ESH: Cathy B

ESH: Cathy B

What makes a recovery story truly inspiring? Cathy B (Kathy Burns) answers that with raw honesty, humour and a deep love for Alcoholics Anonymous as she shares at the Oceanfront Conference, where the theme is “spiritual awakening.” This is classic AA speaker-meeting style: one voice, a full story, no cross-talk. Cathy speaks directly to anyone who feels broken, hopeless or stuck in the revolving door of white chips.

She calls Alcoholics Anonymous “the most wonderful thing that's ever happened in my entire life” and describes how she became “nothing like I was before I found the program.” You’ll hear her early chaos – running away, institutions, violence, blackouts, and waking up with strangers – and the moment she first wondered if *she* might be the problem.

There’s dark humour in her stories about stealing her dad’s Jack Daniels, shotgunning Pabst Blue Ribbon as a child, and being so far gone that, as she puts it, “that’s pretty bad when jail won't even take you.” The heart of the talk is relapse, surrender and spiritual growth.

With nine years dry before going back out, Cathy explains how meetings slowly slipped away, how near-beer opened the physical craving again, and how her sponsor and home group had quietly become her higher power. She’s clear that “all I had was the willingness to say, whatever you want me to do, I'll do,” and that this small willingness, plus the steps, rebuilt her life.

Cathy talks about rebuilding through service, strong sponsorship, starting a new big book group, and a simple God of love: “If it's love, it's God. If it's not, it's not.” Her message to newcomers is straightforward: stay, surrender, and let AA show you a way to live “happy, joyous and free” in your own skin. Could her story be the nudge you’ve been waiting for?