Matt Talbot
Conquering addiction requires friends, family, saints
We celebrated a milestone in the life of a beloved elder a couple weeks ago by following his longstanding wishes. There was no party, no gifts, no spreading the word so more people would chime in. It’s an anniversary he never announces in advance and I don’t believe he has ever marked the event at a gathering of real family and friends. When my dear friend celebrates July 20 each year, he does so in the environment of a church basement or bare meeting room in a circle of unfolded chairs at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
He tells the group “My name is John and I’m an alcoholic.” This year, he would have also told them that this July 20 is his 24th anniversary of sobriety. It’s a crowd that knows what a milestone that is, and it would bring sincere congratulations and yet another round of really strong coffee for the house. The organization prints coin-sized medallions marking each year and one day soon, after recovering from surgery, he’ll get the belated chance to receive his medal.
I am ashamed of myself for saying he doesn’t celebrate in the midst of “real family,” because the AA crowd is truly real family to each other. It wasn’t “real” family that helped John back to a life of sobriety, work and self-esteem. Twenty-four years ago some inner spirit and “higher power” led him to enter a residential rehab center and a lifetime of AA meetings to follow.
They tell their stories again and again at those meetings, not to brag about who was the “baddest” but to affirm what strength and self-awareness they have tapped in themselves. And they bolster the courage and commitment of others in the crowd, the guy with two days sobriety under his belt and the woman dejected that sobriety can mean separation from friends.
Within a few days of the anniversary I found myself celebrating for him in my way, in the company of three young men who are at the beginning of a path like John’s.
An afternoon at Habilitat
I spent an afternoon at Habilitat, currently home and haven to 100 men and women who are working to carve a milestone of their own. Each resident chose to come and committed to stay 27 months at the residential substance abuse treatment center, a cluster of buildings at the Kaneohe Bay shoreline. All came to Habilitat with a history of drug abuse, many have done crimes and served time because of their addictions, most have seen relationships with families come undone.
The trio of men I met, each with a drug abuse history dating back to young teen years, described the Habilitat way of life in which every resident’s day is packed with activity, from mandatory exercise and peer encounter groups, classes to earn a GED or hone computer skills and lots of vocational training, which translates to plain physical labor in the numerous enterprises — landscaping, house cleaning and moving, drain cleaning and plumbing, catering — that finance Habilitat.
Rodney, 38, a Windward Oahu native, proudly showed off the aerobics room, weight-lifting gym and woodwork shop, where people may work at crafting koa pendants, hooks and bracelets for sale. The tour ended in the library where tall bookshelves include several copies of the books by Vincent Marino, the late founder of Habilitat.
“The first book you get to read is Vinnie’s,” said Rodney. Marino died in 2000 but Rodney speaks as if he knew the man who established Habilitat in 1971. Like himself, Marino went through prison and numerous drug rehab programs before he crafted his own model, borrowing from hands’ on, hard work, tough love, boot camp philosophies in other programs and the military.
“This place is the last house on the block,” said Rodney. He spent 10 years in prison on convictions for drug dealing and robbery. Facing more prison time, he proposed pleading guilty if he could enter Habilitat and a supportive judge said yes.
“I was blessed. This place is amazing, it put me back where I was before,” said the veteran resident who is about to hit the 27-month mark, which means return to the outside world where a supportive wife and seven children await. Also awaiting is an offer for a building maintenance job.
“I got kids, I know what I need to do. My brain is working okay. I was a hard-head bugger, I didn’t listen to nobody. I want to work with kids who are hard head.”
But you don’t walk away with a final goodbye: “This is my home, I know I got to keep coming around to talk to these guys.”
Telling their stories
As it is for John and his compadres at AA meetings, storytelling is a continuing part of recovery for my new friends. The guys listen to each other’s story, that is part of the therapy and their bond of support. The theme of each is to own your bad choices. Habilitat does not subscribe to the “my addiction disease made me do it” theory.
“I told myself, I don’t want to live like this,” said Jesse, 27, who grew up on the Big Island in a family of methamphetamine users and dealers. “I needed to get away from bad relatives. I hung out with my uncles and they gave me what I wanted. I saw them as Santa Claus.”
At least 10 years of Jesse’s life has been behind bars. He got his high school diploma in juvenile detention home, spent six years in prison as an adult on drug-related and theft charges, and counted 10 short-term rehab programs before choosing this place.
Jesse has been at Habilitat for 12 months, and he brought skills from construction and cooking jobs that are no doubt an asset to the program’s income-generating work projects. But he also carries a load of past tragedies, a child who died, another taken from him, deaths of relatives who shared addiction. “I see that picture in my mind every day. I think about it when I get up every day,” he says in telling his story. “I use humor to take the memories away.”
Jesse said “We are able to talk about our life. That’s the biggest skill they give you. We communicate instead of thinking about bad things and putting ourselves in a depressive state.”
Asked what keeps him going, Jesse talks about the positive side of the family. “It’s my two youngest kids, they love me very much” and his girlfriend — “I sort of quit because she was important to me. My parents … I want them to see me get straight.”
Anthony, 29, begins his story with “my heart stopped twice” because of mixture of heroin and other drugs he used on New Year’s Eve 2012. The child of Italian immigrants, a blue collar family in Michigan, he is one of several people who came to Habilitat from the Mainland. “They taught me well but I chose a different route.”
He is at the18-month mark “the longest I’ve been sober since I was 13.” With previous short-term stints in rehab programs and facing a court sentence, he chose to come to the Hawaii program.
“A lot of us come from violent backgrounds,” said Anthony. He tells about the few rules in the haven which include “no violence, no threat of violence, not even a shoving match.”
Staff members are all graduates of the program and there is a standard of conduct required. Anthony said it’s not so much about following rules but meeting “expectations and when you fall short, it’s a behavioral issue. You are given time to think about it, about how I could handle the situation differently.”
Whether it’s John at his 24th year on the path, or Jesse at year marker one, it’s a personal choice whether they light their path with faith or religion. In Alcoholics Anonymous, they talk of a “higher power” and it’s whatever that person sees it to be.
AA members say the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” For some it’s more a mantra of self-resolution and consolation than an invocation of divine help.
Iintroducing Matt Talbot
But now it’s my turn to tell a story. I’d like to introduce John and Anthony and Jesse and Rodney to Matt Talbot.
He was born in poverty in Dublin, Ireland, in the 19th century and began drinking at the age of 12 as a delivery boy for a liquor manufacturer. He was a chronic alcoholic for 16 years, stealing to support his habit, until at the age of 28, his sense of shame led to a vow to stay sober for six months. It was decades before AA was organized but, with the guidance of a priest, Talbot set out on a very Catholic version of the 12-Step program that included daily Mass and Communion, frequent confession, Bible reading, a life modeled on Irish monasticism. He worked in manual labor jobs all his life, giving most of his earnings to people poorer than himself.
When he died in 1925 at the age of 68, he had been sober for 40 years.
Matt Talbot has been proposed as the patron saint for addicts. His story has inspired people for years in Ireland and in the United States, brought by immigrants from Ireland, too many of whom also bear his addiction.
He was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1975 and the cause for sainthood languished. The Irish Catholic newspaper just reported on May 13 that there is new energy in a cause for sainthood, and a push for Vatican recognition of Matt Talbot as the patron saint for addicts and alcoholics.
“Matt sets before us a radical example which demonstrates that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. His life is a witness to the fact that people can by God’s grace and their own self-acceptance say no to that which leads to addiction or addictive behaviors” is the message on the Dublin diocese webpage at www.matttalbot.ie.
Although prayer may not be their bag, it is mine. So when I wish them well, I hope my new friends at Habilitat won’t mind if I mention their names in the same breath as Matt’s. Here’s one of several prayers in use.”May Matt Talbot, whose triumph over addiction brings hope to our community and strength to our hearts, intercede for Anthony, Jesse and Rodney as they strive to overcome their addictions, through Christ Our Lord, Amen.”
