Show Notes
"We tell our stories because we do not heal in isolation. We need each other." - Tom Farley, Recovery.com
Tom will tell you upfront that he doesn't walk into a room to motivate anyone.
He walks in because he needs to be there just as much as the person sitting across from him.
He grew up in a big Irish family in Madison, Wisconsin, where drinking was just how you handled anything uncomfortable.
By the time he got to Georgetown, then Wall Street, he had built an entire identity around being sharp, polished, and put together, with no idea how hollow it felt underneath.
The moment that cracked something open came before his own recovery.
He went to an AA meeting with his brother Chris Farley, in a basement in Hell's Kitchen, and watched him stand up and be more honest than Tom had ever seen him, in front of a room full of strangers.
He didn't understand it yet. But he never forgot it.
Years later, when he found his own way into recovery, he finally did.
The only place he has ever felt real belonging wasn't his family, his career, or his religion. It was a church basement with people he never would have thought to sit with otherwise.
He's been to recovery centers, prison programs, veterans' groups, and boardrooms since.
What he keeps finding is the same thing: people don't lack the desire to get better. They lack permission to be honest about where they actually are.
His take on stigma is simple.
It comes from fear, and the only way through it is real human connection, not awareness campaigns, not likes or shares, but someone looking you in the eye and saying, I've been there too.
"Recovery exists on the other side of fear. Every time you walk through it instead of drinking it away, you get stronger."
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