The Young People’s Group That Supported Him in Montreal – Tom M.

About This Speaker Tape

Montreal, 1939. A young rebel leading gangs through the city streets, fueled by a hatred for an abusive, alcoholic sailor father. Tom M. lived a life of lies and wreckage long before the first drink—gambling away his shoe factory wages and lying to his mother about dead coworkers to cover the losses. The bottle became his "God," leading him from the Royal Canadian Navy to a military detention center where he was a "soldier under sentence," spitting in the faces of guards and inciting riots.

After a discharge with ignominy and a stint in a Bordeaux jail for stealing a taxi, Tom hit bottom in St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary. It was there, among the cons, that he encountered a Higher Power and the "old excelsior group." He walked out of those prison doors into a life of pick and shovel work, supported by a young people's group and a wife who endured his chaos. He eventually brought his father into the rooms, turning a lifelong enemy into a brother in sobriety.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tommy M. opens by showing the birthday shirt his granddaughter bought him.
• 4:15 Recounts childhood in Montreal, leading gangs and having rumbles with francophones.
• 8:30 Describes his first drink in a back lane and the violent sickness that followed.
• 12:45 Details his military service, basic training in Quebec, and early drinking in the army.
• 18:20 Describes being a 'soldier under sentence' (SAS) in a British military prison and the bread-and-water punishment.
• 25:10 Discusses the wreckage of his marriage and the cycle of drinking and promising to stop.
• 30:45 The 'last drink' story: stealing a taxi and the subsequent sentencing to St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary.
• 35:20 First contact with the program via the John Howard Society and his first prison meeting with the 'old excelsior group'.
• 40:10 Post-release experience: meeting Barbara and Gordy W. at the central office.
• 46:30 Step 9: Making amends to his father at St. Andrew's military hospital.
• 52:15 Reflecting on his father's 17 years of sobriety and his death on Father's Day.