I cried all the way through and my life changed.

The last 10 years of my life have been A twist and a 12 step program. And I got to tell you the difference in a 12 step program at three and a third step program is different than daylight and dark. I'll have a little fitness. Come with me and say,

why do I feel so miserable? Because you're sitting on your ass. You're not doing your work. That's why you feel miserable. Maybe I have a psychiatric problem. If you do, what are you going to do by work Steps 1st and we'll see what we got.

It's amazing most of them don't turn out to have psychiatric problems here itself in her little assholes like me

and

but my life changed

as I became a student of this book and I and I began to read this book. I became fascinated by the profundity of it,

became absolutely fascinated by the with the profundity of this, of this book. Bill Wilson called it the common property of all mankind. He said we don't have anything unique and quite frankly, he doesn't have anything unique except for one thing. With exceptions, the Washingtonian movement is the only movement that ever said one alcoholic would talk to another alcoholic

one-on-one and carry this message.

Washingtonian Live screwed up the rest of our principles, and so they died. And as I read this book, I became fascinated by what Wilson said. My problem is, I always thought my problem was alcohol and drugs, Wilson said. No. Your problem is you might the way you think

back even in this book at the down calls on their symptom and the bottles on this alcohol is only assembled in the bottles only as symptoms that person. You get the point.

In any event, I thought, wait a minute, he's right. Alcohol caused me problems. But it might not my problem. It's my thinking. And he called it fascinated enough, A peculiar mental twist.

And I think that's wonderful because any drunk who got the drank the way that I drank and got into trouble, I got into. Whoever goes back to drinking have to have a peculiar mental twit. I'll just be crazy. Hell yeah. Or just be stupid

and you run IQ's on us. We're not stupid. You run neuro psych profile life. We're not crazy, but we've got this peculiar mental twist

the way I'm not. When I came in, they said you stopped the drinking and don't deal with the thinking. You go back to the drinking

and it's the way my mind works.

And he never really wrote down in any IT introvert to tell you what the peculiar mental twist was. And I became fascinated by that. And in the years they've evolved, they've become, they become much simpler to me.

And the component. And if you ever wondered what this peculiar mental twisted, you never heard of the peculiar mental twist? For goodness sakes, read it. Because it's the thing that leaves every one of us back to relapse.

There's a whole industry that has grown out of the fact that we haven't read book. It's called relapse prevention, it's called long term treatment. Have no problem with relapse prevention or long term treatment, but it's usually for most people who don't take the time to have a sponsored read the book.

And the first part of the peculiar mental twist is being bigger than the rules. Let me tell you a joke. I heard this in Texas. So y'all really appreciate this joke I heard down at Beaumont. Y'all remember Damien? Damien Damien about older than God. He's been about 90 years old and so about 4550 years.

And he told a story that's confident. I speak of that in Beaumont Bayman always talks like he's got a flat brain wave. But if you lift me to Damon, he's really, really funny. He tells this wonderful story about the traveling salesman traveling all over East Texas. And he was what we call it may feel bad to drink. And he would travel from town to town, town. And each time he was going to town, he would get drunk and he'd stay at a week in that motel and he'd go out every night and get drunk and he'd come back and they'd set him up when he'd come back to keep his business in his in his way of setting up. Finally one of these

went home. He was beaten when his 28 day treatment center, whatever he did, but he got so when got me a he comes back to start running his circuit again. He checks into the motel goes out that night and Amy think he's going out to get drunk. Please comes back in. They stay much like they normally do. He switches on the light when he walks in shirt up beside the bed. There's a four to whiskey for the tub eye and on the foot of the bed are two beautiful women. And he looked at that scene and he said, well,

started going to a A and I asked him what I had to do to stay sober and be happy. And they said you got to quit drinking and change everything you're doing,

he said. So I can't drink that whiskey and one of you girls are going to have to leave.

And there's not a drunk in this room that ain't relate to that, you know.

Oh, let me, let me tell you a story. A month ago they asked me talking Nova Scotia. So I'm on the plane. And first of all, there's a lot of turmoil going on in my life at this time. And I frankly didn't want to take that long a trip. And I get on the plane and I'm going up there and I've had to pray to get my attitude right to get on the plane and go. And the plane takes off and we're going to get to Detroit.

Well, we land the plan and we have to go to another plane. And I go in there and we get on the plane. We're sitting there and the gal comes on, She said we are having a pilot comes. We are experiencing mechanical difficulty. We're not sure we can get this fixed. So we're going to ask you all the D plane

and we'll see what we need to do. So we all get out and we're all around this thing waiting and said the plane will not be able to fly and we're not going to be able to get a new piece of equipment. So we'll put you all up for the night. We'll put you all up for the night. Well, about this time a whole entourage of people come up from the other side of God knows where. It says this is where we're supposed to be. We go to Buffalo and they've already changed the thing on the heading from Nova Scotia to Buffalo. I said, well, you, you know, I don't know what's the deal yesterday. I don't deal with that plane so

broken it won't black. So we sit there about 30 minutes and finally think it's with everyone who's going to Buffalo. Please line up to the right while the people who are going to be here overnight are getting their ticket and getting worked out for tomorrow. We're at the left. These people go over there, they get their ticket, they walk through, get on that same plane. The sucker backs up and takes off.

I'm thinking I need to talk to president of this outfit.

I mean, I don't want to talk to the stewardess. I don't want to talk to the ticket man. I want to talk to the big cheese, you know?

So I decide that it isn't going to work. So I go get on the phone now, call my sponsor. I said, Jim, I just need to plate. I just need to talk to you for a minute. But he said, what you gonna do? And I said, well, he's talking. You have calm down. I'm just gonna go ahead and get, you know, get my room and whatnot. He said OK, that makes sense.

So I'm sitting there and I go over get my defects 3 hours to get this voucher to check in. I can I just stay in the hotel here in the in the airport? No, we can't let you stay there. I said OK, so they get the voucher X3 hours. We all pile in like you know, cubby or whatever it is and we go over to check into the second rate motel and I'm thinking wait a minute, I've worked all my life to have at least $50 more than the difference in these rooms. So I call I said I want to go back to that thing and I'll pay the difference. So they drive, drive me back over. When I

hotel desk, I said I've got a voucher here, I'm sure it's not an account. He thought, yeah, we'll accept that. You can go ahead and check in here. So I've checked in and I'm going upstairs. It's about and I called my wife because he's going to retreat at Notre Dame. And I told her that where I'm going to be, it's not to worry because I won't be calling him where I'm going to be. And she said, thanks, honey, I appreciate that.

So I go in, I get down beside the bed and I said, God, thank you for the dignity of helping me work through this. Thank you for being with you for with me. Thank you for calling my sponsor. Please forgive these incompetent sobs who are running this airline right now. And but I mean, I'm really doing a good job. And I go down to about 10:00 at this time and I go into the restaurant

and there's nobody there but just me. And I sit down on the last person they're going to serve and it's sweet. Waitress comes over and real pretty girl and we're talking and, and turns out that she was born and raised in East Tennessee. The reason that's important was that's where my wife was born and raised. He said my daddy's back down and my mother died. And I said, when did she die? About a month or two ago. And I said, oh, I'm sorry. I said, he said, daddy's really having a hard time and he's moved down there and I get to go down and see him periodically. So we talked finally when

the AT&T serves my work, she comes over and sits down at the table. We talk about another 30 minutes and I this is the first new an hour before. Thank God, thank you. And I started looking at her right now. I said I wonder if I get her in bed with me if I took her upstairs.

Yeah. And I go upstairs and see that alcoholism,

thanks. The peculiar mental twist. That's what sets behind my eyes. That tells me that I'm bigger than the rules.

Best part of my thinking. I've been privileged to work with thousands of Alcoholics from street people around. The addiction is for 200 men only shelter. We sleep 100 men a night and we got 200 men a night. We got a hundred, a hundred in a year long program of recovery. I'm the chairman of the Impaired Physicians Committee for the state of Kentucky. I worked with thousands of physicians and thousands of Alcoholics in between. I've seen the alcohol. We think like that

bigger than the rules. Driving down the road,

65 mile an hour speed zone. I'm going 95 because I'm burned. Brady handicap parking area. I'm only going to be here 5 minutes. Parking that thing, I can park there cuz I'm going to be here 5 minutes.

I don't believe in income tax evasion. I believe in income tax avoidance.

What they don't know won't hurt them. You screw them for they screw you. You know, peculiar, mental. It's bigger than the rule 3 and a third step program. Not a 12 step program. Plan my life for 50 years, not today.

About six months ago, I had periods of cyclical depression.

So did Bill Wilson. Amazingly enough, for both Bill Wilson and Burns Brady, we seem to have worse biblical depression when we're not working the program.

You study Bill Wilson. Yes, he had cyclical depression. He got real depressed when he didn't work the program.

So I suppose you're gonna say Bill Wilson didn't work the problem? Well, let me guy

is a messenger and I devoutly love the man and think just like him. And when I work my program I have these huge cyclical depressions. There's not more than there's been at least 5 psychiatrists and little one could be wanting to put me on antidepressants for five years.

Not sure. I said Ben, if I worked the program, I don't seem to get depressed, but when I don't, I get and I get almost like a red flag I get. I just pull myself down in a bunker and nobody comes close to me. Not because it used to be that way because I saw they would tell me I was wrong. Now I don't want to hurt them because nothing is sacred and I got into this program because I got tired of hurting people.

Usually lasts about two to three days.

Nobody can talk to me

this Saturday morning. And six months ago Casey came over and said by the dead and looked at me and she said I love you so much, I need to talk with you. And I looked at her, didn't say anything. She said, Burns, I need to tell you that you've gotten bigger than the program.

And I thought, damn, how could? She said if you followed me each day, I guarantee it's a spiritual journey that you love every minute of it.

I'd say work, she said. Do you have a college response here in six months?

If the shoe fits, worried

in college are sponsored 6 months.

She left and I nailed down the side of the bed and prayed and realized I hadn't. I've had three sponsors, first and for the first nine years and 2nd for the second nine years and one for six months. And I got down to my knees and prayed when I hadn't called my sponsors and mute the time to change sponsors. And I called Jack my my sponsors in and told him what I was going to do. I told him I'd like to meet with him and tell him what I was going to do. But I understand that and I got another start to your meeting. I meet with him every Tuesday and we talk every Tuesday, have breakfast. We go to three meetings a week together, but we talk every

just the two of us. The keyater mental twist bigger than a rule. The second part of the peculiar mental twist for me is victimization.

I played it ever since I started. Oh yeah, I'm an alcoholic because I was born poor.

I have to caddy at the Country Club rather than to belong to the Country Club. I remember walking down the fairway and see those little smock, those rich boys diving in the pool. Think it's those little

I hated them. I hated their father, I hated my motherfucker. I was poor fan been born poorer.

I wouldn't be an alcoholic. Oh, I went to college, but I had to work my way through college. Mother and daddy couldn't afford me a car. So I had I was married that rich witch that was my first wife. If she had I'd had money. I wouldn't have married her. I had married her. I wouldn't have those two smart nosed kids

if a medical profession had any concept of my brilliance. They wouldn't have me on report after damn time, you know,

the victimization goes on and off. If I didn't have this doctor right now who's trying to beat our program, I wouldn't be tired up at 12:00 at night, calling him, telling the judges together, you know,

all of them, making me miserable. Victimization.

Wilson knew we wouldn't understand victimization, so he called it resentment.

He knew we wouldn't understand being bigger than a rule so he called it self centeredness.

Final part of the peculiar mental twist is what I call the square peg round hole, bigger hammer syndrome.

If the square peg won't fit in the bigger in the round hole and just get a hammer and beat hell out of it to respect, you know. And every drunk I've ever known lived every day of his life with the square pig, round hole, bigger hammer syndrome mentality.

Interestingly enough, it came out of the second-half of the first step. But the manageability of life. Who's going to manage my life?

Who's going to be my CEO? And the reason it's the absolute death clutch with the manageability of life is the fear that it won't turn out the way I want it to turn out.

I'm going to lose something I've got or not get something I want that's not original. That's I was 12 and 20. So I squeezed it and I squeezed it and I squeezed it and I squeezed it about. It's so sick

that if whiskey worked for me, I don't have one moment doubt that I'd take a drink of it.

But instead of drinking whiskey,

I see that beautiful blackheaded gal walking down the street, or I see that Mercedes cars sitting over in the shoulder, or I see that $1000 set to the clothes. Can't afford any of those

but there is short term cure, aren't they

the basis of the basis of the basis of square pea ground whole bigger hammer syndrome? Is fear the only resolution for these

better than the rules? Victimization, fear, resentment, and control is spirituality.

Spirituality is not vague to me anymore.

Three corners of a beautiful triangle. Sponsored meeting Victor

Sponsored newcomer You ever heard this? Someone with 20 years of recovery is good for your hail right now.

Sponsored meeting Facebook.

When I'm not using all three of those on a daily basis, I get crazy. That's when the peculiar mental twist gets me.

Had three sponsors, each of them God-given person with meaner than a goat. I don't mean this to say I was tough. I had a tough ass sponsor. No, he was mean and he was sick and he was vicious and he still is. But God gave him to me, and he brought me things no one else could ever brought me in this program.

I wouldn't recommend him to be sponsored to a goat,

but he was my sponsor and he brought me things nobody could brought me. And as the years go by and I look back, I become more deeply grateful for that man every day of my life

that can sponsor brought me something that no one else ever brought me. He taught me love and tolerance. Jack S is a circuit speaker from Louisville and Jackets is opinionated as I am. And I watched him be able to get along with people and concepts that I couldn't seem to fathom. And I wanted what he had. And for nine years, he led me into being able to do that.