August 20, 2025 • 16 mins
Addiction is not a moral failing—it’s a brain disease. And recovery isn’t just possible, it’s powerful.
In this keynote at the historic Ridglea Theatre in Fort Worth, Texas—delivered to addiction treatment professionals during a fundraiser for Gemini Recovery Community—Gary K shares the raw truth about addiction, recovery, and the brain science that explains why people can’t “just stop.”
With over 29 years in long-term recovery, Gary combines personal experience, education, and humor to break down the stigma around addiction. He reveals how spiritual action changes brain function, why untreated alcoholism is deadly, and what real solutions exist for those struggling and their families.
This talk is a must-watch for treatment professionals, families, and anyone who wants to understand the reality of addiction and the hope of recovery. 📖 Learn more in Gary’s book Walk the Talk with Step 12: https://www.hazelden.org/store/item/395140?Walk-the-Talk-with-Step-12
🌐 Visit Gary online: garykrecovery.com
Produced by SoberNotBoring.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
My name is Gary Kay, and I am a grateful,recovered drug addict and alcoholic Gary.
Wow.
My sobriety date is August 25th, 1996,
and I am proud to be aperson in long-term recovery.
(00:23):
My mission is to carry a message of hopeand recovery education to as many people
as possible because the stakes are high.
There is a plague on planet earth.
Addiction and alcoholism have becomea global pandemic, and America's
(00:43):
number one public health crisis.
Every year.
Now in the United States,over 250,000 young Americans
are dying from drug overdose.
That is double the number of allAmerican military casualties.
Since World War II, addiction nowkills more people than cancer, heart
(01:04):
disease, and diabetes combined, it isthe number one killer of human beings.
I hope tonight to shed light ontwo very important questions.
Why can't they stop?
And what is the solution?
And it is my prayer that by armingothers with these facts, we can
(01:26):
all finally become clear thataddiction is not a moral failing.
It is not a choice.
It is a chronic, progressivebrain disease that can be treated.
And hopefully armed with these facts,we addicts can begin letting go of our
shame and self-hatred, and our familiescan begin letting go of their bitterness
(01:49):
and confusion, and we can all move towardcompassion, understanding, and love.
From the age of 12 to 35, I suffered.
I went to 47 detoxes, 11 tripsto jail, seven suicide attempts,
electroshock therapy, union therapy,Freudian Therapy, psychodynamics
(02:11):
Gestalt therapy, two anthony Robbins,fireworks, ayahuasca, puke and Purge.
Rational recovery, smart recovery,and 19 trips to treatment.
I was addicted to alcohol, marijuana,opium hash morphine, ketamine,
Percocet, Percodan, Vicodin.
(02:32):
Rester Oil.
LSD, Quaaludes, black Beauties.
Whippets Whip It good
IV, heroin and crack cocaine.
The consequences.
I total 11 automobiles.
I killed two people maimed four others,blew a kid's hand off with a shotgun.
(02:57):
It took away my family, my Broadwaytheater career, my sanity, my
legal freedom, my physical health.
I thought I was choosing to be this way.
My family thought I waschoosing to be this way.
No one ever told me that I had a disease.
(03:22):
Now, as I talk about the brain disease,hopefully briefly, I wanna be clear.
I am not a doctor.
What I am is an old recovered fall downdrunk junkie and savage douche canoe.
Yeah.
Yeah, if you don't know what a douchecanoe is, that's a level of douchery
that cannot be contained in the bag,
(03:48):
and I have sought the answer to thesequestions for the last quarter century.
I went back to schooland studied neurobiology.
I wanted to understand why peoplewho didn't believe in God could
get sober using 12 step recovery.
I wanted to understand this disease.
I read copious books, attendedseminars, and this is how it was
(04:13):
explained to me and how I explainedit to my sponsees and my patients.
This is the brain diseaseof my understanding.
Very simple.
To be a disease, there mustbe a defect in an organ, and
that defect produces symptoms.
(04:33):
If you shatter your femur in askiing accident, let's say you have
a disease, now you have a defect inthe femur, which produces red blood
cells and it produces symptoms.
If your pancreas stops producinginsulin and you develop diabetes,
then you're gonna have symptomsas a result of that defect.
(04:57):
We, addicts and alcoholicshave a number of defects.
Number one, chief offender.
We have issues with our dopaminereceptors and we under produce dopamine.
Dopamine is an essential neurotransmitterin the brain so that we can have a sense
of wellbeing and be present in life.
(05:20):
It is part of the brain's reward system.
Whenever we take an action thatsupports survival, we receive dopamine.
That dopamine passesthrough the pleasure track.
It sorts out the neurotransmittersand says, wow, this action
is good for survival.
(05:41):
It sends a signal to the hippocampusand the basal ganglia and says,
remember this action and do it always.
This'll keep us alive.
There's an area in the brain, ourfriend, the amygdala, A-M-Y-G-D-A-L-A,
a tiny little almond shaped.
Uh, gizmo deep in themid, in the mid brain.
(06:05):
The amygdala does not have languageattached, so it doesn't think its job is
to keep us alive at 15 second intervals.
In order to do that, it compels us totake actions which support survival.
It forces us to breathe, toeat, to sleep, to drink water.
(06:27):
To have sex so the species can surviveand to protect ourselves in fight
or flight are its principle actions.
Question.
Can anyone hold your breath until you die?
What's the answer?
No.
No.
That's correct.
Answer.
That's the amygdala doing its job.
(06:51):
It forces us to breathe and weall just took the first step.
We admitted we werepowerless over breathing.
It's the same mechanism in thebrain that forces us to breathe.
That now forces we addicts to pickup that first drug and that first
drink, despite the consequences.
(07:11):
The day I took my first drink ofalcohol when I was 12 years old.
There was an abnormal flood ofdopamine raced through my pleasure
track in the brain vt the VentralTegmental it raced through the
pleasure track and the pleasuretrack said, what the hell is this?
This is better than sleeping,breathing, drinking water, eating food,
(07:36):
having sex, or protecting ourselves.
It sent a signal to thehippocampus and basal ganglia.
And it said, remember this always, andnow there's a neuro pathway in my brain.
It's there for life.
That's why it's chronic disease.
There is a neuro pathway in my brainthat says, alcohol equals survival.
(08:01):
Alcohol equals life.
More important than air or water, or food,or sleeping or sex, or protecting myself.
It is my number one survival need.
This is not a choice.
Now I'm living my life and let'ssay I have a conscience and I hurt
(08:26):
my dear old mother's feelings.
Now I feel guilt.
I feel shame.
The guilt and the shame produces stresshormone in the brain called cortisol.
The cortisol irritatesand inflames the amygdala.
The amygdala swells up in size.
Its job is to keep us aliveat 15 second intervals.
(08:46):
So it has the ability tooverride rational thought.
The amygdala doesn't know I have kids.
It doesn't know I have a job.
It doesn't know that if I smokecrack, I'm gonna wind up wearing
a clown mask, naked chain to abed in the middle of Times Square.
What?
What?
(09:07):
Yeah, but that's a story for another time.
It doesn't know any of that.
It doesn't have language attached.
What it's doing is trying to keepme alive, and it now thinks the
drug is the way to stay alive.
So when my brain is inflamed withcortisol, it sends out a signal.
It says, get the drug.
(09:28):
Get the drug.
Get the drug.
Get the drug.
Get the drug.
Now let's move on to another partof the brain, the prefrontal cortex.
That's the front of the brain,amygdala and the mid-grade.
The prefrontal cortex is the executivedecision making branch of the brain.
It is in the cortex that weexperience logic and morality.
(09:52):
It's where we experiencelove, the love from our child.
The child experiences the love fromthe parent that happens in the cortex.
It's where we make rational decisions.
It's part of the brainthat knows I'm in recovery
(10:13):
and is trying to protect my recovery.
Another defect, we don't producea sufficient amount of glutamate.
Glutamate is a chemical used by theprefrontal cortex to communicate with and
regulate what's happening in the amygdala.
So when I'm under great stress.
(10:34):
The amygdala has the ability to dowhat is called amygdala hijack, and it
disconnects communication with the cortex.
And when that happens, the cortexfails to process on all levels.
All thoughts of not usingare trapped in the cortex.
I cannot go in and think those thoughts.
(10:56):
And now the part of the brain that hasno language, that doesn't think goes to
the trap house, goes to the bar withoutmy permission, and the cycle continues.
And of course, once we put it inour bodies, hyperalgesia takes over
with the drug addict in the brain.
(11:16):
And with the alcoholic, the physicalallergy where we don't produce a
sufficient quantity and qualityof liver enzymes and amino acids
needed to convert the ethanolmolecule quickly into a carbohydrate.
And during a conversion process,it gets stuck on acetone, and that
creates the phenomenon of craving,which demands a second drink.
(11:37):
There's no negotiating that.
And once you've had the second drink,now you've got three quarters of
the acetone from the first drink,all the acetone from the second
drink, which demands a third drink.
Now you have half the acetone fromthe first drink, three quarters of
the acetone from the second drink,all the acetone from the third drink,
and that demands a fourth drink anda fifth drink, and a sixth drink
(12:00):
until finally you've had 20 drinks.
It's four o'clock in the morning,you're flat on your back, naked
in a parking lot somewhere.
And someone drives over yourlegs and they say, oh, dear
God, what can I do to help you?
And you say, get me another drink.
This is the brain disease of addiction.
(12:20):
One day I went to a cigar bar inNew York City called Merchants.
I met this woman who was two bubbles offplum, as I think you say here in Texas.
She had a big hole in her screen door.
very toxic, and we got really hammered.
Then we went to my Times Square apartment.
We did a lot of drugs anddid some twisted things.
(12:43):
So we decided we should get married,and the next day she moved in.
We had a knock down drag out.
It got ugly and super violent.
I ended up leaving.
And, uh, ended up in jailthat night when that happened.
My hippocampus is on the lookout tryingto figure out how to get me drunk and high
(13:08):
'cause it thinks I need that to survivethe same way we'd be on the hunt for food.
So it recorded that informationand it has a formula.
Now in my brain, Marsha PlusGary equals fight equals drugs
and alcohol equals survival.
And Marsha's no longer a girlfriend.
(13:29):
She's a delivery system for the drug.
The phenomenon of triggers,
what do we do about.
Something phenomenal was discoveredalmost a hundred years ago
that by taking spiritual action,spirituality is processed
(13:52):
in the prefrontal cortex.
And by spirituality I mean beingkind, being honest, being unselfish,
doing unselfish things for otherpeople, prayer and meditation.
And it doesn't matter whereyour prayers are going to, it
matters where they're coming from
and it's personal,
(14:14):
and you don't have to believein God for this to work.
You just have to take thespiritual action that changes how
the prefrontal cortex functions.
It changes how the neuronsinteract in the cortex.
And when we are actively engagedin spiritual action, our brain
starts to produce more glutamate,which now it can easily regulate
(14:38):
what's happening in the amygdala.
Going to therapy for me was critical.
That got rid of old emotional stress,therefore, reducing the amount
of cortisol in my brain, workingsteps four through nine, remove
the guilt, the shame, remorse.
Resentment, anger, fear, allof which produced a cortisol.
(15:03):
And in the 12 step rooms, I learneda new way of living life where I'm
not causing pain and suffering formyself and other people, therefore,
reducing cortisol levels in mybrain and goodbye mental obsession.
And as a result of living that way,it hasn't been necessary for me to
(15:23):
take a drink or a drug for 27 years.
Right.
I'll tell you, the world's a saferplace with, with with me sober.
The benefits have been extraordinary.
It's given me a really goodlife with a lot of love.
(15:45):
We come into the rooms.
There's an awful lot of joyabout it and a lot of fun.
To quote Bill Wilson, we have seenimpossible domestic situations righted.
We have seen men and women comeout of silence and resume vital
places in their communities.
(16:06):
We have seen business men andwomen regain their standing.
There are scarcely any form of troublewhich has not been overcome among us.
We become citizens of the world.
And never again are we alone.
It works.
And if I can do it, you can do it.
(16:30):
In 1938, a candle was lit in thedark world of the alcoholic and the
drug addict, and now that light hasbeen passed on to each one of us.
Take your life into any dark cave wheresomeone is suffering and help them.
May God bless us all.
(16:51):
Thank you.
My name is Gary Kay, and I am a grateful,recovered drug addict and alcoholic Gary.
Wow.
My sobriety date is August 25th, 1996,
and I am proud to be aperson in long-term recovery.
(00:23):
My mission is to carry a message of hopeand recovery education to as many people
as possible because the stakes are high.
There is a plague on planet earth.
Addiction and alcoholism have becomea global pandemic, and America's
(00:43):
number one public health crisis.
Every year.
Now in the United States,over 250,000 young Americans
are dying from drug overdose.
That is double the number of allAmerican military casualties.
Since World War II, addiction nowkills more people than cancer, heart
(01:04):
disease, and diabetes combined, it isthe number one killer of human beings.
I hope tonight to shed light ontwo very important questions.
Why can't they stop?
And what is the solution?
And it is my prayer that by armingothers with these facts, we can
(01:26):
all finally become clear thataddiction is not a moral failing.
It is not a choice.
It is a chronic, progressivebrain disease that can be treated.
And hopefully armed with these facts,we addicts can begin letting go of our
shame and self-hatred, and our familiescan begin letting go of their bitterness
(01:49):
and confusion, and we can all move towardcompassion, understanding, and love.
From the age of 12 to 35, I suffered.
I went to 47 detoxes, 11 tripsto jail, seven suicide attempts,
electroshock therapy, union therapy,Freudian Therapy, psychodynamics
(02:11):
Gestalt therapy, two anthony Robbins,fireworks, ayahuasca, puke and Purge.
Rational recovery, smart recovery,and 19 trips to treatment.
I was addicted to alcohol, marijuana,opium hash morphine, ketamine,
Percocet, Percodan, Vicodin.
(02:32):
Rester Oil.
LSD, Quaaludes, black Beauties.
Whippets Whip It good
IV, heroin and crack cocaine.
The consequences.
I total 11 automobiles.
I killed two people maimed four others,blew a kid's hand off with a shotgun.
(02:57):
It took away my family, my Broadwaytheater career, my sanity, my
legal freedom, my physical health.
I thought I was choosing to be this way.
My family thought I waschoosing to be this way.
No one ever told me that I had a disease.
(03:22):
Now, as I talk about the brain disease,hopefully briefly, I wanna be clear.
I am not a doctor.
What I am is an old recovered fall downdrunk junkie and savage douche canoe.
Yeah.
Yeah, if you don't know what a douchecanoe is, that's a level of douchery
that cannot be contained in the bag,
(03:48):
and I have sought the answer to thesequestions for the last quarter century.
I went back to schooland studied neurobiology.
I wanted to understand why peoplewho didn't believe in God could
get sober using 12 step recovery.
I wanted to understand this disease.
I read copious books, attendedseminars, and this is how it was
(04:13):
explained to me and how I explainedit to my sponsees and my patients.
This is the brain diseaseof my understanding.
Very simple.
To be a disease, there mustbe a defect in an organ, and
that defect produces symptoms.
(04:33):
If you shatter your femur in askiing accident, let's say you have
a disease, now you have a defect inthe femur, which produces red blood
cells and it produces symptoms.
If your pancreas stops producinginsulin and you develop diabetes,
then you're gonna have symptomsas a result of that defect.
(04:57):
We, addicts and alcoholicshave a number of defects.
Number one, chief offender.
We have issues with our dopaminereceptors and we under produce dopamine.
Dopamine is an essential neurotransmitterin the brain so that we can have a sense
of wellbeing and be present in life.
(05:20):
It is part of the brain's reward system.
Whenever we take an action thatsupports survival, we receive dopamine.
That dopamine passesthrough the pleasure track.
It sorts out the neurotransmittersand says, wow, this action
is good for survival.
(05:41):
It sends a signal to the hippocampusand the basal ganglia and says,
remember this action and do it always.
This'll keep us alive.
There's an area in the brain, ourfriend, the amygdala, A-M-Y-G-D-A-L-A,
a tiny little almond shaped.
Uh, gizmo deep in themid, in the mid brain.
(06:05):
The amygdala does not have languageattached, so it doesn't think its job is
to keep us alive at 15 second intervals.
In order to do that, it compels us totake actions which support survival.
It forces us to breathe, toeat, to sleep, to drink water.
(06:27):
To have sex so the species can surviveand to protect ourselves in fight
or flight are its principle actions.
Question.
Can anyone hold your breath until you die?
What's the answer?
No.
No.
That's correct.
Answer.
That's the amygdala doing its job.
(06:51):
It forces us to breathe and weall just took the first step.
We admitted we werepowerless over breathing.
It's the same mechanism in thebrain that forces us to breathe.
That now forces we addicts to pickup that first drug and that first
drink, despite the consequences.
(07:11):
The day I took my first drink ofalcohol when I was 12 years old.
There was an abnormal flood ofdopamine raced through my pleasure
track in the brain vt the VentralTegmental it raced through the
pleasure track and the pleasuretrack said, what the hell is this?
This is better than sleeping,breathing, drinking water, eating food,
(07:36):
having sex, or protecting ourselves.
It sent a signal to thehippocampus and basal ganglia.
And it said, remember this always, andnow there's a neuro pathway in my brain.
It's there for life.
That's why it's chronic disease.
There is a neuro pathway in my brainthat says, alcohol equals survival.
(08:01):
Alcohol equals life.
More important than air or water, or food,or sleeping or sex, or protecting myself.
It is my number one survival need.
This is not a choice.
Now I'm living my life and let'ssay I have a conscience and I hurt
(08:26):
my dear old mother's feelings.
Now I feel guilt.
I feel shame.
The guilt and the shame produces stresshormone in the brain called cortisol.
The cortisol irritatesand inflames the amygdala.
The amygdala swells up in size.
Its job is to keep us aliveat 15 second intervals.
(08:46):
So it has the ability tooverride rational thought.
The amygdala doesn't know I have kids.
It doesn't know I have a job.
It doesn't know that if I smokecrack, I'm gonna wind up wearing
a clown mask, naked chain to abed in the middle of Times Square.
What?
What?
(09:07):
Yeah, but that's a story for another time.
It doesn't know any of that.
It doesn't have language attached.
What it's doing is trying to keepme alive, and it now thinks the
drug is the way to stay alive.
So when my brain is inflamed withcortisol, it sends out a signal.
It says, get the drug.
(09:28):
Get the drug.
Get the drug.
Get the drug.
Get the drug.
Now let's move on to another partof the brain, the prefrontal cortex.
That's the front of the brain,amygdala and the mid-grade.
The prefrontal cortex is the executivedecision making branch of the brain.
It is in the cortex that weexperience logic and morality.
(09:52):
It's where we experiencelove, the love from our child.
The child experiences the love fromthe parent that happens in the cortex.
It's where we make rational decisions.
It's part of the brainthat knows I'm in recovery
(10:13):
and is trying to protect my recovery.
Another defect, we don't producea sufficient amount of glutamate.
Glutamate is a chemical used by theprefrontal cortex to communicate with and
regulate what's happening in the amygdala.
So when I'm under great stress.
(10:34):
The amygdala has the ability to dowhat is called amygdala hijack, and it
disconnects communication with the cortex.
And when that happens, the cortexfails to process on all levels.
All thoughts of not usingare trapped in the cortex.
I cannot go in and think those thoughts.
(10:56):
And now the part of the brain that hasno language, that doesn't think goes to
the trap house, goes to the bar withoutmy permission, and the cycle continues.
And of course, once we put it inour bodies, hyperalgesia takes over
with the drug addict in the brain.
(11:16):
And with the alcoholic, the physicalallergy where we don't produce a
sufficient quantity and qualityof liver enzymes and amino acids
needed to convert the ethanolmolecule quickly into a carbohydrate.
And during a conversion process,it gets stuck on acetone, and that
creates the phenomenon of craving,which demands a second drink.
(11:37):
There's no negotiating that.
And once you've had the second drink,now you've got three quarters of
the acetone from the first drink,all the acetone from the second
drink, which demands a third drink.
Now you have half the acetone fromthe first drink, three quarters of
the acetone from the second drink,all the acetone from the third drink,
and that demands a fourth drink anda fifth drink, and a sixth drink
(12:00):
until finally you've had 20 drinks.
It's four o'clock in the morning,you're flat on your back, naked
in a parking lot somewhere.
And someone drives over yourlegs and they say, oh, dear
God, what can I do to help you?
And you say, get me another drink.
This is the brain disease of addiction.
(12:20):
One day I went to a cigar bar inNew York City called Merchants.
I met this woman who was two bubbles offplum, as I think you say here in Texas.
She had a big hole in her screen door.
very toxic, and we got really hammered.
Then we went to my Times Square apartment.
We did a lot of drugs anddid some twisted things.
(12:43):
So we decided we should get married,and the next day she moved in.
We had a knock down drag out.
It got ugly and super violent.
I ended up leaving.
And, uh, ended up in jailthat night when that happened.
My hippocampus is on the lookout tryingto figure out how to get me drunk and high
(13:08):
'cause it thinks I need that to survivethe same way we'd be on the hunt for food.
So it recorded that informationand it has a formula.
Now in my brain, Marsha PlusGary equals fight equals drugs
and alcohol equals survival.
And Marsha's no longer a girlfriend.
(13:29):
She's a delivery system for the drug.
The phenomenon of triggers,
what do we do about.
Something phenomenal was discoveredalmost a hundred years ago
that by taking spiritual action,spirituality is processed
(13:52):
in the prefrontal cortex.
And by spirituality I mean beingkind, being honest, being unselfish,
doing unselfish things for otherpeople, prayer and meditation.
And it doesn't matter whereyour prayers are going to, it
matters where they're coming from
and it's personal,
(14:14):
and you don't have to believein God for this to work.
You just have to take thespiritual action that changes how
the prefrontal cortex functions.
It changes how the neuronsinteract in the cortex.
And when we are actively engagedin spiritual action, our brain
starts to produce more glutamate,which now it can easily regulate
(14:38):
what's happening in the amygdala.
Going to therapy for me was critical.
That got rid of old emotional stress,therefore, reducing the amount
of cortisol in my brain, workingsteps four through nine, remove
the guilt, the shame, remorse.
Resentment, anger, fear, allof which produced a cortisol.
(15:03):
And in the 12 step rooms, I learneda new way of living life where I'm
not causing pain and suffering formyself and other people, therefore,
reducing cortisol levels in mybrain and goodbye mental obsession.
And as a result of living that way,it hasn't been necessary for me to
(15:23):
take a drink or a drug for 27 years.
Right.
I'll tell you, the world's a saferplace with, with with me sober.
The benefits have been extraordinary.
It's given me a really goodlife with a lot of love.
(15:45):
We come into the rooms.
There's an awful lot of joyabout it and a lot of fun.
To quote Bill Wilson, we have seenimpossible domestic situations righted.
We have seen men and women comeout of silence and resume vital
places in their communities.
(16:06):
We have seen business men andwomen regain their standing.
There are scarcely any form of troublewhich has not been overcome among us.
We become citizens of the world.
And never again are we alone.
It works.
And if I can do it, you can do it.
(16:30):
In 1938, a candle was lit in thedark world of the alcoholic and the
drug addict, and now that light hasbeen passed on to each one of us.
Take your life into any dark cave wheresomeone is suffering and help them.
May God bless us all.
(16:51):
Thank you.
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