Chalk Talks on Alcohol

Father Martin says, "If recovery doesn't come first, nothing comes second'. How true! We have the complete film library of Father Martin films here at A Home Away Retreat. He is consistently loved by our guests for his sense of humour, dynamic way of speaking, and undying passion for recovery. We were fortunate enough to have Father Martin sign a large photograph of himself "To All at A Home Away, my best. Father Martin". Father Martin passed away shortly after we received the photograph, which makes it all the more special to us. His photograph hangs in our common room, beside the films that have touched so many at AHA. Jane Derry,

Fr. Martin's book evolved from a series of lectures developed and delivered in the 1970s for business and government, particularly the armed services. He credited Austin Ripley and Dr. Walter Green of Guest House, a Lake Orion, Michigan treatment facility for the clergy founded and operated by Ripley, for teaching him everything he knew about alcoholism. He began studying the subject in 1958, several years after he had been forced into a program of sobriety by the Archdiocese, as a result of excessive drinking and increasingly erratic behaviors. Note the implication that alcoholism isn't a subject about which even addicts in early recovery understand: Martin spent several years apparently learning little or nothing of value and then over a dozen years learning enough to allow him to create a lecture series, and another decade before his book was published. Perhaps it's an indication of how few people had an inkling about alcoholism decades ago. Fr. Martin's magnificent little book was an essential component in helping me to grasp the idea of alcoholism. His definition of an alcoholic, someone whose drinking causes serious life problems, was the half-way point between the commonly accepted definition, "loss of control over use" (which is a late-stage symptom) and the definition I used in my first book, Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse, requiring repeated negative consequences to oneself or others and which the user is incapable of seeing or grasping due to the user's biochemistry. Although Fr. Martin's definition described a symptom, it's an earlier one and as such was a crucial stepping-stone to creating my own. His oft-quoted, "What causes trouble is trouble, and if your alcohol causes trouble, then alcohol is a problem for you," is one of the keys to identifying alcoholism. This key is in the middle of a paragraph in which he describes a prisoner serving a twenty-to-life sentence who began attending AA meetings in prison only because his cell-mate invited him and he had nothing else to do. The man "had been drunk only three times in his life. The first time he lost his arm in an accident with a machine. The second time he lost his family. And the third time he committed the crime that lost him his freedom. He concluded, correctly, that he is an alcoholic." Alcohol caused trouble, so the trouble was alcohol. Fr. Martin asked the reader to compare this with one's experience. Maybe the reader has commented about a friend, "Well, yes, he (or she) drinks, a lot, but it's not that bad yet." Martin suggested that waiting until tragedy happens before concluding that maybe there is a bit of a problem with the drinking is insane. This idea was probably instrumental in helping me to understand the need to identify early-stage alcoholics, the main topic of my first three books: Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse; How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics: Using Behavioral Clues to

Father Martin has been in the recovery field for 30+ years; as such, he has a deep well of wisdom on the subject from every possible angle (social, legal, mental, emotional, religious). For the suffering alcohol or drug abuser, reading this book will provide immediate relief and stimulate the abuser to make long-term lifestyle changes toward sobriety. I encourage everyone also to check out the website: kellyproductionsdotcom this website offers all of Father Martin's products (including his famous "Chalk Talk" videos/dvds) for those that want a deeper study of recovery.