Kintsugi Heroes
David Burns · 43 min
Born to teenage heroin-addicted parents and later devastated by his father's death from liver cancer, David Burns transformed decades of unprocessed trauma into a social enterprise using sport to heal marginalised communities.
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David Burns was born into chaos that felt normal to him. His parents were 17 and 18, caught in heroin addiction, and he has early memories of parties, his grandparents stepping in, and the constant weight of something he couldn't name. When he was five, his dad packed a car and drove from Lancashire to Germany alone, then sent for David and his mum. Sport became his anchor there, football with FC Stern giving him solace and connection in a home that was still unpredictable. Back in England by age 11, he threw himself into school and sports, determined to break the pattern. He got to university, stayed on for a master's degree, and built a career working in football development.
Then, at 26, his father was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, a consequence of hepatitis contracted decades earlier when he shared needles. David became his carer for the last three months of his life, sleeping on the floor beside his bed, managing medications, and making sure nothing was left unsaid. When his father died, grief consumed him. He partied, he destroyed himself, and when his girlfriend, who needed support he couldn't give, left, he felt he had lost both of the most important people in his life. Two years later, he emigrated to Australia, thinking distance would heal him.
It didn't. For thirteen years, David kept moving: working in leisure management, running Ironman races, building a career that looked fine from the outside. It wasn't until his partner Jen suggested therapy that he realised he'd been carrying unprocessed trauma in his chest all that time. When he finally started doing that inner work, he understood something that changed everything: trauma isn't what's wrong with a person; it's what's happened to them. That understanding became the foundation for Collective Leisure, the social enterprise he and Jen founded in 2019 to support marginalised communities through sport. The worst thing that ever happened to him had become the source of his purpose.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses addiction & recovery and grief & loss, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • SMART Recovery Australia (addiction): smartrecoveryaustralia.com.au • ReachOut: au.reachout.com • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au • GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au
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