The soulnotskin Podcast

Tom - Unhoused to Executive Director & Servant

• Jen • Season 1 • Episode 6

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:04:02

Ten years living under a freeway can teach you things most of us never have to learn: how fast addiction strips away options, how “freedom” can become a trap, and how easy it is for the rest of the world to look away. We sit down with Tom Gorham, a man in long-term recovery who went from owning multiple homes and businesses to chronic homelessness, cycling through jail, and expecting to die outside.

Tom walks us through the real mechanics of alcoholism progression, including denial, tolerance, and the invisible line where drinking starts drinking you. We talk about the grief and trauma that often sit underneath substance use disorder, from family loss to the quieter wounds of neglect, religious shame, and feeling fundamentally unlovable. If you’ve ever wondered why someone can’t “just stop,” this conversation makes the disease model feel painfully clear and deeply human.

Then the story pivots to what actually helps: a program that doesn’t give up after three failures, people who hold boundaries without withholding care, and a recovery process that blends 12-step principles, practical treatment, and daily spiritual practice. Tom also shares how that second chance turned into a mission, including building accessible treatment and helping train incarcerated men at San Quentin and beyond as addiction recovery counselors, with measurable impact on rehabilitation and recidivism.

If you know someone struggling with addiction, homelessness, or reentry after prison, share this with them and keep the hope alive. Subscribe for more real conversations, leave a review, and tell us what part of Tom’s journey challenged your assumptions.

Program Tom Started:  Offender Mentor Certification Program

Resources for the family:

Peer Support Continuing Care:

© 2026 soulnotskin. All rights reserved.

Cold Open And Tom’s Bottom

SPEAKER_03

When when I hit the street at 38, I wasn't even in what would be medically the final stage of alcoholism. I did start getting the DTs and stuff. And when I but I went to jail regularly all the time. It was laughable to me. I didn't, I didn't care. But I knew I was I knew I was an alcoholic. Most people don't. They argue with themselves. When you hit the street, you pretty much know.

SPEAKER_00

Real stories, real people, real internet. We are settling. And let's dive into today's episode.

Growing Up In An Alcoholic Home

SPEAKER_03

I'm Tom Gorham, and thank you for having me, Jen, and thank you for the work you do. Honored to be here. And um I'm a person in long-term recovery from alcoholism. And uh I also grew up, I'm gonna talk about in a um in a wonderful family that uh was just mired in alcoholism. So I want that to be clear. Um and uh I made a rather dramatic uh turnaround uh when I was 49 years old to kind of uh recenter my life and and stop drinking and and start picking up uh doing positive things in my life. And I made a few accomplishments, and we have time today, I'll share a couple of those with you. So I grew up in a family in Oakland, California of five. Uh my mother, my mother Burl, my father Red, my sister Sharon, and my father, brother Jerry. Uh I want to point them out because all of them died from some addictive substance, either tobacco, opiates, or alcohol. So everybody in that nuclear family died of addiction but me. I have some close calls.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, what was the timeline on all of that? How old were you?

SPEAKER_03

Uh I was in my 30s when my father died of lung cancer from tobacco. Uh, let me just say that my mother and father both drank alcoholically, as did my brother and sister. Nobody uh was fortunate enough to get into 12-step recovery like I was later on. But uh my father died of lung cancer, that was a tough blow. And then um there's a whole series of events that my mother and sister both died fairly close within a year. And that was part of my craft. That was part of what happened, my breaking point. I hit a breaking point in my life where I ended up homeless on the street. Um I just want to point out one thing that I I've figured out over the years. I'm I was the youngest in the family, and it's always the youngest that gets the brunt of the alcohol effect on a family because the disease progresses, and my parents were at their worst. And and uh so so uh I'll just fast forward. I I went to 12 years of Catholic school. There's a fair amount of trauma there that a lot of people laugh about, but that that was part of the pain I had to reconcile. And and also uh the deaths of my sister who died of cirrhosis about six months after my mother. That was in the 80s, that was around 87, uh, when my mother may have committed suicide, she overdosed regardless whether it was intentional or not. She had had a few uh suicide attempts, and then my sister was already suffering from cirrhosis.

SPEAKER_01

And I was on my second marriage.

SPEAKER_03

My wife, who we you know, we had because of my own alcoholism, uh, taking full ownership of of kind of doing my best to wreck the marriage unintentionally, and uh but she chose she chose to walk out the door on my two children the day after my mother died. And uh I don't I'm not gonna guess her motivation, it doesn't matter, but uh I just kind of having just lost my mother and now my children, my whole world was kind of out the window. And I just gave up at that point and I just didn't care. I'm gonna add to that because I'll get you'll finish with the background. We have a lot to talk about today, and that I I uh own I own four homes before I became homeless. I I started two businesses, pretty good-sized businesses, uh trucking company and a uh ice cream candy parlor in Happening Bay. I want to go there. Yeah, that's what everybody remembered. All the kids that are ground now, that's what they do. Do you remember me? I remember that that candy shop, you know, that ice cream shop. So that's that's some of the joys of my past along, and I really try to recognize both. You know, that it initially when I got in recovery, it all seemed bad, and that's just not the truth. So my job for I'm 27 years in abstinence, so I've got a good stretch of of sobriety. You know, of course, sobriety doesn't equal abstinence. You have to work together sobriety on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_00

So

Church Trauma And Broken Belonging

SPEAKER_00

hold on. I want to I want to pause here for one second, if I could, Tom. Thank you for all of that uh groundwork. Something that we sort of moved past pretty quickly that I would like to touch on just a little, because it's one of the things that I uh intend to focus on in the work that I'm doing now in skin. So when you brought it up, you said that you were raised in the church, or I'm sorry, in the Catholic schools, uh, and people make fun of it, and then we sort of moved on. But can we stay there for a second? Can you share with us um you know, make that real, make that more than a punchline. What was that like and how did that sort of impact who you who you are and who you were at that time in terms of being able to find safety with all that was to come that you just discuss discussed with your family?

SPEAKER_03

It's it's a good question because it's central to everything that happened in my life. Right. A power greater than myself, God, if you will, whatever you have. And we all have some kind of fundamental beliefs that we grow up with that uh stick with us sometimes throughout our entire life, sometimes they're challenged. But with me, I uh just say because both my parents drank, they were, they both were employed. My mother was a first-class chef. She was Henry J. Kaiser's personal chef in the Kaiser Center when they opened it. I mean, she had a real job. And my father was uh a trucking executive. So I've got a good work ethic, but they kind of, as alcoholic families happen, uh, what happened to me was they deferred a lot of the parents into the Catholic Church and the school. So they they weren't there for me. I wasn't hurt. It was a form of neglect that's really painful. I want to point out that I say to myself, quit being a sissy, you know, people get beat, you know, and they get this and sexually abused and all that, and and you just got a little neglect, big deal. Well, it is a big deal, and it wrecked me because I felt in love. So I here they send me up to Catholic school, they paid a lot of money out of their pocket, put me through 12 years of that. I got a splendid uh education, but what comes along with that? This is before the Catholics had the recognition council, where they came a little bit down from the fire in brimstone that you're a sinner no matter what you do, you're imperfect, and you're just wrong. And and uh so I have that at the core belief that I have to reckon with all the time that was drilled into me. And then there's the there was a class thing as well. We were in central Oakland, we were beef all our family, and they shipped me up to the nearest Catholic school in Piedmont, California, which is a very ritzy, hoity-toity, and and I didn't have any idea about class. But they they gave me a good education of why I shouldn't be in that school. You know, my parents didn't attend that church, they didn't put money in in the basket on Sunday. So the the pastor came into the classroom, and I'm probably 10 years old in the fourth fifth grade, I think it was fourth or fifth grade, and made us stand up and say, you shouldn't even be here. Uh your parents don't give enough money. And I'd see them driving out of the parking lot with their golf clubs. And uh another another point that really wrecked me is I actually went to the bishop's house in Piedmont one time because I was just really struggling. Uh I had gotten a young girl pregnant when I was 17 and didn't know what to do, and I wanted some guidance, and the housekeeper told me to get off the ports before they called the police. And I just said, wow, I was just, I mean, I was I was 17 at that point trying to get out. That just did it for me. I said, You got it, I mean, uh, you just phonies and you know, I I met a lot of priests that I used to go to jail with for good causes later on in life. That just lets me know that there's good people within the church doing wonderful work. And but as far as for me, and I look at my own recovery as biological number one. I've done a lot of damage myself, psychological about what I talked about right there. You know, you you are less than, you know, or you're not important because we both, you know, my parents, there was some neglect there. They was I was running around the neighborhood with nobody home. So so you get this thing that you're unlovable and and all that, and kind of trash. So those people were kind of right when they said you don't belong here, and they were all sons of daughters of dentists and doctors and lawyers, and my parents look all our workers, right? And that's that's people I love. So that's a little bit.

SPEAKER_00

And I appreciate that. Thank you for going back to that with me. I just think that you can't under you can't underestimate the power of uh being pushed out of the place that it's supposed to be uh the biggest love of all. You know what I mean? Yeah, parent, parents and people, we suck. We're a mess, right? We all have our hurt, we're hurting in front of each other, and everybody, you know, people are impacted all day long from the way that I'm hurting poorly in my life out loud, right? But God or higher power or this thing, this is supposed to be that which can, you know, fix all wounds and and comfort uh everything that hurts. And and when we are taught that God doesn't love us or the people that God approves of doesn't love us, um, you cannot ignore that as a foundational element to so many of the stories that that I intend to tell. Um, even folks who don't see themselves as having endured trauma growing up, uh, I'd like them to be able to recognize some things in their own growing up that maybe they hadn't identified before because we don't get our needs met when we aren't given a foundational, this is my opinion, a foundational and loving God in our lives. You know?

SPEAKER_03

There's important stuff you just said. And yeah, um the foundation that you brought up is is essential because I didn't really have that. It was, it was very faulty at best. And and uh, you know, and I was in despair a few times in my life when I really needed to just pray or to meditate and just be you know, you know, and just say this will pass. Uh I got those skills later on in 12-step, as I acquired, it kind of regooted my belief. I never disbelieved in the concept of a higher power, ever. But my my definition of it took a long time to kind of form. And it's spirituality more than religion. Um I really, my guideposts are the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and my Catholic upbringing, you know, Ten Commandments and that stuff. That's when it comes down to it, that's what scares me. So I'm not gonna throw the baby out the window with the bathwater as a system. Absolutely. That is who I am. And and I just believe that spiritual and religious beliefs are are an evolution. And I talk to people like that, and they feel like, well, that's that's I never even thought of it that way. But uh, you know, I don't have that childhood philosophy of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph that I did growing up when I was pretty, you know, uh I was a believer. I mean, I just believed what I was told, and and then uh it's a good thing that, you know, I I believe that I grew when I was challenged. I grew in the hard times. I I never had to grow when things were going well or easy. That's right. You know, I watched by the pool with a glass of lemonade with a good book on a sunny day. I don't need to change anything, right? Right. But I I've hit some places in my life that um almost killed me. The beginning of the beginning of the end was how I describe that when uh my wife chose to walk out the door with my two children, and my

Loss And Relapse Into Homelessness

SPEAKER_03

brother picked her up to take her to the train station. So until before I got there. Yeah. I just and I was left in my house by myself, and I had two businesses. I had still owned two homes, and I I just said, What is all this about? It's worthless to me. I I my my whole life just walked out the door, and and I just said, it was just like I couldn't get rid of stuff fast enough. There's a saying I heard in a meeting one time that said, I I went downhill faster than I could lower my standards, and that's what I I uh I just gave up. I hadn't drank in seven years to save the bearage. I was absent for three. I had no program, I had no concept of higher power in my life to support me through this change that I really needed to go through. That was the problem. So, anyhow, I um I put the house up for sale on the beach house in Montana in San Mateo County, and I talked to the realtor who sold it to me. She said, Well, you make sure you're gonna pad half of this. I said, She'll get more than half. She's got my children. And she's a good mom, so I I do know that, so I'm comforted there. But I went through that money, I sold the house, and and within a year I was living on the street. So I just couldn't deal. I mean, I remember I called the first walk on the beach. It was another walk on the beach I had when my my third wife was dying, and that was another reckoning that I had. But um, I walked to the beach, I said, my life is just empty. And I worked my butt off. You know, I was one of those people who wanted to retire at 50, and here I was 38, and my life had just gone out the door. My mother just I woke up, she was dead, my sister was dying, my wife left with the children, my brother sheltering them out the next day, and I was like, wow, this is too much too fast. So I would I remember a friend of mine uh called and and he called for help. And they put me in the cycle. And I said, Well, this is business. I've been to jail lots of times, and that's that's that's kind of normal to me, but the cycle at this is a new experience. So I got out, got through a what, uh, 24-hour hold or 48-hour hold, whatever it is. And and uh I remember they gave me a taxi ride home and I stopped at the store at 7-Eleven or something, and I just blowed up with the same old beer I used to drink. I hadn't smoked in seven years. I got two cartons of camel filters, and I just started going right back, and there was no reason not to so I had rented with alcohol, I didn't believe in treatment, I didn't have those opportunities yet. Um and it was all downhill, and I hit the street, and you know, I was out there for ten years, not ten months, not ten days, ten years. And I was just in a place that this is cool, this is good. I understand why people, you know, just it's just like you have no responsibility, and I remember I used to get up and go through my pockets and hope I had enough to get well in the morning with this little group of friends that we pull our chains and and get some gears to to hopefully get right. And look at the people going to work and say, Boy, them poor souls, you know. Just total denial. And uh so that sense of freedom was a trap. And uh, I had no inclination to get off the street. I just had given up, period. Other people want to get up. I didn't. You know, I never got in their way because I I pulled for them. I'd held no longer if I could, but I had to never got in the way of of the people that wanted to do different people would yeah, people would go into a treatment program or say, I'm gonna change. Or I said, you know. You know, because I I didn't I'm one of the few people that owned a home. I I actually own businesses.

SPEAKER_00

You've been on that train and suddenly you're without rent or mortgage or taxes or any of the mess. So you're just really on vacation for a minute, huh? Yeah, I would agree much.

SPEAKER_03

You know, I was heading toward it, but it was it was the alcohol all the way through my childhood with my initial family, and then into my family, and my progression got worse. I'm in my late 30s when things really get tough with most people. And it did. I went through the divorce, I lost my children, and and that's not unusual, but that's the progression of the disease. And I understand that fully now. So at that point, I'm I'm just like, I'm talking to people on the street, and it's interesting the people I met. And I'll talk about a couple of them because I want people to know who's out there. Who are you talking about when you talk about them homeless people? Well, one of them was this guy, James. His name was Simone. He's a big tall guy. He was kind of thin, he was gangly, and you could tell he was he was uh he wasn't what he used to be because of his drinking. Now he's a heavy drinker like me, so we ended off and making friends on the street is really easy. If you got enough to buy somebody a beer, you had a best friend. And so I I was still had you know money. I I wasn't completely broke yet. I still owned a couple trucks that were in storage. I was working part-time. And but I was I ended up living under Interstate 880 in Oakland, uh, just south, just west of Chinatown. Under the bridge. Under the bridge.

SPEAKER_00

With money in your pocket and truck not before it.

SPEAKER_03

I didn't have money for long. I learned how to pay an animal. I had all these they used to call road dogs. And this one guy had a little more stripes than me on the street. He was a college grad from Texas. Name was Darius, African American man. And, you know, I ran out of money, but you know, I remember when I met him, I was on an AC Transit bus coming from Berkeley to Oakland. I think maybe to get an unemployment check or something. And they used to sell cigarettes too for a quarter. And so he saw I had some cigarettes. I buy a couple cigarettes. I said, No, but you can have a couple. And so he sat down. And we had it off, we became really good friends. And uh we camped together and and uh we moved around Alameda at a nice uh homeless center there, and you get meals at. And he kind of showed me the ropes. And then he introduced me to panhandling, and he was a character, he's funny, and put a smile on people's face when we did it, and it was almost like a public service, but we allow us to get drunk every day. And it was terrible because I was really good at it. And so I uh because I was resourceful, you know, uh uh I had a this group of people around me who I end up training, not to do all the work, you know. And but we were kind of an anomaly. There's there's groups of people on the street, and I'll just I'll summarize who they are. There are mentally ill people there with untreated mental illness that need medication. There's no question. That's the one thing that could give them a half-ounce life. Uh there are alcoholics like myself that have just hit that progression of the disease, that they've bombed out, they gave up. The last thing to go is a job because that's what buys liquor. And and uh so they end up on the street. And then there then there's a group that is actually it's a financial thing. You know, like today, there's a lot of people living in their pars, teachers living in their pars and stuff, because they can't do that. There was that group, that was a small fraction. The hardcore long term. Are mentally ill and alcoholic or drug addict, doesn't matter, mentally ill too, but addicted to a substance. So that's who I was, you know, dealing with out there. And I just got Catholic heart of gold. I would I would take care of the person next to me. I would, you know, and and gays would get beat up and stuff. And, you know, these thugs would march into the ATM on the first of the month to steal their money. And I wouldn't let them do that. You know, I would get in the middle of there. I just, and there was there was those principles that kept me alive for those 10 years. There were there were things I would not do. And I would not roll people. Not to say that I didn't, but I didn't do it twice.

SPEAKER_00

And and so tell tell the audience what that means.

SPEAKER_03

Well, I to rob somebody, to hit them over the head and take their money. And and I had this one gangster. I I mean there's such a mix of people out there that would like me because I was big-hearted, and I didn't lose that on the street. I I was generous, and I if I hadn't, I'd share it. And and that's just not the norm. You know, I cared about people. That's not the norm either. Um and so that that probably kept me alive as well, because I had a lot of pretty tough people around me that wouldn't let anything happen to me because they fired me, you know, and and that would be and that that's probably, you know, I'm not the toughest guy in the world. I could hold my own. I could stand my ground, but uh there were certain things I wouldn't rob a bank. You know, this dude wanted me to drive to getaway if I were to rob a bank. I said, I I that ain't me. That's just it, it ain't me. So they pulled the car over the park, and you know, I showed them how I could drive, and one of the guys said, Tom's just not up to this, let him out. So he he read me, God bless him, and and uh so you know uh there were two things that I think kept me alive. I didn't want to go to prison, scared the crap out of me, and uh and I didn't want to shoot Dokka that I was terrified of AIDS. So I think those two things, fear is a good thing, uh, can be, and uh that kept me alive throughout. And there was those those other boundaries, just principles I could not cross. I I went downhill faster than I could lower my standards, but I wouldn't go all the way down. And that that that group is out there, you know, there are people coming out of prison and they're going right back because they're going right back to that life of crime. And and they would pass through and and uh I was likable. So anyhow, um that's what it was like. So you heard about um a couple of the people that um I I coexisted with. You know, you you love these people, you can never trust them. You know, that's just the code. You'll be sure.

SPEAKER_00

Well, because it's because it's all survival, right? I mean, because it's all it's all survival. So I mean I might love you to death, but man, if I'm starving and you gotta miscuit in your pocket, I'm taking it.

SPEAKER_03

Anything above the brainstem, and you're insulting people a lot of the time. So you gotta keep a you gotta keep it real basic. You know, but there and I'll tell you about Samoan, who was a dear friend. I love this guy. He ended up dying of alcoholism, some some I'm not sure what the medical reason he died was, but uh he was a Cal graduate. He um is a calligraphy, the fancy writing. He he was and his family would come and give him money, and his it just staked their head. What what happened to you when he's an alcoholic? That the progression got so bad he ended up running to the free will and me, a very likable guy, had principles. You know, his friend Big Lou, an African-American guy they were, they were in Vietnam together. And they were tough as nails. These were my friends, and and nobody messed with me because I I was with them. So, but Big Lou was the nicest guy he wanted. He's the he said, I'm the only guy that the Hells Angels would let him in the bar because they like me. I'm a black man. And I got a I gotta hear this one. So you got me to go out to Hayward with him to some Hells Angel bar one day, and we sat in there with all these people like scared the crap out of me. I know a little bit about these people, and I go like, okay. But here's another educated guy with a family with, you know, who the alcohol just took him down to the street, and we'd get out there and laugh about our lives and pan handle together and have uh, you know, support each other. And they know when it came down to it, I had their back. So people would die. People would die on the street, and I knew about 37 people that died on my 10 years. And I would pick up the phone and call their family if I could. And or I would report to the authorities to come pick up this body, and nobody else would do that. And that that's just some of the stuff that um, you know, I have people OD right in front of me. So there's a real tragic part of that 10 years.

SPEAKER_00

Two things that you've brought up for me. One is I want to explain to the audience, uh, folks that don't understand progression in alcoholism. I think a lot of people sort of just really don't know enough that if somebody's drinking heavily, they're, you know, people get called an alcoholic. But um the progression of the illness is it it can vary per individual in terms of uh how quickly it happens. But um there are stages toward what becomes uh dependency that is uh impossible for somebody to turn back from on their own. There's a whole, it could be, it could be weeks, it could be months, it could be years, it could be decades, depending on the individual, but their progressive use, their habitual use can um increase because of tolerance, needing more for the same effect. But there is a day, if that individual continues to use, where they cross this what we call an invisible line, and now they've moved into an area where physiologically, neurologically, it's just they can't go back now on their own. They can't stop. It's drinking them. And I think people don't understand that. So when you've spoken several times about progression, but my alcoholism had me under the bridge. You know, this house state guy uh progression had him here. Uh, people need to understand that this isn't the boy, I really got to pull this together. And so you did. It looks the same on the outside, but it is not

What Homelessness Looks Like Up Close

SPEAKER_00

the same mechanism. But you also touched something else, Tom. You mentioned if folks overdosed, you would call their families, or if family would bring them money and say, What it what happened to you? Tell me about the experience the families are having. And people who would say, How selfish of you for being on the street when when you've got these people who love you, like make sense of that for us a little bit.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Well, I'll start with the progression of the disease. It's uh there's an old saying that it's you know, drinking is fun, and uh, and then it's fun with problems, and then it's just plain problems. That's that's the old old saying, uh fun, fun with problems, problems. And so I would in my work, and I've worked in the treatment field for many years, characterize that. Uh fun is maybe your teen years, maybe into your first half of your 20s, maybe that long. Fun with problems, for me, the problem started when I was, I started drinking when I was about 15. The problem, the real problem started when I was about 17. I told you I got this 15-year-old girl pregnant, you know. That's a whole cascade of problems after that. Uh, I barely made it out of high school. Okay. Um, the disease progressed more from there. In my case, I had some periods of abstinence, so it didn't kill me. A lot of that was spending time in jail. So jailing that that way can save your life. So these timeouts from actual consumption of the of the of the substance are life-saving. The fun with problems, you know, a huge piece of of the disease is denial. And that is almost exclusive to substance use disorder, that the we lie to ourselves, we don't see it. Everybody else around us sees it, but we don't. And so we, you know, the like I said, the last thing we do is lose our job because we have to have that. We might lose our family, you know, we might get a DUI, we might, and but we're not, we're not like Tom over there on the bench. That's an alcoholic. That's yeah. So when when I hit the street at 38, I wasn't even in what would be medically the final stage of alcoholism. I did start getting the DTs and stuff. And when I but I went to jail regularly, all the time, because I, you know, the cops would just they'd know I was drunk and they'd pick me up if they needed somebody to to fill their quota. And and sometimes I'd go to jail every night and be out every morning. So that was just almost, it was laughable to me. I didn't, I didn't care. But I knew I was I knew I was an alcoholic. Most people don't. They argue with themselves. When you hit the street, you pretty much know. And so that's that's toward the the end of the progression, but not the end. Now, I saw people die of overdoses. I saw my sister die of uh cirrhosis. That's medically the final stages. Simone died of the final stages. Most alcoholics die in overdoses or car accidents and they're related. And, you know, I hear stuff on the news, and I know alcohol is probably a that would have never happened otherwise.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And it never gets called that. It never gets attributed to alcoholism a lot of these times. The whole society's in denial.

SPEAKER_03

We're all in denial, and that's what reinforces the disease. This is why we have such a trouble with homelessness and alcoholism. But you want to talk about the families, and I I my hat to off to Samoan's wife that he would meet with secretly, and he, you know, there's there's this huge shame factor as well. And he was ashamed, you know, and in some degree, I guess that was ashamed, but I was I was kind of like too far gone. I just admitted everything, and I'm, you know, I just laugh about it. I'm I'm homeless. I have no intention of being anything else. I'm gonna die out here, and it's okay. I know how to get by it. And and uh I I look what happened in that life when I was doing going to work and stuff. I was it, I was moving on. I was gonna retire in 12 years at 50. And I could have, but alcoholism got in the way. So little did I know that uh there was more in store for me.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and we can't deny also, Tom, the amount of grief and the amount of trauma that you were uh medicating on the street. I mean, take away my alcohol, and then I've got to deal with the father's death and the mother's death and the sister's death and the loss of my family and all of those things without those people to help me deal with it.

SPEAKER_03

For the families that are listening, I would say read the Al-Anon basic text. Just don't have to go to a meeting, read the text because it describes the disease. It's wonderful. And you'll really and you'll really know how you can help instead of enabling or getting in the way. And I don't know if Solan's wife had never met her. You know, I just know he'd sneak off and she'd give him 20 bucks or something, you know, to go clean up and he, you know, he he wasn't a sharing type. How about the children? Well, the children are just caught in the middle, you know. I was caught in the middle as a child, you know, I didn't even know what the problem was. You know, uh my mother here was a first-class chef and had some back problems and then was already drinking alcoholically, but you know, it's kind of a joke to me that they call it a working alcoholic. It's like somebody's alcoholic and also has a good work ethic, is all it is. You know, somebody that's an alcoholic that doesn't have a good work ethic. So there's no such thing as uh, you know, it's two different animals.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03

But when she became disabled and had some back surgery and they introduced her to codeine and and uh you know all these opiates, she got severely addicted to those as well. And I I completely lost my mom. She was just a patient when I was about 10 or 11 years old. Oh wow. That really, when she dropped out of my life, and I became a nursemaid, you know, and and like everybody else, and it was just that, that I'm just fortunate. I had those 10 years prior to that, where I we had, I mean, we had a family vacation or, you know, the Yellowstone and stuff. They really, really, you know, I got 12 years of good education, and that would come in handy later. So it's I started out saying it was a really good family just haunted by alcoholism. So the kids, you know, they have galatine and allot, too, then they've got all the bases covered. But uh it's a family disease, and and uh it's funny because it doesn't matter if if the wife starts going to Al Anon first or the alcoholic husband goes to AA first, it's gonna affect the whole family. So everybody's got to change.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and just uh just a note to our listeners who aren't familiar with the whole spread of 12-step programs. Uh Tom is talking about Alan Al-Anan, Alatine, Alatat. These are all programs uh when Alcoholics Anonymous, the 12-step program, was originated in the 30s, uh, the folks who loved those alcoholics usually would drive them to the meetings, uh, would sort of have their own meetings about what it was like to live with and love somebody who was uh dealing with the alcoholism. And that became a support network for the spouses and for the family members of folks that loved us. Um and then, you know, all these through through the course of time, other programs have developed. Adult children of alcoholics in dysfunctional homes or something. I think it's called ACA. So there's there's all of these different programs that developed for the people who are in relationship with the addicted individual and uh communities that you can find that uh don't say you've got a problem as much as someone that you love does and you want to understand how to be be in life with them. So I'll put some of that down in the show notes so that you can look into those resources, but I didn't want that to get lost on our readers that there's or our listeners, that there's a lot of information out there and support.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So I'd like to talk a little bit about what happened after 10 years on the street. Um, as I said earlier, I was a regular in the city and county jails, and you know, I had no family in my life, they're all dead, and and uh with except for my brother who died later. But uh the judges I knew on a first name basis, and they put me in jail, and we'd laugh, and and you know, I cuss them out or what have you. And but that actually kept me alive, and then uh ten years later, um I committed a crime. I stole a shotgun out of a patrol car, and I was trying to sell it. And uh that was the one that was gonna put me in San Quintin. Yeah, so I broke my cardinal rule, and um I ended up in in uh the courtroom, and I didn't I had a complete blackout, I remember anything. And uh the public defender comes in and says, You might want to talk about this this time. And I do remember that I had done this stupid thing, and uh I was certainly going to prison,

How Addiction Progresses In Families

SPEAKER_03

and uh then this woman, Dr. Davita Cody, comes in right behind and says, I'm I'm starting this program, Options Recovery Services. And the judge told me to talk to you. I found out later the judge told her, I don't think you can help this guy, but talk to him anyway. So that when I found out out, that just I found out what a great motivator anger was for me. I said, I'll show him so when I when I said that. Anyhow, I I failed the program and I went back to jail at my first court report. And and then uh I said, Well, that was a nice experience. I'm glad I'm done with that and get back to my drinking, and then they moved out for the program. And they did that on the fourth time, and this was over the course of six months, but they hung in there with me. And I got these small periods of sobriety where my brain was actually starting to work pretty well. And on the um fourth try, they said, Well, this is it, we're just gonna you know give you six months or a year in the county jail. I said, Okay, give me one more chance. And then they put me out in the county jail, and I remember, because I these people really cared about me. It wasn't just punishment, it was like they were hanging in there with me, I was making some progress, I was getting a little bit familiar with the principles of recovery. And and uh I had this night in the jail where I said, Oh my God, these people care more about me than I care about myself. This is not, this is not okay.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_03

And that's what did it. And then I had with, you know, and I described as a spiritual awakening, but this one moment of reckoning where I said, there's and I had this freedom, feeling of freedom, saying, There's nothing stopping me from doing what they want me to do. And I'm sick and tired of being, I've been on the three, ten years. The party's over. I I'm not having fun anymore. There's nothing, I'm just killing myself, and people are starting to drop out faster and die. So the mortality was there. And um, I went back into court and I said, aha, I'm gonna stop drinking. And the the judge actually chuckled at me. So I've changed or something. And I was infuriated. Uh-huh. Yeah. You know, because I did it. I was getting to move. And then and then uh I go back, and uh Dr. Cody says, Well, I don't know, he already struck out three times, you know. And I said, Listen, I'm I'm for real on this. I'll move. They had a homeless filter, they had a room in. I said, I'll go in there tonight. I would never do that. Because I I was gonna give it a an honest try. So I got in the program and I I was a model student. I just I knew at that point what I wanted. And it was a very tough challenge because nobody, everyone was like the judge. All my friends on the street were like, oh, really, you forgot where you came from, you know. Yeah, we never heard this out of Utah. So I I had no support. But when the judges and Davina started, Dr. Tony started believing in me, it that's what made the difference. So to those families out there, Simone's wife, showing up, showing him those love and caring, that's huge. That's everything. That's the life part. So don't stop doing that. You know, you just have to make sure you're not enabling. And so, anyhow, I got it. At that point, my health was so bad, I applied for Social Security and they mailed me a check every month. I was like, this is like a homeless person's dream. They're gonna mail me, you know, a thousand bucks a month. Are you kidding? You know, and I got fresh stocks and everything. And uh so anyhow, I volunteered the program for a while, and I I I became the architect of the of the Aximal Punible program. I went back to school at 49. So anybody's listening to it.

SPEAKER_00

This is options treatment for those who don't, they're not familiar.

SPEAKER_03

That was a um slandering little program that Davina started. Get a little background on her. She's a doctor who got into recovery herself, uh, worked all over the world as a pediatrician, working at Warzone, starting um programs, refugee programs for 30-something years. And she retired after the peace support in Central America and wanted to do something in AA so that never done any service. So she's she started small, she started a whole program with the judges who were sick and tired of seeing me and people like me, and they didn't know what to do with them. So to me, you know what take us, the mentally ill and myself, and you know, the poverty stricken, uh, couldn't get out of our own way. And and uh that's all I needed. I didn't need a great program, I didn't need a lot of science. You had 12 step recovery blended in, and I ran with that. And and those people accepted me unconditionally. And so it gave me that place. And I lived in shelters for about a year while I was volunteering. So to me, being absent during that time, I was kind of on the path. I went back to school at 50 and I got a Dixon certificate. So I actually had a feel of professional, I gave options recovery services their first professional counselor. I was counseling in the program then. And I knew at that point I was going to become a role model for a lot of people. So I kept that close to them. Yes, clear. And I went on and I finished that, and the program was expanding because the the whole what made it unique was there was no requirements to join the program. Money did not get in the way. You come in the door and you take a seat and you join. And we'll, if you have the insurance or something, we'll certainly look into that. But it was an all-volunteer effort, which was which was beautiful, because I was always looking for the flaws. You know, what's your angle? You know, and it was there been they didn't have any angle, so I was learning a lot as I went on. So I went on and uh I became like the first political director. I learned, I brought what I learned in school, and I built a really fundamental science-based program that was three months, and then that wasn't long enough because we were dealing with a lot of people that walk in the door. You know who's gonna walk in the door. I I ran whole groups just full of schizophrenics. There was a whole group in me.

SPEAKER_02

Unmedicated?

SPEAKER_03

Hopefully. Teaching them to readmit themselves when they relapsed because those medications are not fun. And they come in and I say, okay, well, it's you just had a relapse. It's not, you're not drinking, but you're not taking your meds either. So they would go check into the county hospital and reboot and come back, and they learned to do that, and their uh recoveries were much more challenging than mine. I had more physical ailments going on, which is another cold touring disorder. And I'm on Social Security, you know, working, and I I gave that money back because I knew that was a trap for me. I said, I gotta go back to work. I I knew I would do that, I've been down this road. And so when options got a little money, finally, I had a part-time job, and then I continued on my education. I really, there was something that really I caught fire with, and then at the same time, I was giving options recovery service some credibility. I got a bachelor's degree, and then I said, Well, you know, really to meet the need here, I need a master's degree. And I actually went on and got a state license as a married family therapist. So here I am bringing 10 years of homelessness experience to the table along with a master's degree and a state license. And we're building really great program for people like myself. Never lost sight of that. Not interested in, and I had offers, you know, to work in Malibu programs and all that type of stuff, work on a job and offer in Hawaii. I said, no, no, this is where I need to do that.

SPEAKER_02

You didn't go to Hawaii, Tom?

SPEAKER_03

I went on vacation. I I didn't take the job because I didn't get to the best part. I ended up marrying the director. So I married Davina. And we got a crazy romance that, you know, what a jump for her. For me, I had nothing to lose, but uh, we tell them four years after, so the county did an investigation on it. It sounds like it's an ethical issue near out of your mind. I said, I got a whole code of ethics myself, but I made sure that's not the case. So anyhow, that uh got options off the ground, and they're here to stay. So they're still, you can get in the door there without too many questions still, if you want to get somebody in treatment. But then another piece happened, I got a call. I talked about the walk on the beach. I'm gonna write a book down the line here, but also call out the first call. I got uh from the president of my professional organization asking if I go into San Quentin with him, that there were 25 guys in there that needed our help and wanted to talk about getting trained to do treatment in the prisons. And I said, Oh man, you know, I I've been trying to stay out of prison for a long time, and you only feel the need to go. So we went up there and I met these 25 men, and I just melted. And my whole concept of who these people were in prison just changed in a minute. They were genuine, they wanted help, they were grateful we even showed up. And so Warren went

The Program That Wouldn’t Give Up

SPEAKER_03

back to Sacramento, and I went home to Berkeley, and I was back there forming the training within two weeks. And I put together, because I was on the on the certification board at the state level, I brought in all the requirements, I got a volunteer group to train these guys, and a professor from the University of California and stuff came over, paid their own bridge solar and gas to go over there, train these 25 guys. Then I smuggled the exam in.

SPEAKER_02

I love this part.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I smuggled, and I administered the exam, and 85% of the I think it was 83%, passed the exam on the first drive, which is unheard of. The pass rate is less than 50% nationwide, and I come to find out. And they were, you know, talk about a captive audience, I certainly had that, but they were so engrossed and so on tired to help their fellow inmates. And that was just beautiful.

SPEAKER_00

And to have purpose, Tom, and to have purpose, had a sense of purpose.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. And I would challenge them. Why I got through to the animals because of my own story, that profound moment of reckoning I described to them. And I said, You're sitting here, some of you have life sentences, a bunch of you, but you you can make that same decision in spite of that. And I challenge you to do that. And I I went first, and there's no there's no reason you can't do the same thing, there's nothing special about me. And I would challenge each and every one of them, and man. So I what I did with this program that really made it unique is is, you know, being a therapist, I started as a parallel process, what we call, that I would give them all the academic stuff to pass an exam, which was easy. You know, I'd bring in all the pharmacology and all these different coursework and law and ethics and all that good stuff. But then we would form a circle and we would do our own personal work. And we would talk about our own pain from family of origin. We would talk about our clients, the people we hurt, and we would I challenge them to come to terms with that and make a decision in spite of that to make tomorrow different. Tomorrow we're gonna be of service. We're not gonna hurt people anymore. And it's a miracle I'm asking you to do, and in state prison, being vulnerable is not okay. That's right. You don't ask people to be vulnerable. They you know, these gangs are serious.

SPEAKER_00

They can't afford to be.

SPEAKER_03

But what happened with that program? And then the state called me. I worked, I did two trainings at San Clinton, and then the state of California called me, the the head of the rehabilitation arm of the Department of Corrections, asked me if I would show them. They said, We know what you're doing in San Clinton. Would you come up and show us in Solana State prison? We've got 50 men here we'd like to train. I go, 50? That's a while. I said, but if you can put them in there, we'll put them in there, what the hell? And so I did a training and they said, Aaron, kill me. They they said, Well, we got budget, we got a budget for you. Tell us what you need. And nobody's ever said that to me. Of course, I went straight to green. And and uh they said, no, I kind of did a cleansing and said, okay, I'll put something together. So I talked to some of the biggest names in the country that wrote the book for me. And I said, I'll fly you out here, you know, from Florida or New York or Chicago, and I want you to work in the prison. And I don't think any of them said no. And I can't pay you a lot, but I'm gonna pay you. And they were just sold on this experiment. It was wonderful. And it's still going. Uh, there's a whole another story to be told there. But I did that at San Clinton in 2005. The state called me, and I did the first training in Solano in 2009. So I had been doing this for four years, and then they put names on it, the Addiction Recovery Counseling Treatment Program, initially at San Clinton, and then it became the OMCP. And the men named it, a federal mentor certification program, because these men had a career. The idea was they'd work within the prison with a professional workforce amongst their own, where this is a huge problem. When I when I first started, I got this rant because the recidivism rate in California was seven out of ten men and women will be back in prison within three years. And I know I have to take some credit, we're down below just a tick below 50 now. That's huge. That's a lot, a lot of effective. And the RMCP program is it has six or eight training sites now statewide. And they reach all levels up to death row. So it's it's really a success.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I tell you, what I know about the program, I've had the great pleasure of going in and teaching on occasion for some of those, for some of the classes that um that the programs you built um have have put together. And I have to tell you that um just so folks know, there's a tremendous amount of uh processing that goes into choosing the men who are uh able to do this work. Uh they don't just get to sign up if they don't like being on death row. Um, they really have to have some sort of a resume of showing up for themselves and for their their work site or their education or whatever in the course of being there. But then also the parallel processing, it's the parallel work that these men have to do. It means that not only do these men, as you mentioned, have to do the work of uh seeing what happened to me, uh, coming to terms with the harm caused, you know, um, having some level of accountability for it, but also sort of becoming determined to be of service, right? I go forward as someone of service. Like that is its own process of doing the hard work that every human being on this planet I wish would do, but we aren't motivated to do unless we're in the situations of laying under a bridge, uh, facing a life sentence, facing overdose, or these types of things that literally bring people to their knees and looking down the barrel of death to have the opportunity to make that change. You you painted a really beautiful illustration of that moment for you in Santa Rita. Like who are these people care more about me than I do?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

What is going on right now, right? Which I think it is divine, Tom, exactly right. I was going to say, uh, what if we took everybody who kept making the same mistakes and we just loved them?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Exactly. That's just one of the things.

SPEAKER_00

What? But don't they deserve to be punished? I told you to knock it off and you didn't knock it off. Now I'm going to punish you more. How about you just love them? Yeah. And allow and allow them to have that moment of clarity or not, but so many will.

SPEAKER_03

I have the the privilege of getting to become friends with Martin Sheen. And anybody knows about the trials and travails of the Sheen family. They suffer a bit from this disease of substance use disorder as well. A reporter asked him one day, and I just love this. Charlie was really struggling, and I've met Charlie too, he's a really good guy. And they asked Martin, Well, what are you going to do? And they wanted him to say just what you just said. I just need to love him more. That's my job. Martin Sheen said that? Yep, yep. That just warmed my heart, and I said, That's and that's that's who he is. He just said, Oh, wonderful guy. And a family man, and uh, and he loved Charlie and back into recovery, and you know, it's the formula. I knew going into the prison was getting them an exam was what they wanted. That was the carrot. What I wanted was that profound change within them. And I tell them, I could throw a baboon on a stalk of bananas and have them pass an exam. Right. But for what I'm asking you to do to become vulnerable, to turn your life around like today, is a lot. And that's why I show up here. You know, to make yourself eligible to ever get out of this place. And what has happened is most of them do get out now, which is remarkable. Because when I started in 2005, rehabilitation was not even in the title of California Department of Corrections. Governor Schwarzenegger put that word back in there simultaneously when I was starting to train and say Pointon. So the first lifers that got out were out of my program. And that the warden came up to me one day and just found me, you know, in our classroom, and he said, You know, you changed the whole mentality of this prison with this program. I said, I didn't know. I'll have to, you know, dwell on that for a minute. You know, I I didn't know. But it gave hope to these people, and that's what it gave to me. You know, these judge and and Dr. David Cody and them, those people that believed in me when I couldn't believe in myself. You know, they knew I they knew I was capable, they knew that as anybody else. And they they hung in there. And it it can be tough.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Tom, if there's anybody listening right now, driving down the street and looking out their window and seeing somebody who's living outside, what is it that you would want them to know?

SPEAKER_03

Well, anytime I agree to speak is about hope, and that you don't lose hope, and it can get pretty tough in the throes of substance use of brick, or anything else in life that we have brick walls we

San Quentin And The Power Of Service

SPEAKER_03

run into, and uh we, you know, have to believe, and and I'm gonna say for me, it has to be a belief that there's there actually is a loving higher power there that something awaits me when I cannot see it. And that we just have to, there's hope for us. There's not a person living out there with a challenge that uh can't turn their lights around on a dime.

SPEAKER_00

All right, last question, and this is a simple one. Not really quickly, with everything that you've been through, Tom. After everything you've lived through, what would you say makes a human valuable? Not successful, not productive, sober, not housed. What makes a human being valuable?

SPEAKER_03

Value is in service. We're communal human beings. You know, I'm gonna shout out my my wife here. I just married Nanise Singer. You know, my biggest advocate now. It's what we do for each other, and it's a growth thing because it gets us outside of ourselves. You know, and it's about get your mind off your own problems and find somebody more miserable than you and help them. There's a thousand ways to do that, even if it's putting a check in an envelope, you know.

SPEAKER_00

And I think that's exactly it, right? For those of us who have hope, share it. Yeah. And for those of us who need it, we might pick some up one day. The smallest thing caring shows love.

SPEAKER_03

And love is the formula. That's right. Alters all.

SPEAKER_00

And there you have it, everyone. Mr. Tom Gorham. Very exciting. The next project that I will be working on with Tom is his memoir. So keep your eyes open in the next year for a deeper, richer, more thorough, beautiful look at the trials and travails of Tom Gorham and the many characters he met. Living on the street.

Head Shot

Jen SluMac, "Ms. Jen"

Host