Burns B. from Louisville, KY speaking in Joplin, MO

My name is Burns Pree and I'm an alcoholic. Thank the committee for asking me to come to talk. This is a beautiful room. It just feels good. I'm sure all the other speakers have recognized that.

It just feels warm. I can see your faces. It's just a wonderful room and to have a little bit of celebration I think. I'm really honored to be asked. Dave talked a little bit last night about my talking and how they give me an extra day to get my talk together And I really appreciate that and Dave is a special person.

He is a living testimony to the fact that some of us are sicker than others. We do a bunch of newcomers meetings in Louisville and there are 2 of us that do it. And we switch roles at times. And on one night I'll come in and be disheveled looking and things like that and the next time he'll come in that way and when we sit down and talk to the newcomer what we used to say is, now if you don't get into this program and do what we're going to ask you to do, you're going to end up looking like Dave only. But I do appreciate it and that's the kind of spirit that's in the Alcoholics Anonymous and deeper than real.

It's just been really a gentle and kind with me and we walked around in the mall and he endorsed one of my impulses that I bought a new suit. I don't even have any idea if the damn thing fits. It just looked pretty in the window. So I bought the suit. I do think it's got a 32 waist, so I know that's ridiculous all over the time.

But I'll take it home and all through that. I can't help it. Every time I see a good looking suit, I usually buy it. It has been an emotional time for me listening to the speakers. It started last night when we lit the candle And I don't know why.

It just it struck me that the Statue of Liberty stands as a beacon for those who are helpless and hopeless and homeless. And I don't know of any beacon that stands any brighter than this candle of Alcoholics Anonymous For that young man who came up last night and for whoever is the person who's going to snuck it out, what an incredible amount of things that go on during that period of time will go on that young man's life. I couldn't help but think about this beacon of hope and how much it's meant to me, the light that shines through each individual member of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al Anon in the rooms like this. The speakers have been very emotional to me and amusing at times, but very emotional. Sandy last night I couldn't help but she's the same age as my daughter who's been in AA 10 years.

And Libby's curled up on that lap and we shared that this morning curled up on my lap and when she first came into program and said, Daddy, I don't want to go to those meetings and mother is crazy as hell. And I said, Sissy, you're going to need to go to the meetings and your mother is crazy as hell. I'm 3 quarters of the way through my resentment or that's concerned, but I really am. And I listened Beverly and that's sorry coming up over here somewhere, but it's yes. And first time I met her and it was such a beautiful lady and I really didn't know what the attraction was at first until I heard you watched you talking.

And take this for exactly what I mean, when my mother was your age, she was a lot older when she died and a lot sicker she died of cancer. But when she was your age, she looked and talked and acted a lot like you look and talk and act. And I've always regretted deeply that the program wasn't there for my mother. She was not an alcoholic and I will talk about it, but she was absolutely decimated by the disease of alcoholism. And she would have been just like you.

And I really appreciate it. Well and surely that I've known him for some time, haven't been around him that much and incredible amount of things are going on and the great faith that's there. We all know that it will be all right. Most of all you all know it. I love you very much and I appreciate what you share.

They were razzing me about forgetting my talk and I may do it tonight. Somewhere now I'll pick it up and start over because there's a lot of funny things in it and a lot of dumb things in it and a lot of emotional things in it. But I did forget it one night talking down in mountaintop roundup and Rod happened to be there and he sent me messages from everywhere all over the United States that say, Dale Brady not forget his talk again tonight. Well, it reminds me and I may forget it, but don't bother me, we'll pick it up somewhere else. Or if I lose it, I'll get Brian up here.

We'll get another Sunday morning speaker. We'll get somebody. It's going to go on, well, I'm up here finishing my talking. On that. Reminds me of a story of Father Martin and I love this story because it just tells you a lot and a bunch of us in this room can relate to this.

We're getting old enough where sometimes our brains get kind of like a sieve and had to do with memory and he was talking about this old priest who was about 95 years old. And this old priest had his mind was sharp, but he couldn't remember anybody's name. So he found a mechanism to do it. He would write down names inside his lapel, inside his coat when he's going to do any talking. He's 95 years old.

So they had him in this night for the celebration of a younger priest who was 70, who was retired, who'd been one of his protege. So he got up there and he had everything and he said, I am really grateful to be here at this meeting honoring my dear friend, my closest protege, this man who has been a confidant of mine all of his life, my dear friend, Father O'Reilly, who has been the minister and who has been the priest at this wonderful, wonderful parish, this parish that has given me most of my life, the parish of St. Michael's. Most of all I'd like to thank Father for those years of devotion laboring long and hard in the vineyards of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So if it goes tonight, I'll flip it here and we'll keep right ongoing.

I gave a talk in Southern Indiana right across the river from Louisville, regular meeting of mine, I know most of the people in the AA community there and most of them know me. And as I walked in the back door, when I said, you talking? Said, yes, it's Tom here so and so's birthday. And I said, well keep it honest and keep it short. And I said, well I'm not sure I can do both.

He said, then keep it short. So I don't know whether it will be short or long, but honest to God, I'll try to I will try to make it honest as we go through this thing. I do need to clear up a couple of things before I start. When I first came in this program and I was attending conferences early like this, when I came in and sat down and was going to hear a speaker, I assumed that that speaker had a straight line to God and had everything exactly right. And I would sit down because you all had asked him to talk, so that mean he really had to be something special.

So, I would sit there and I think whatever he does, I'm going to do it just like he does it. And I damn near got drunk playing with some of those things I do. I didn't get drunk, but I got crazy as a living. And I'll tell you that because I need to tell that person who maybe feeling that way that I feel, I'm just haven't been able to say it. But what I'm going to tell you is it's not necessarily the right way to recover or the only way to recover or anything like that.

It's my story. If you can use it, please use it. Never is there anywhere in this story tonight do I intend to offend or in any way abuse any of the traditions, any of the steps or any of the people. It is just my story. It's my life as I see it today.

I found very few constants in this program but one of the constants that I found is change. There is constantly a change, an evolution of my insights and my spirituality. I've heard people call it different plateaus of growth. That does I understand that, I have no problem with it. But what I can relate to is different plateaus of surrender.

Every wall that I've hit has taken me to that next plateau of surrender, surrendering to God's power and my responsibility. And the balance between those 2 are exactly what this growth process and recovery has been to me, different plateaus of surrender. The next thing I found in this program that has not changed for me is that from the minute I walked in this program, I walked in completely surrendered to my powerlessness over alcohol. Alcohol beat me. It whipped me.

It drove me to my knees. It left me nothing. And when I came in this program, I didn't come in to argue. I didn't come in to debate. I came in pleading that someone could give me whatever was necessary for me not to have to take a drink of whiskey again.

For those people I listen to in meetings that say they're not quite sure whether they're alcoholic and they're working with that, My prayers go to them with such intensity and my love I'm hoping is strong enough like it was for me when I came in the program because I cannot imagine anything more difficult than working with these steps going through this process of pain and recovery when you're still wondering if you can take a drink. Because that commitment to not taking a drink has enabled me to bear more pain and enjoy more joy than I ever thought humanly possible without alcohol. Finally, the last thing that has never changed at least today and there may be other things as I go through this process, but at least today the next thing that has not changed is my absolute belief to take a power greater than me to restore me to sanity. I was talking about when I came in here the insanity of drinking. As I've stayed sober in this program now for almost 14 years, I found it even more important and you know how important it was that power if you're like me greater than yourself to restore you to the sanity from the insanity of drinking.

I'm talking about the insanity today of sobriety, Because it gets goofier out there with me sober and sometimes it did when I was drunk. You get anybody drunk, they're going to act goofy. Now, they didn't act as goofy as I acted, thank God. But and most of y'all, I'm going to let y'all off there, because y'all probably got about as goofy as I did listen to most of these stories. But sober.

I have been the victim of such incredible delusion at times and so much incentive which I'll share with you that it has taken that power even more prevalent in my life and with me every day that 6th sense that God consciousness to help me be aware of my frailties, my humanness. Alcohol has been called a disease of perception. Basically what that means to me is I can take that gentleman back there in that purple shirt. I can make him anything I want to make him or I could when I was drinking to twist him into whatever I had to twist him into being to enable me to take a drink. Now I thought it was my ex wife.

I thought it was being born poor and having a caddy rather than belong to Country Club. I thought it was the medical profession who didn't respect my innate genius. I had every conceivable answer for exactly whatever it took to get me drunk. Because sooner or later, I got drunk and why not hell would you blame me with all of them? I I mean that was the disease of perception that was there.

Now recovery has also been a difference in perception. Let me share it with you because it really is important. I grew up in a little town in Western Kentucky named Mayfield. I grew up in a home where there was no alcohol and there were no drugs. My grandfather died drinking Lye Water in the Mayfield City Jail.

My mother is a true adult child of an alcoholic. She was not an alcoholic, but she was raised in that alcoholic home. And when you read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, you recognize in so many words what it says is, if you grow up around or if you live with one of us, you get goofy. You can't help but get goofy living around one of us, you just do. Putting up with us, you got to be crazy or goofy.

Well, most of you are crazy, you're just goofy. Well, mother grew up in that home where she was sexually, mentally, emotionally and physically molested. She brought into the home, into our home all of that guilt and shame and resentment and anger and all of those things that untreated alcoholism has that goes with it. And my brother and I were raised in a home where there was a lot of love. We went to Sunday School in church.

We went to prayer meeting on Wednesday night. There was a lot of support and a lot of love in our home. But mother truly was wracked with that undealt with alcoholism. My daughter when she was 5 years sober came to me and looked at was able to say to me with the recovery she had, Daddy, when you were drinking I loved you so much. But I'd go to bed at night and pray that you die because I hated your guts.

And those are the kind of feelings that mama never got to deal with about her daddy. They treated alcoholics in Mayfield that time in the early 30s in a pretty traditional way. When they got drunk, they put them in jail. When they sobered up, they put shackles on their ankles and they put them out on the streets and they worked in the chain gang. And my mother would walk to school in a little 12,000 town, the people town watching her daddy at least once a month sweep the Mayfield City Street, how does that feel?

Picture it, maybe some of you had the same experience. I was spared that. My daughter was not in one form or another. But I know the kind of feelings that my mother brought into that home and how much she had to work and love that little lady, I worshipped her. I was very fortunate the last year of her life was the 1st year of my sobriety.

And I got to spend every weekend with her and we worked through almost everything that we need to work through. And she never quit loving me and I never quit loving her. But that was the kind of home I was raised in. Now, alcohol and drugs were not a problem for me. That thinking was getting real strange way back then.

I became perfect because I realized that when I was perfect, I was mother's child. When I was semi perfect, I was daddy's child. And when I wasn't quite either one, I was anybody that take me child and they were willing to farm me out. But I became perfect because I wanted to be perfect. I mean I looked like maybe one day I might be President of the United States, but never a drunk because all of my accolades were perfect.

Alcohol and drugs are no problem. Went to college and alcohol and drugs are no problem. Now alcohol affected me almost different from 1st drink. Little college I went to the women's campus on one side of town, men's campus on the other side of town and what we do on Saturday nights we get drunk. Now 5 days a week I'd study, straight A student.

I'd study Monday through Friday and on Saturday I'd go to the fraternity house and everybody got drunk. I got drunk too. We pile on the back of a flatbed truck and go over to the women's campus to say, I need the women. We get over there and we'd perhaps stand up and we'd just be singing up a storm and I'd just take off all my clothes and stand there butt naked, just singing up a storm. Nobody else ever got naked, just birds.

And I like to say that nobody sent me flowers, no phone calls, no cards. So I'll tell you who did notice, the dean noticed. Oh, yeah. They have a way of doing that. He called me and he said, Vernon, if you weren't such a good student, we'd have to ask you to leave school.

And he said, your behavior is a little bizarre. And I was going to think, man, it's right. It is a little bizarre. He said, we've noticed that you do that when you drink, why don't you quit drinking? And I said, I think you're right.

So, I quit drinking, I quit getting naked and everything went along just fine. Got out of college and went to medical school. My freshman year in medical school, I walked in there and I was wracked with those feelings that we can relate to. There was something missing in me. You know the feeling?

There was something missing in me. I didn't know how the rest of them felt, but I made straight As and I walked in there and all of a sudden looking at these guys and gals and getting ready to start medical school, I thought I can't do this. Something's wrong with me. I'm not as good as they are. There was no reason for me to feel that way, but irritable, restless and discontent has been a part of my soul for as long as I can remember.

I've always been chasing something. And I said, I can't do this. Frightened, packed my clothes, get ready to come home, one of my friends walked in and I said, where are you going? I said, I'm going home, Bill. I can't do this.

He handed me a little capsule. He said, take this. It will enable you to stay awake and study. He handed me an amphetamine. Everybody in medical school took amphetamine.

Everybody else quit, except me. I didn't quit. And 2 weeks before graduation, my senior year, they kicked me out of medical school for taking amphetamine. I beat up one of my medicine professors when I was in an amphetamine rage and they came got me and took me to the head of department of psychiatry. Doctor.

Keller looked at me, he said, Burns, what's wrong? I said, Doctor. Keller, I take too many drugs. He said, do you believe that? And I said, yes, sir, I do.

He said, we can help you. I said, what you're going to do? And he said, we're going to put you in intensive psychiatric therapy. Let me tell you real quick, I'm not anti psychiatric. It is a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Some of the major influences in Alcoholics Anonymous were psychiatric, Harry Tebow, for example, knows you know the history of AA. I am anti ignorance. And I've been very fortunate because I did get my medical dream 4 years and this program my sponsor took me aside and said, now it's time for you to learn about the disease alcoholism because we want you to go out and teach doctors. And I've been able to tour this country as probably one of the leading experts in the field of alcoholism. I know what I'm doing.

I know what I'm doing and I think it was exactly why God enabled me or left me to become a physician to be able to do that. To be able to do that not as my service work, but it's certainly I've been allowed to expand and I think to further insights into alcoholism for those of us who treat us. What psychiatry did do for me though and they gave me a lot. They taught me how to identify feeling. When I came to you, you put that feeling in a structure starting with a 4th step and you and they taught me how to identify fear and anger and resentment and guilt.

A lot of my feelings were sideways. I didn't know that a lot of my fears were just pure gut resentment because they wouldn't let me hear what I wanted. And I wandered around trying to identify feelings except they had helped me learn feelings. Now, they didn't keep me even taking dope because their contract was to help me learn feelings and develop insight. It wasn't until I got to you and you brought me the spiritual solution that the whole puzzle became complete.

And I stayed pissed at psychiatry for a long time because I didn't think that they had brought me a spiritual solution. And then I looked at their contract and you know what it doesn't say in there they're going to bring me a spiritual solution. Said they're going to teach me some insight. When I got to y'all, I said they're going to give me some therapy. And you said, no, we ain't.

We're going to give you a spiritual solution. And it took me about 5 years to realize that AA meetings aren't therapy sessions. And you look at one of the greatest pseudo therapist in the world. I spent that first 5 years in therapy in AA meetings and finally driven to my knees at 8 years I found out it was a spiritual solution, a beautiful combination. But here's what psychiatrist said to me.

The psychiatrist said, we think that you can figure out why you take that dope and you'll quit. I said, what do you mean? He said, if you figure out why you take it, you don't have to take it anymore. You're going to think yourself into a way of acting. Makes sense, doesn't it?

We're taught cognitive thinking. We're taught cause and effect. If this happens, that's going to be the consequence of that cause and effect thinking. That's exactly why we don't go the wrong way or one way street. Why?

Because if we do that, they'll put me in jail, makes all the sense in the world. So it made sense that it would work with taking amphetamine. If I could figure out why I took it, I wouldn't have to take it, I was going to think myself that was their perception had a drug and I said, how do you feel? And I said, scared of death. And I said, why are you scared?

Well, they're going to then. And I said, how do you feel? And I said, scared to death. Why are you scared? Well, they're going to be watching me.

Why are they going to be watching me? Because I beat one of them up. Well, is that a realistic fear? Yes, it is. Should they be watching?

Yeah. How do you feel? Well, I feel afraid but it's a realistic fear. Well, so now you know the feeling, you can own the feeling. The feeling won't have to own you and you won't have to take that note.

Makes sense. Walked into medical school in 45 minutes, I was hiring Cooter Brown. Just bewildered, crushed, crying, hell, I didn't know what it was. What did I do wrong? Well, I did graduate.

I stayed on that dope that whole year and they'd take me home when I'd get too burned up and they'd put me to bed. My wife was married and had a small child and the professors knew what I was doing. They turned their back. I was a good kid. All of a sudden this program stick around and good.

We got a streak of goodness, it's wideness. We really do want to be here for the right reasons, do the right thing, help somebody. We're tired of hurting people. That's exactly why we stick around this program for all of those reasons and they're good reasons. We find so many other things, but that's a hell of a good place to start from.

And I was that kind of person and they didn't want to flunk me out of medical school. They just didn't know what to do with me again. They just turn around. They asked me to go to Indiana. Hell, they tried to do anything and figure out to get rid of me.

But they he's got a cold he had, I had the flu 43 times a year. Finally, I got out of school. For the next 6 years, I was in the mental hospital in Louisville four times strapped down IV fluids, straight jackets, padded cells, the whole bit. I'd stay off for a while. Soon as the authorities got that close to smoke up my butt, I'd cool off and quit for a while.

And just bewildered, just bewildered. Finally went in the Army in 1967 and I was the officer in charge of the dispensary and I had the only key to the pharmacy. That's like putting a fox in the chicken house. But I had this figured out. See, I was going and I'd take that little pellets, amphetamine things and I'd take out 2 pellets at a time.

And if you take out 2 pellets at a time, after about a week or 2, you got one of those pellets out of that thing and they miss it. And since I had the only key, they came and said, We're going to kick you out of the army. And I said, Well, I'll quit and I did. So I came home and I sat down in 1970 and I said, I wonder why they keep putting me in mental hospitals and tried to kick me out of the army. And I said, I bet it has to do with that drug.

See, I mean, you could go down here. It didn't take a rocket scientist figure that out, right? It took me 12 years to figure that out. And my last drug was 1970. Then I started drinking.

And I drank 4 years with an alcoholic. I got drunk a lot, but I didn't set out to get drunk. I didn't set out to stay sober. I didn't set out to go to restaurants that only served alcohol. I didn't set out to just pick friends that drank.

And for 4 years it was an alcoholic, it's too much. But alcohol didn't consume my life. Then I went into alcoholic drinking for 3 years and during those 3 years it was if I'm going to go to UK football games, I've got to drink just this much or I'll miss the game. If I drink this much maybe I can drive out of the parking lot or I'll go to this restaurant, but only one drink or I'll go to that restaurant because they have better scotch. That scotch over there is what gets me sick.

But it was alcoholically, Every single move was was absolutely commandeered by and I never drank in my office. So therefore, I wasn't an alcoholic. Honestly, when I looked at it and did a good 4th and 5th step, after I got in the program, I realized that my office hours for the last 2 months of my practice lasted 15 minutes. 5 minutes to get there, 5 minutes to go through and 5 minutes to get home and that's the way it was. And I literally had to because I was drinking because it's only thing stopped the diarrhea, it would stop the sweating, it would stop the shaking, it would at least give me a few moments of peace.

It didn't give me the relief that that first drink had, but at least it would stop those physical symptoms and signs of just pure addictive alcoholism. The December 1, 1977, I sit in an apartment in La Fontaine. Casey who's not with me and is my beautiful wife, she was my first wife and I had separated that time and she I don't know how to make it without Casey. I've heard people say that if they came into alcohol, it's not you got to come in because you want to stay sober. Well, I wanted to stay sober, but I sure as hell didn't want to lose her.

She was my greatest cheerleader and somebody I love deeply. It grows with time and as you hear this story unfolds you will hear the sickness of alcoholism when there came a time 8 years in this program where I wanted to get rid of her. She called me tonight before the talk and we used to go together. But sometimes you just have to make concessions because they just have to be made. And she called me tonight and she said, I love you.

I said, I love you too. She said, you got that suit on that you always wear, don't you? And I said, yes. And she said, you know, you'd have been a hell of a baddest preacher. I'm a baddest.

I was raised bad. That's not a put down and I would have been a good baddest preacher. That's just the way it was. Oh, I I love this suit. Yeah.

I really like to look like Jim Williams. He used to always come dressed in suits like shoes. Now I'm going to have a suit. But that's the kind of lady I'm married to and she sends her best and she truly does and she's a wonderful lady. She's gone to work and I couldn't figure out how to quit drinking.

I knew I couldn't drink anymore. I thought well, I knew I couldn't take dope anymore and I sit there and I said, well, I'll smoke marijuana. I said, who are you kidding? For some reason you can't take any Ludoforin medicine. And I thought that I've got to live out there without Ludoforin medicine can't be done, not for me.

And I can't live out there without it and I can't live here with it. There's not much other choice is there. And then the choice really came just like that, take my life. And the relief I felt to take in my life was incredible. Peace came over me and I went in loaded a shotgun, put it in my mouth, became aware of a burning desire to live.

I wasn't afraid of dying, I was afraid of living. I mean, in the minute that I became aware that I wanted to live, it's just like somebody blew a hole through me and I literally crawled over the phone and called a good friend of mine, a psychiatrist, said David, please help me. And I went to see him, he sent me off to a treatment center in New York, transferred me to treatment center in Atlanta, lived at a halfway house 3 months, came home, got in Dialcholix Anonymous and came to you people. I've listened to a lot of 5th steps in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I don't think I've ever heard one that was unique, but each 5th step I've ever heard there is something that to me appears that it's God's piece in that puzzle for that individual to share that maybe a little different. I think the only thing that's really different in my story is I took one drug for 12 years alone, just that drug and it damn near destroyed me.

I quit that drug and took another one for 8 years, same sewer in here, damn near destroyed me. What I found out is no mood altering drug will work in this alcoholic, none. I'm not telling you what will work in you or whether you should take I'm telling you about me. I can take an antihistamine and go over and sit in the corner and I'll sit there for 4 hours and count my toes and don't give a damn how many of them there are. It can be 5, 7, 11 and I'm not putting on too much.

It just doesn't really bother me too much. Neither does anything else, including responsibility, punctuality, anything like that. But no mood altering. If there's anybody in this room that's at that point and they think maybe they can smoke a little dope, take a little Valium. If you got that problem, maybe drink a little alcohol, you might be able to do it.

My sponsor, Jack, when I'm going up to him and talking to him sometime and I work through this program and using my steps to say on a 5 step when I go through some of these problems with him, he has this interesting way of delivering me a message. He I'll say, Jack, what's that how does that sound to you? And he said, you know, Burns, that might work for you. I never seen it work for anybody else, but it might work for you. So I tell you it may work for you, but I never seen it work for anybody else.

So whatever works for you, you can try. When I came to you this was your perception. I walked into you people and I said what have I got to do to stay sober? He said you do anything we tell you to do. You're going to act yourself into a way of thinking.

180 degrees, psychiatry says you're going to think yourself into a way of acting. You said you're going to act yourself into a way of thinking. The profundity of Alcoholics Anonymous is incredible. Yes, it's simple. But for starters, we have to act ourselves in the way of thinking.

We ain't got anything but squash for brains for about 2 years. You have to act. And I'll talk more about it, but you have to act. If you're sick as I was, you had that accounting was difficult. You have to act yourself.

I said, what do you want me to do? He said, we want you to not drink, go to meetings and read the big book. Never changes. It has to be simple for me. I can take a plate of spaghetti, it's all screwed up and I'll mess it up in about 5 minutes.

It's got to be simple. Got to be simple. Don't drink, go to meetings and read the big one. I said, I know how it is with at least with me. I've got to figure out why you all spend all this time on this.

Don't drink. Well, I know don't drink. Why they spend so damn much time ever dying? We got to be don't drink. Why are they worried about that?

Now, I heard Tate the Sandy Beach, he said every time he got drunk, it was a direct result of drinking. He said he had never gotten drunk without drinking. I thought, by God, that's why they spend so much time on that. So I put that over here. I said, don't, I've got that sucker figured now.

Let me get to this meeting bit. So I'm going to reflect for you what meetings have come to mean to me as I look back over these years of sobriety. Let me tell you about that home I grew up in. Mother as I told you was an adult child and I became perfect and they know what adult children was, but she was really messed up being raised around alcoholism. And when I was a junior in high school, I had a couple of beers one night and I came in and I was not drunk.

I didn't drink, but I had 2 beers one night and I came in I got sick and I threw up on living floor. Daddy came out of mother and dad's bedroom and he would swipe my mouth off and he said, Burns back, you go on up and go to bed. We'll talk about it. You've been drinking. I said, yes, sir.

He said, you're not drunk. I said, no, sir, I'm just sick. He said, well, we'll talk about it in the morning. As I started up the steps, mother came roaring out of the bedroom grabbed me by the hair of the head and went pow pow pow, I'll never talk to you you little bastard. And I sit there and it took a lot of psychiatric therapy and a lot of 4th and 5th steps before I was ever able to admit what I thought.

And I didn't say it. I wouldn't have dared said it in our home. Our home was based on a lot of love and respect and this had no place to be said. But what I thought was I looked at my mother and I said, and I'll never trust you, you bitch. And when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I still didn't trust anybody.

I've been deacon in 5 churches. I've been in 8 years of psychiatric therapy and I was still a drug addict and an alcoholic. And when I came to you people, if it wasn't here, it wasn't going to be anywhere. And I couldn't trust you. And let me tell you what I found out about Alcoholics Anonymous.

It's a perfect program, but it's composed of a lot of sick people in varying degrees of recovery. The motives are not always pure. You know? Sandy alluded to it last night. And I found out that, by God, people in this program wanted to get my wife's britches from time to time.

They wanted to get my britches from time to time. You know? And I found out and I thought, oh, what? I don't I couldn't tell the guys with the white hats and the guys with the black hats. Where am I going to find somebody?

And I began to look in their eyes. I said, why you won't take me out to have a cup of coffee? They say, and I found one because we want to stay sober and we want you to stay sober. And I began to look in the eyes and I'd see people who are at home. I began to see the winners and I began to follow the winners and I began to trust.

And for the first time trust was coming back into my life or coming into my life. I began I had no choice. I found the winners and began to trust, begin to trust. We clean up that thing with mother before I go on. When I went into treatment, I stayed there for 3 months and they want me to stay for 4 or 5.

It was time to come home and I knew it was. I knew inside here, talk to all the people at home they said, yes, it's time to come home. Well, as I got ready to leave, they fought and they beat on me pretty hard about staying a little bit longer. And finally, accounts are the last day, said, Burns, I know you're going home. And he said, I don't think you should.

I know you're going. We need to deal with a couple of things. And I said, what? He said, we need to deal with your anger. I said, you kiss my ass.

Ain't nothing wrong with my anger. So he took me over and he got a circle. There circle. There were about 20 people in this therapy session. He put a chair here and put a chair here and he and I looked at each and he said, I want to ask you a series of questions.

You answer them as quick as you can. Don't worry about the answer, just answer it. First thing he says, who do you hate most in your whole life? I said, I hate my mother's guts. And it seemed like an eternity, but it wasn't more than 15, 20, 30 seconds and when it was over after all those questions, I was on my knees, on the floor, hugging his legs, crying about how much I love my mother and how much I hated me.

And he picked me up and kissed me on the cheek and he said, now you know what the problem is. You go home and get an AA and you'll find what you need to find. But he said, let me tell me about your mother. And as I started talking about her walking to school, watching my grandfather sweep the Mayfield City streets, he looked at me and said, how do you think she fell? And I became aware of her pain and her shame.

And he said what do you want to do? And I said I want to help my mother, I want to hold her. He said you found the first step in recovery other than just being powerless is what can you do for another human being. Love your mother, walk in her shoes. She won't be perfect but learn to love her.

I'd always loved her, but it sure helped. Let me tell you something else about meetings. I found that things that don't go to meetings don't hear what happens to them that don't go to meetings. Jim tells a wonderful story and I'm sure you've heard about when he got into AA, his sponsor come and drag him to meetings, drag him to meetings. He said, finally, I'd try to hide from him.

He'd find me. He said, finally, one night I hid it, he couldn't find me. Said he couldn't find me and he said, he called me that day and said, well, you missed it last night. He said, what? He said, you didn't hear what you're supposed to hear.

He said, what was it? He said, I don't know. I heard what I was supposed to hear. You'll never know what you're supposed to hear. I've never walked out of an AA meeting that I didn't take something with me.

It may have even been a feeling that was resentment, but when I took it home and worked on it, it became a gift. Literally on almost every meeting I've ever walked out of, I walked out of with a better feeling than I walked in, but always something. When I travel this country talking to doctors and large legal groups talking about this disease of alcohol and putting all those formulas on the board and showing them all those things that Silkforce do, you got a physical allergy to mental obsession. They said, right, put it all formula on the wall and I do and they say, I understand the formula. They'll finally say to me, why do you all really ever drink again?

And I said, because we forget what happened to us the last time we drank. He's all don't give us that, tell us give us some more formulas. You read that book, books that there'll be a day when we will not be able to bring back into our memory with sufficient power. What happened to us the last time we got drunk? That's alcoholism.

If it wasn't that, then I'd have to either be crazy or stupid. And I'm not crazy and stupid. I got the disease of alcohol. I literally won't remember. Everybody I've ever talked with when they came when I was early in this program and they came back from a slip and I was afraid didn't think they'd shoot me, I'd walk over and I'd take their hand.