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Source: Tom W. (Father) – Fr. Tom W – How To Live Surrounded by Crazy People 4 2010 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: tom-w-father-fr-tom-w-how-to-live-surrounded-by-crazy-people-4-2010-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:29:04
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I'm in great need of Al-Anon. Kind of takes the edge off, you know, 100,000 meetings kind of takes the edge off. I still want to correct or fix or punish, especially fools. But with Al-Anon I get a daily reprieve from the harshest of my attitudes and also a sense that I'm hopeless and can't go anywhere. They do talk in the program about looking at things realistically, not in fantasy but realistically what's going on.
And I found that very helpful. That was part of doing a fourth step for me, part of sharing with my fifth step with my sponsor. I got a chance to talk candidly about some real things that had been going on that I'd never talked to anybody about before and I just didn't have very much perspective on it. And perspective really helps. And I have found it very useful to have some older people to talk to, especially when I was younger and especially when I was in great crisis, to have someone who was safe and awake and attentive to help me walk through some difficult times.
I have felt invaluable. And I think it's what happens in Al-Anon. We who have been there help others who are there. We help people walk through stuff. How Al-Anon works for families and friends of alcoholics, page 25. It says, Coming to Al-Anon, we begin to look realistically at our situations. Some of us are forced to face facts when circumstances demand our attention, as when a loved one is arrested or files for divorce.
Having our world shattered can leave us feeling disoriented and panicky. I don't like disoriented and I don't like panicky and I get it sometimes. At such times, Al-Anon can be a life saver. When our sense of reality proves unreliable, we need help to regain our footing. Al-Anon provides a simple step-by-step approach to rebuilding our lives and our self-confidence in an atmosphere of unconditional love.
Now, I just want to say one thing about unconditional love. I do not love unconditionally. I mean, I don't. I know I should. But I run out of steam and I run out of goodwill. And that's why I tell people I sponsor, you just can't rely on me. God is unconditionally loving. The program is usually much more tolerant than I. And then I have good days and bad days. But I don't pretend unconditional love.
It makes me lie when I pretend unconditional love and that's not good for me. Others are free to come to terms with reality more gradually. Many of us discover that we no longer need the same survival tactics now that we have the support of a fellowship that truly understands and the tools of the program that help us to deal with the problems that once overwhelmed us. We learn new skills. Oh, I've learned some new skills.
I used to think I needed to verbally respond to everything right away, that act, reacting verbally. And I've learned in Al-Anon that sometimes the sign of a perfect Al-Anon program is when I keep my big, fat mouth shut. Because I have a tendency to analyze or probe or interrogate or give advice. You know, how can I help you? We've just met. Let me run your life. I have that tendency. But I've been going to Al-Anon for a while and I learned there's an Al-Anon response we make on the West Coast.
I don't know if you do it out here. We call it the Al-Anon O. You learn something and you just go, oh. Which is neutral tone. Neutral tone, not probing, not nasty, not sarcastic. Oh, you have to work on the neutral tone. One of my nieces, the oldest daughter of my oldest brother, she hasn't had an easy life and she's tough.
[00:05:00]
Like a lot of us who haven't had easy lives are tough. And I've always liked her and we've been friends. Although I'm her uncle, the priest, it's really hard to get past that, by the way, because you play roles. Anyway, when she was about 14, I was at her family for Christmas and my family too, but it was her family. And I was in recovery and everyone else was just nuts. They were screaming about this and that and religious stuff and political stuff and the TV was on and the radio was on.
It was awful. It was awful. For her Christmas present, I gave her a $20 bill and I said, Mary, this is bus fare. If you have to get out of town. Well, she doesn't remember that. A lot of us don't remember crazy stuff, but I vividly remember it. She was busy trying to survive. And over the years, we stayed in touch and we were friends and friendly and there was a rumor that she drank a lot and badly, like other members of the family, but it's none of my business.
It's none of my business. So she called me once and I went over. We were going to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco on 16th Street called Pancho Villa Numero Dos. It's in the Mission District. It's a great place. Tourists don't go there. It's great. So there we were having something to eat and she said, and she's 35 years old at this time. She says, Tom, I've started seeing a therapist.
Oh. She said, I decided to do that after the third married man I was dating left me. Oh. It's a little too much information, but and all three of them had kids and all three of them weren't good to their kids and there was some rhythm there, but I don't know. And so there I am remembering to breathe, breathe, one, two, three, breathe, one, two, three, and she said, so I saw this therapist and I saw her a couple times and the therapist finally told me, Mary, we've talked about everybody's drinking in the family but yours.
Oh. So the therapist thought I should try an AA meeting and I went to an AA meeting last week and I hated it. I hated it. And I was going to leave. They were doing the Lord's Prayer. I hate that. I walked out. I was going to go back to my apartment and drink myself silly. And then I realized I was going back to my apartment to drink myself silly. And so I went to another meeting and I have seven days.
Oh. You learned the tones. And I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for knowing that I don't have to have an opinion on everything, that a lot of things are none of my business, that I can be supportive without being controlling. Well, which therapist are you seeing and what are you talking about and where are you going and where are you going to meetings all that stuff that she does not need to hear from me.
But she's alive today and life is going on. My parents I found very complicated. I think lots of people find their parents complicated and I, of course, see this as the youngest. And I think it's all about me. And I had some friends come home for the holidays. I did that because it was easier on me if I had friends come home for the holidays. And one of my friends is a therapist and she looked around and she said to me afterwards, you make your mother very nervous.
I make her nervous. She makes me nervous. But I was, at this time, like 40. And so I got a chance to, well, maybe so. And I tried to change them and argue with them and I didn't like their politics and I didn't like this and I didn't like that. And I thought insult and humiliation was an effective tool for dealing with my parents. And it really isn't. And I learned to say less and less and less and less, which is a great help.
And then I'm grateful to Al-Anon I could work through resentments and fears and resentments and fears and complexity. And my dad got sick. He was an old man, 92, but he got sick with cancer. And I got to spend the nights with him for the last month of his life. Some of my brothers have families. I was free. It was in the Bay Area. I would drive down and spend the night. And if he needed help, I could get a nurse or I could help him out a little bit.
And I remember fathers are very complicated. And this is someone we didn't talk a lot about stuff. He wasn't a chatty guy.
[00:10:01]
And he used to be, but alcoholism eats you out inside. You become a shell over time. Like Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia, but he'd been drunk for 40 years. So there wasn't a lot of resources left to be president of Russia with. The bounce, the insight, the charism was gone. And you just kind of have a shell. And I do see that in a lot of chronic alcoholics, even if they haven't gone to jail a lot.
So my dad was a lot like that. You could have a conversation with him, but it took a lot of work. And I stopped doing that. I started letting him be. Anyway, there he was dying. And he got the terminal diagnosis and my mom came. My mom would come about 11 o'clock in the morning and have lunch. Lunch would be served and then I would leave. I'd go back and do stuff. So that was important. I was glad I had the physical and emotional freedom to do that.
So terminal, next morning my mom comes. Next afternoon my mom comes. Lunch is served and it's soup and something protein-related and ice cream. And my dad reached for the ice cream and my mother said to him, Soup first. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, he's dying. Can't you let him have the ice cream first. Once. But I'm grateful for the 100,000 Al-Anon meetings I've been to. And what was clear to me was this is none of my business.
This is their deal. It is not my deal. And they worked this out before I was born, this funny little dance that I've always had a lot to criticize about. And what I did is instead of doing the Al-Anon O, I did another Al-Anon phrase we use on the West Coast in a complicated situation. I said, I'll be right back. And I went outside and I was furious, just furious. If I had had a cigar, I would have eaten it.
And it was clear to me, I mean, I'm growing up by now, I'm in my 50s. And I said, the last thing my dad needs is me yelling. The last thing my mom needs is me yelling, defending the underdog one more time. Gee, Tom, that's helpful. And no one in the hospital needs this either. And let them do what they do. And I let off steam and I walked back and forth and I came back and I just said, I'll be back tonight.
And I was able to leave. I didn't have to sit her down and give her a little lecture. What a relief. Ten years earlier, I would have done something that stupid and arrogant, but I didn't have to do it this time. And then when he died, I was able to preside at his funeral, which was an honor. And I was able to pay him some respect. It was an honor. I didn't preach because I didn't know what I'd say.
Fathers and sons are sometimes complicated. And I asked a friend of his to do it and it went just fine. And then as my mom got older, she got, I mean, she could have used 100,000 Al-Anon meetings, control and worry and fear. And we got her into independent living and she was falling and we're all concerned. And we took care of her as best we could. And I found that my mom could make me furious in a second.
And this is like 55 now, you know, and she's 90 or 94 and I'm still reacting. And I go, please, this is just pathetic. Act, don't react, act, don't react, act, don't react. Keep your big fat mouth shut. And it was Christmas and she was in an independent living place. And I went to bring with a couple of friends. We were going to go to her independent living place and have midnight mass on Christmas, like at 6 p.m. midnight mass.
And then pray a little bit with her friends in communion service and then pick her up and take her to my brother's, the nice brother. I'll take you to my brother's, the nice brother, and then bring her back, and it was going to
[00:15:03]
be fine. We did that the year before and it all worked. And I called her Christmas Eve morning, and she's getting more frail and more frightened and anxious about everything. So I called her and I just said, I'll be there about 5.30 tonight, we'll have a good time. And she said, I'm living in Oakland, she's in Redwood City. That's about 40 minutes away, 45 minutes away. She said, what are you going to be wearing?
This conversation started when I was about six. And it never went well. And she always thought I would come without socks, looking like a hippie, and there was about 20 years when I did. But I didn't want to get involved in this old thing, this tug of war. And so with my perfect Al-Anon program, I said, don't worry about that, it's going to be fine. I'll see you at 5.30. And then she said, don't embarrass me in front of my friends.
And my perfect Al-Anon program disappeared. And in its place came a furious 11-year-old. And I just, I may have said something, I don't remember that right now, but I do know I hung up with all, and I was 11 years old and mad. And she had a voice that could do that, only on the phone, but it was, so there I was, perfect Al-Anon program gone. And she called back two seconds later, you know, that rapid dial thing, and she said, don't hang up on your mother on Christmas Eve.
Now one of my Al-Anon decisions is to not have guns in the house. I have a baseball bat, but not a gun. I was furious, and I went for a walk, I walked outside, I made a couple of phone calls, kind of got through it, you know, realized. Now objectively speaking, this is my craziness, it's not hers, it's my craziness. My Al-Anon stuff has to do with my craziness. And old ladies and stuff and things, and I could get along with a lot of old ladies, but not my mom.
So I think there's a rule there somewhere. I knew she'd be out of her little apartment, and I called back, and I just said, I'll see you tonight. And I'm sorry for hanging up, you know, went wrong, promptly admitting it. But I had to wait till I was not shaking with rage to call her back, and I'll see you tonight. And things went fine. I didn't have to explain my issues. You know, when I saw a therapist for five years just dealing with the clothing issue, and I just read it on and bring it back now.
And I brought some friends, we picked her up, we had a good time, and we moved on. We moved on from it, and I was able to operate from a centered place that was friendly. And I wanted to be respectful, and I wanted to be useful, and I wanted to be dutiful. But that wasn't always easy. I think we practice the program with strangers, I mean, even people outside. We practice the program with people at meetings, but it's really graduate level work to practice with your own family.
And it's very difficult for me. My oldest brother, he's wrong so much, and his opinions are so awful. And the last time I was with him was on his birthday, his 70th birthday, and there was a golden opportunity that opened, presented to us by God, for me to prove my side right and his song not only wrong but stupid. And my perfect Al-Anon program was operating that day, and I let the opportunity pass.
I didn't have to say anything, and I want you to know it didn't feel good. It didn't feel, oh, you're so evolved. I'd much rather shove him down the stairs on this one, I'll tell you, because it's so,
[00:20:05]
it's just perfect. But let it pass. Let it pass. Understanding and ability to see things as they really are and to find healthier, more appropriate ways of dealing with the people and circumstances we encounter is not always easy or comfortable. Most of us have had good reasons for hiding certain information from ourselves. It hurt. It probably still does. It isn't easy to see suffering of a loved one, to admit even to ourselves that a close relative has sexually or physically abused us, to come to grips with the fact that the people we have turned to for love and acknowledgement are incapable of giving it, or to recognize that we ourselves have become narrow-minded, vindictive, pessimistic, submissive, fearful, despondent, petty, shrewish, nagging, controlling, or overbearing.
I'll read that list one more time. You can just raise your hands when you hear yourself. Narrow-minded, vindictive, pessimistic, submissive, fearful, despondent, petty, shrewish, nagging, controlling, or overbearing. We may be dismayed to find that the negative thinking and behavior that we developed to protect us from the painful experiences of our lives have, in fact, seeped into every corner of our world.
It's as if we've allowed our defense mechanisms to protect us from all of life rather than risking adventuresome participation in it. And in trying to avoid the unpleasant aspects of our lives, we have also missed out on many of the joys. In recovery, we get to have ups and downs and pluses and minuses and sorrow and joy. It's called having a real life. Last story. Years ago, I had the privilege of studying under an Orthodox rabbi in Berkeley.
Rabbis are smart. Not all priests are smart. Rabbis are smart and they're educated. And they're educated in a long tradition of questioning and teaching. And I have great admiration for the rabbis. And I have read them and studied them off and on for 40 years. This was a class in Berkeley on Judaism. And the rabbi was, it was like adult education, it was like RCIA for those of you who are familiar with the religious education for adults, so who cares.
Anyway, he would talk about theology. He talked about Moses and Noah and these things. And the people who came to this class were kind of generically Jewish but had never really done anything about being Jewish. So they were learning their roots. And others were converting. And you go to an Orthodox rabbi and, gee, I liked him so much. And he knew I was a priest and he knew that. We would occasionally talk a little shop, you know, about something.
And I was, I'm a priest and a teacher and I, teachers spot good teachers. You know who's prepared, you know who's organized, you know how's doing. He was wonderful and so well read. And occasionally something about Christianity would come up. Someone would ask a question. He would defer to me, although frequently he knew more than I did about the subject. He was a courteous and humble man. So he's talking about stuff and someone asks a question.
And the question is, rabbi, what is a blessing? What's a blessing? Because you bless this, bless that, curse this, curse that. And I would have said something quick and simple minded like God's good housekeeping seal of approval, you know, move on. But see, rabbis don't do that. The rabbinical tradition is to take questions very seriously, kind of chew on it. And whenever you can, you answer a question by asking a question.
This is infuriating, but it's a good way of teaching.
[00:25:00]
Socratic method. So what's a blessing? And the rabbinical tradition goes like this, you know, rabbi, what is the greatest commandment? You're a lawyer. You tell me. Love God with your heart, strength, mind, and soul. And your neighbor is yourself. That's it. That's the whole point of the entire text. Well, who's my neighbor? And if you can't answer with a question, you tell a story. That's how the rabbis, man was going on the road, Jericho and Falun Gong.
It's an old tradition. So there we're in Zimbabwe watching this, and what's a blessing? And the rabbi fooled with his beard, which is why we have beards. The rabbi fooled with his beard. And he said, when God created. God created in six days, and at the end of each day of creation, God looked at what God had made and said, this is good. This is good. This is good. Sun, moon, stars, cows, goats, avocados, good.
And on the sixth day, God creates human beings and doesn't say they're good. Any conclusions? Someone said, well, people are no good, right? And the rabbi said, well, it's a possible conclusion, but it's a bad translation. He said, you know, in good, you have good days and a good book and the good book and for a good time call. Good means a lot of funny things in English. Then he said in Hebrew, and he looked at me and said, which is what God spoke.
God looked at what God had made and said, this is Tov, T-O-V, Tov. Tov means something is complete, Tov means it's entire, Tov means it's exactly the way it's supposed to be, it's Tov. So sun, moon, stars, Tov, dry land, Tov, cows, goats, avocados, Tov. But people, we're not created complete. We're not created entire. We're created with a lot of empty places. We're created with holes and broken things and we're born male.
It takes a lifetime of experience to become a man. We're born female. It takes a lifetime of experience to become a woman. We're born male, female. It takes a lifetime of experience to be a human being. Now as you're living your life, as you're making decisions, as you're experiencing the experience, anything that pushes you ahead, anything that drags you forward, anything that gets down deep inside of you where it's brittle and dark and cold and kicks and shoves until suddenly there's a lot more room and light and air.
Anything that does that, said the rabbi, is a blessing. And sometimes blessings don't feel very good. And sometimes you don't know they're blessings until years later when a situation that you thought would kill you opened up doors you never knew were there. And that was the first time I came to understand alcoholism as a blessing. It opened up doors I never knew were there. And it brings us into this community of women and men who teach us how to be real human beings.
And this is a good thing.