Hi everyone. My name is Father Michael Denk. I’m the Pastor at Saint Matthias, the Apostle Catholic Church, in Parma, Ohio, and I’m delighted to introduce you to this book and, actually, a workbook that I’ve read. It’s called The Twelve Steps and the Sacraments, a Catholic Journey Through Recovery. The author is Scott Weeman, and I’m so delighted to have him in person with us. Publishers often send me books to read and review. Anytime I find a book that I just absolutely love, I try to see if I can get an interview with the author. I’m excited to get to talk with you and just hear more about your helping so many people in need of recovery. Thank you for joining us.
Scott Weeman: It’s really my honor, thank you for having me; I look forward to the discussion today.
Father Michael : As I mentioned, I did have the book here and the workbook and for myself, I’ve always wanted to walk through the 12 Steps. I went through a lot of great recovery and conversion during my time in the seminary and have met a couple of priests over the years that have been very foundational for me. One of them is a priest that just died recently. His name is Father Michael B. Smith and he wasvery open about sharing his journey of his alcoholism and his recovery. It’s always been a personal interest for me and something that has been very near and dear to my heart.
I want to tell you a little bit about the book, in my perspective, before we hear from Scott. This book is fantastic. I looked it up on Amazon. It’s got a 4.8 out of 5 star reviews, which is pretty awesome. I have written all over this book that has so many tremendous and profound insights, there’s some reflective questions at the end of each chapter. Usually, I don’t engage with those. They usually don’t do anything for me, but these reflection questions got me writing all over the book and then I began working through the workbook as well and this was tremendously profound. I’d actually like to think about just having a priest group to work through this together. I want to thank you for these amazing resources and let anybody know that if you just want to grow in this area of your life, if you find yourself addicted to anything or if a loved one needs it, this could be a wonderful resource for you. The great thing is that it is Catholic. It helps bring together the beautiful aspects of the Sacraments in the process of recovery. Tell us about how you wrote this and came up with this wonderful book and journal and website and all the resources that you have.
Scott Weeman: Well, I’m really honored; it’s kind of humbling to know that you found it so profound and helpful. A lot of times we hear from people that they are eager to work through the 12 steps but they might not identify as someone who has an addiction or they might not even know how to begin doing that. They’ve seen transformation take place in the lives of their families, friends or other community members and think, ‘I want some of that but how do I go about doing it.’ My hope is that we can make the 12 steps applicable to everyone’s lives. The 12 steps really help to overcome the deep-rooted issues that lie within us. We see addictions, compulsions, and unhealthy attachments including those related to drug addiction, alcoholism, compulsive eating behaviors, pornography and lust, gambling, technology, co-dependency, the family impact of addiction, as really just symptoms of a deeper spiritual malady that all humans share.
Father Michael: I wholeheartedly agree that this really could be for everybody because its sin, it’s our attachment, would be the spiritual way of saying that our attachment to something that keeps us from allowing God to fill us with his love.
Scott Weeman: Amen. Well put. It’s just that most of us don’t have the urgency to complete the 12 steps or when we get to areas where we need to be very honest with ourselves and perhaps another person that can be, you know, we might find a rationalization for well, maybe this isn’t for me. But there is a desperation that we find within those that are seeking freedom from a variety of addictions or compulsions to do really important interior work. For me, that desperation came through my own troubles and challenges with addiction, namely alcoholism, drug addiction, and lust related addictions.
I’ll give a brief background before diving into the work of Catholic and Recovery. I grew up in Northeast Wisconsin, had a pretty normal childhood, at 17 I took my first drink, remembering it quite well. Actually, a gentleman, a friend of mine who I was walking to a party with, handed me, we had lukewarm Bud Lights stuffed in our cargo shorts and pulled it out. He said, don’t think so much what this is going to taste like because it won’t taste great at first but just think about how great it’s going to make you feel. Fast forward nine years later, I’m 26 years old in my studio apartment in San Diego, and I took my last drink on October 9th, 2011. I didn’t care what the drink tasted like, I just knew that it was an effective way to no longer feel the way that I was feeling. In that nine-year span, I was offered a college scholarship which was lost after three semesters due to my pursuit of alcohol, drugs and things not related to school. I dealt with some DUI’s, lost relationships, and challenging family relationships. I fell in love with a woman who was very Catholic, from a great Catholic family. We moved from Wisconsin to San Diego in 2010, thinking that a geographic change might help, which it didn’t. A year later I was left really in that place of desperation, rock bottom, and I have to note, rock bottom doesn’t look in one particular way for another person. Rock bottom is when we stop digging, but I had this moment of Grace, this window of Grace, where I knew I needed help. I didn’t know how I was going to find it. I rode my little beach cruiser bike to Mission Bay and pulled out my phone, which seemed to weigh about five hundred pounds. I called a few close friends from back home, called my mom and my dad and told them that I needed help.
I knew of an AA meeting that I was going to go to, and the next day I walked into a 12 step group at an AA meeting. When I got there it was early in the morning, I was usually sleeping through hangovers at that time. When I got there, it was on the second floor of an Episcopal Church near the beach in Pacific Beach, and I heard laughter and camaraderie from above and I thought, man, I gotta be in the wrong place. If these people have any idea of what I’m going through, there’s no reason for them to be laughing. It turns out they had found a solution to the problem that I was dealing with and that laughter is really a symbol of great freedom and mercy and new life. In that meeting, I sat in the back corner, shared enough to let people know who I was. After the meeting, we all grabbed hands or put our arms around each other’s shoulders, and prayed the Lord’s Prayer, which was one of the few prayers that I really remembered from my childhood. I had distanced myself from God quite a bit, as much as possible, thinking of him as more of a Divine scorekeeper than really someone who had a personal interest in my life. And after that a man darted across the room, looked me in the eye and said, “I know exactly how you feel. You don’t ever have to drink again.” He took me under his wing and helped saved my life. We went to a coffee shop immediately afterwards which we would go to on a daily basis after attending a morning meeting, and we would read through the big Book of Alcoholic Anonymous, with the Bible right next to us, cross referencing between the two and really provided an awesome foundation for my recovery. He made it very clear that in order for myself to find and maintain freedom, that I would need to give back what was freely found, and help others. He said never underestimate your ability to help the addict or alcoholic who is still struggles. I made my way back to the Church through an awesome young adult community in Pacific Beach, San Diego, and that was a turning point as well where I found fellowship and community and I fell in love with the Church. These two entities, the Church and 12 Step Recovery saving my life and running parallel with each other but didn’t seem to have a lot of cross over. A lot of times, I’m sure some listeners who might have some experience in recovery can relate to wearing two hats. We wear one hat when we are in recovery; we wear another hat when we are in the Church and there is so much I thought the Church could learn from the 12 step recovery groups and also many people in 12 step recovery fellowships who were longing for a deeper relationship with their higher power.
A few years into my recovery, I started a website, Catholic in Recovery.com, really just writing articles related to our faith and 12 step recovery and topics that overlapped each. A few months into that, I received a message from a woman from Ave Maria Press, the publisher of the book, about writing a book which I never really had any plans for. We went through the process of writing that and putting a proposal together, completing a manuscript, and in the process of completing the manuscript. I was doing some speaking at the Cathedral in San Diego, completing a four-week series, just like the book is organized. The best part of those talks was when I was done talking, closed my mouth and other people had a chance to share their experience, strength, and hope related to their challenges with addiction or their addiction recovery, or their loved ones’ challenges with addiction, but through the lens of our faith and Sacraments and Catholic devotions, scripture, things that would otherwise be out of bounds in a secular 12-step recovery meeting. It became clear that we needed to keep bringing these people together. We started our first Catholic and Recovery meeting in January 2017, bringing people together with a variety of addictions and compulsions. Now fast forward, the book was published later that year and now there are about 120 active Catholic and Recovery meetings in person around North America. We’ve got about 60 virtual Catholic and Recovery meetings, still provide education and resources, articles and a platform of resources for those seeking to blend their 12 step recovery with their Catholic Faith.
Father Michael: Yeah, and I love hearing it from you, in person is even more powerful, but I love the way that you talk about AA meetings as, ‘if you want to experience unconditional love and just walk into a room and be loved.’ I just think that’s so great because I know that a lot of people are either afraid or just don’t have a good feeling about going to any kind of meeting. To take that first step is such a huge thing and then to hear that from the moment that you entered there you heard laughter and you experienced love. Father Michael B. Smith, who I mentioned before, was such a funny guy; he had the most amazing sense of humor, and I remember thinking, ‘wow, he’s like this not drinking, he’s so fun just the way he is.’ It makes me think about how you experienced that joy, that humility and that humor the first time that you walked into a meeting.
Scott Weeman: We usually don’t show up to a meeting like that for the first time on a winning streak. We are dealing with a whole bunch of shame, and fear and resentment and isolation. So, you are right, it is a huge leap to step into a room where to just ask for help is such a big deal. But when our shame is met with mercy and understanding, that is where the power of the Lord will transform us and really begin to work on us. We can’t do it alone but we find that, we begin to build trust not only in others, but in God doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Father Michael: You know it’s interesting, one of the things I learned during my time doing a summer internship working with a recovery place, and one of the things that I often heard was ‘spiritual but not religious.’ That’s some of the challenge of the secular AA. I understand when people begin the recovery process, especially if they’ve been wounded and their own upbringing of faith, because we’re a church of human beings led by the Spirit, but that there needs to be for them that kind of separation. I think what’s so beautiful in the book is that you do weave in our beautiful religion, everything that we have accessible to us. I think most importantly, the Sacrament of Confession. As a priest, I’ve been tremendously blessed from the time I went into the seminary, that I had a spiritual director. As I read through these, the book and the workbook, I realized that I have brought so much, like my poor spiritual director knows, every single thing in my life and I feel like I’ve done that fifth step by revealing everything to the Lord and experiencing His Mercy. There’s nothing like the Sacrament of Confession if you’ve been away from the church or away from the sacraments and you are desiring that healing. It happens so profoundly in the Sacrament.
Scott Weeman: Yes, it does. I think the most blatant overlap between the 12 steps and the Sacraments is steps 4 through 9, where we make a thorough moral inventory of ourselves, share it with God, ourselves, and another human being, ask God to remove whatever defects of character stand in the way of serving Him and others, make a list of all persons we had harmed and then go out to make amends with them, becoming willing to make amends and then going through the process. It’s like the preparation, the confession, the spiritual renewal and the very full penance, but in very practical terms, that brings reconciliation to relationships and really takes ownership of the harm that we’ve done through our self-seeking addictive behaviors. I’ve gotten to see so many people who have experienced that transformation. Our first Catholic and Recovery group, one of the first meetings that we started in San Diego, a man gave me a call one day. He had lived a very colorful life, was about 25 years sober, had a very dark history before that and was going through his own conversion and kind of coming back to the Church. It had been about 50 years since he had set foot in a Catholic Church. A few weeks later he was going back to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and found new life and renewal, reuniting with the church of his youth. He shares that he’s experiencing recovery in a whole new way even after 25 years of new life in 12 step recovery. The stories go on and on about people returning to the Sacrament of Confession or others who are coming to the church for the first time who have experienced the miracle of God. It’s such a Grace and such a gift and put in very applicable terms. You mentioned 12 step recovery groups is a very open funnel, not just there for Christians or Catholics. However, there is a great Catholic influence in the early development of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 step groups, with the likes of Father Ed Dowling and Sister Ignatia who helped mentor those early pioneers of recovery. I think as our culture has become more secularized so have some of those groups or meetings but at its essence and in its principles, there is a great alignment with our faith.
Father Michael: It’s pretty cool because I’m in Cleveland, Ohio, but just south of us is Akron and that is where it was founded by the priest and the nun, there was a layman as well, Bill W, so the roots of it are very Catholic and are very holistic and spiritual
Scott Weeman: We get a lot of people who come to Catholic and Recovery meetings. Now we have virtual meetings that take place regularly throughout the day, general recovery meetings, meetings for specific addiction types, meetings for a family member impacted by a loved one’s addiction and you often see at their first meeting, a release, a large exhale of ‘man it’s so nice to be able to share about my faith in a meeting like this.’ People are longing for a place within the church where they can share their experience, strength and hope and connect with others who understand their faith and values. It’s not to say we’re not here to take all the Catholics out of secular 12 step groups but to supplement people’s recovery, serve as a bridge between the Catholic church and 12 step Addiction and Recovery fellowships.
Father Michael: I think it’s so great to have the opportunity; you mentioned how many groups are there in person and online?
Scott Weeman: We have a total of over 170: 120 in person and throughout the week about 60 meetings that gather in a virtual setting. We have people from all over the globe who participate, in fact, we just started a meeting which starts at 7:30 a.m. Central European time, 6:30 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, for those in Europe and other places in the world to get their day started. So, the need is apparent. It’s such a grace to see the growth.
Father Michael: What would someone do if they wanted to join a meeting?
Scott Weeman: First, I know the internal battle is real, so there’s the praying and asking God for the blessings, or fear or resentment might stand in your way, keeping an open mind, mustering as much willingness and honesty. At Catholic and Recovery.Com, our website, we have a directory which shows a full calendar of all the virtual meetings that are available. Once the pandemic began and we began doing things online in a virtual setting, we immediately beganvirtual meetings which made it possible for people who otherwise didn’t live near a Catholic and Recovery group in person to attend and, you know, there’s some built-in anonymity withinthat as well. We also have a directory of all in person meetings that take place. I think we are in 40 different states now throughout the United States, several meetings taking place in Canada and a few in Mexico as well.
Father Michael: Wow. Can you give us a walk-through of the beginning steps of coming to this realization and wanting and needing God to save us?
Scott Weeman: The first step is the only step that they say we need to work to perfection or 100%. And that is that we are powerless over addictions, compulsions, and unhealthy attachments, kind of a fill-in-the-blank power over alcohol, drugs, lust, gambling, eating. That our lives have become unmanageable. Working back to 100% completion really means that we understand in our innermost selves that we have a problem and are in need of help. That can be easier said than done. Often times what brings us back to the thing that we know is killing us, spiritually, physically, mentally killing us, we go back to that because we make rationalizations, ‘tomorrows going to be a different day.’ Throughout the end stages of my addiction, tomorrow was always the day that I was going to get help, but today I was just so biologically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually attached to substance and behaviors that on my own I couldn’t muster that, so, that first step we really admit our powerlessness. In steps 2 & 3, our need for a savior and muster the willingness to allow him to transform our lives, surrendering to His will. We overlap that with the Sacrament of Baptism, which really comes to the same kind of place, that we alone can’t find salvation, but through the miracle of God, the author of life, that we can find what he found at his baptism, that our identity lies not in the worst things that have happened to us. I say my name is Scott, I’m an alcoholic and an addict. That doesn’t mean that I’m defined by those things. What it really means is that I found a relationship with God that has helped me overcome those things, one day at a time. My true identity lies in being a beloved son of his with whom he is well pleased.
Father Michael: That is one of the ministries that I have called The Prodigal Father, to really help people know how unconditionally loved you are by God. As you said, none of this that we do will ever change his love for us. He’s there to unconditionally love us and also to help us, to bring us and walk us through these. One of the things that you said in the chapter on removing defects, you said, “Remember, those behaviors are but a symptom of a larger spiritual unrest that manifests itself in an emptiness that cannot be filled.” I think that’s a great way of saying it; I have an annual retreat director, Monsignor Esseff, and he’s helped me over the years to see my behaviors, he tries to go to the depth of what’s causing the behaviors rather than focusing so much on the behaviors themselves. What is the deeper brokenness that is within me that needs to be healed? That’s where this in universally applicable, that we all have some kind of brokenness in us that needs to be healed. That’s where we hear from Saint Paul that in our weakness, we are made strong.
Scott Weeman: We often hear in 12 step recovery groups, the newcomer will often hear something along the lines of ‘allow us to love you until you can love yourself.’ That human-to-human experience with God’s unconditional love, because they have also experienced that unconditional love from God is such a gift, and hard to find in a lot of places where we feel we might be met with judgement or just entangled relationships and brokenness and all of that.Everyone is brokenness, counteracting with each other to create mistrust. There’s many graces and blessings that can help us overcome that.
Father Michael: I had a spiritual director in the seminary my first year, and one of the things they always went very strongly on is the truth will set you free. His thing was that if you bring everything to the light you will experience freedom. When I went into the seminary, I wanted to be the best priest that I could be and it was 2001. It was during the priestly scandal and I saw how all of these priests were getting caught up in such horrible things, and that was one of the things that he said: you can’t go wrong if you bring it to the light and you share it with a wise, spiritual person, which is one of Saint Ignatius’s rules for discernment. The way that you talk about these recovery groups is that it provides that safe place, where everybody is willing to do that and there’s no shame. I find that in confession too; people think I will look at them and judge them after they reveal something. When somebody makes a profound confession like that and reveals whatever that deep shame is, I look at that person with absolute love and almost like a heroic courage that they were willing to bring that forward to the Sacrament. There’s such a wisdom in that, bringing it to the light, sharing it with your sponsor, your Priest confessor or in a recovery group.
Scott Weeman: That’s a breath of fresh air coming from you as well, Father Michael, and just having it reinforced from a priest that, it’s a blessing when we get to be vulnerable with each other. We are giving a gift while also receiving the mercy of another person. There’s a book, The Spirituality of Imperfection, that is a recovery literature book that talks about we give by getting, and get by giving in recovery. That’s the lifeblood of recovery much like it is the lifeblood of the church. When we have newcomers to our church who are asking questions or are new or want to seek Jesus in a very unified way, the rest of the congregation, especially those who get to connect on a personal level, has the opportunity to receive just as many blessings as the newcomer might just by the invigoration of faith and the new life that’s seen. It reinvigorates our own faith and much of that happens in recovery as well.
When we get to hear a 5th step, something shared with a sponsor, someone sharing their darkness, their past with all honesty, maybe some secrets that they haven’t told anyone ever, the communion that follows that and the intimacy that comes from that is such a blessing. What I’m hearing in a 5th step that is different from when you’re hearing a confession, we often will share some of our stuff as well, reveal some of our own darkness and garbage, just to put the other person at ease, and for them to recognize, they’re not the only one who has done this. Often the thinking is, whether it’s addiction or sin or spiritual darkness, that leads us to believe that no one’s done such grave things as I have, or I must be terminally unique. But when we recognize that other people have been through a similar path and have found the light, it really offers hope and helps us overcome whatever shame might stand in our way of our getting help.
Father Michael: We are the Body of Christ. We are a Church where God wants to use each and every one of us to minister to each other and to love each other as well. You talk too, about adoration, the Eucharistic Adoration was just as important as therapy, you mentioned. I found that to be a wonderful place for me to go when I want to be in his presence and feel love in the midst of any of my brokenness. Tell me a little bit about that.
Scott Weeman: I think when we don’t have the words to say or we don’t even know what the trouble is, going to adoration, gazing at Jesus as he looks back at us can do profound things. Sometimes it’s that grumbling. Saint Paul talks about prayers are the grumbling of the heart. We don’t even know what might be wrong, we certainly don’t know what to say. I’m one who oftentimes feels some perfectionism, I’ve got to say the right thing or if I can put my prayer the right way, put the right words together, maybe that will help God answer me in a way that he otherwise wouldn’t, but that is just a lot of pride standing between me and God. Me almost thinking that I am playing God. So, adoration is such a humbling experience.
Father Michael: I totally agree with that sentiment that it’s a place just to go and we don’t have to figure it out, we can be with him. I realized that myself, that reading this book, is how I felt I need to manipulate God, life, other people and I’d like to hear from you about, we just did the Surrender Novena here at the Parish, I don’t know if you’ve ever done that. You talk about the need to continually work and perfect the first step, what is it like to surrender to God and to allow him and to trust him to remove our defects and kind of handle us?
Scott Weeman: That’s a great question and something we hear a lot of in recovery. We work one day at a time program, where I’m not worried about what’s going to happen tomorrow, certainly prudently making plans and such, but really focused on what are my actions that I can take today to connect with God, to be a beneficial presence to others in my community or my family. A lot of times I think we confuse prayer; prayer is not our attempt to bend God’s will toward ours, which is what I’m doing when I’m trying to put the right words together, manipulate the right phrases, but rather, prayer is coming to God to be willing to bend our will toward his in ways that we may not understand or may not be able to know the outcome. In surrender, there’s so many ways we can take that. In some ways its almost accepting, ‘Lord I’m going to stay true to this process. I’m going to do the next right thing and I’m going to leave the results to you’; we’re not in the results business. I remember, in relationship to adoration, I was a couple years into my recovery, things were coming along, new life certainly. I was dating a girl and things weren’t working out and I was just kind of lost. I was applying to colleges and not making great progress because I was bringing lot of poor grades to the table; the things that I wanted weren’t happening in the timeline that I wanted.
I remember sitting in adoration that day and all of a sudden it dawned on me that that day marked two and a half years of sobriety. It was April 10, 2014. I just became overwhelmed by the sense of gratitude. I wasn’t so concerned about the things that hadn’t come back or the things that I wanted but hadn’t gotten, I just felt this comfort that I was placed in the hand of God. That really helped transform and realign my attitude and my mindset. I remember being dedicated to seeking that Grace, ‘Lord take whatever you want; I’m ok with whatever result comes. I know that as long as I keep pursuing you and doing the next right indicated thing as shared by my fellows in recovery, reading of scripture, encountering you through the sacraments, that as long as I am doing the next best thing as best as I can, that that will be enough, that I’m enough. Help me to stop judging my insides by other people’s outsides and making those comparisons and really putting me in a place of Peace.’ It was a really big breakthrough for me.
Father Michael: Yeah. Mother Teresa’s famous quote is we’re called to be faithful, not successful. Just doing that next right thing. You mentioned that you got confirmed, I think, at 16, but you were 17 years old when you had your first drink, but that the gifts were planted within you, and the Grace was made available through the Sacrament. I’d love to hear more about that because I think many Catholics have been confirmed maybe have not yet fully realized the Grace of what we have received in that.
Scott Weeman: I think that those seeds were planted and then blossomed in times when I really needed, they sustained me through some of my darkest moments; I wasn’t paying attention or looking for them. It was a matter of a few weeks between my confirmation in the Church and my first drink. I was way more interested in pursuing those unhealthy spirits, than I was in pursuing the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I had just gone through the motions as a kid, as an adolescent going through the sacraments; I didn’t come from a very devout Catholic family. We went to Christmas and Easter mass, a few extra credit weekends a year, and CCD on Wednesday nights, but it was still a value of my parents and of mine to ultimately receive first Communion, Reconciliation and Confirmation. Those gifts probably sustained me through when I was trying to walk away from God as much as possible, and in that time of need when I was ready enough to come back to him. Now, in my recovery and in pursuit of the faith and with a growing family around me, I have gotten to experience those gifts unravel in ways that I would never have expected. I mean this was not in my plans to launch a worldwide community of men and women seeking freedom from addictions in the Church. I had other ideas, I was going to be a sports agent or a lawyer or something along those lines. But now I can rest assured that this is where God has me, and by the Grace of God too, I can’t take too much credit. I do have a gift to share with others what had happened, what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now. I heard recently, the person who we’re best qualified to help is the person that we used to be. We can turn the darkest part of our lives into the greatest asset that we have to help individuals and families who still suffer.
Father Michael: So, what’s it like now on your end to have this wonderful Ministry that is so fruitful?
Scott Weeman: Well, I manage a lot of the day-to-day growth; we offer a lot of retreats; I’ll be heading to a retreat this weekend in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where we’ll have about 60 participants gathering from various states in the Midwest for a weekend. There’s a lot of planning and empowering other servant leaders around the world to help share a message of Hope. We also empower our team and provide resources, really considering the needs of all those who are in recovery seeking to integrate their Catholic faith with their 12-step recovery work. We are working on recovery Rosary meditations for individuals and families impacted by addictions, compulsions, and unhealthy attachments, to help further develop and enhance one’s prayer life and devotion to Mary. Considering different resources that might be helpful, I also work as a therapist; I get to bring my Catholicism into the therapy room and help clients, individuals, and families who are working through addiction challenges, mental health challenges and relationships challenges and things of that nature. I also get to see my family grow. My wife, who I’ve been married to since 2016, and I recently moved to Nashville and have three kids, 6, 4 and nearly 3 years old, being able to share the faith with them. I don’t make it a secret; they are just getting to that age where they are asking questions and being very curious. In fact, one of my kids just recently came across, I keep a jar in my closet that has recovery tokens in them, and they are fascinated by them, they think they are like treasure, Daddy’s treasure. They ask, “What is this Daddy?” I tell them, “This marks so many years since I took my last drink.” So, they know that Daddy doesn’t drink alcohol and that’s because I’ve exceeded my lifetime quota. I don’t tell them that but that’s one reason I give people who ask why I don’t drink. I get to share, we share intellectually and we want to pass along the traditions of our faith. I let them know I experienced God because he worked a miracle in my life and continues to work miracles in my life. I used to be addicted and dependent upon other substances and behaviors in order to be well, just to through the day and God intervened and he has broken through all that and today I am free and it wouldn’t be without the Grace and Blessings of God and Jesus Christ. Even being able to share that message with my family, my young kids and others who might be in that place of darkness, is probably the greatest gift.
Father Michael: Wow. Talk a little bit about the Rosary because you mentioned that in the book and how profound that is for you.
Scott Weeman: I think there’s something kind of similar to adoration where we may not know the words or maybe feel compelled to negotiate with God in some way. The Rosary is such an opportunity, a prayer of surrender, a prayer to really call for the Blessed Virgin to intercede for us in ways that we may not even know how to. Spending time and exploring, you know the correlations between our lives and each of the mysteries, and perhaps one mystery will speak in a way that I wouldn’t have known and really come to some profound understandings of the Glory of God through the Rosary. It’s really helpful to help discern his will and to come into meditative practice without expectations. ‘I’m going to be spending this time with you Lord, in alignment with your Blessed Mother and if I don’t have the words to say Mary, why don’t you help intercede for me and be an advocate for me.’ So, that’s been really profound particularly as it relates to overcoming familial challenges or other situations where I just feel like I’m butting my head against a wall. It helps to bring a peace that I can’t muster myself.
Father Michael: That’s beautiful. I haven’t thought about the rosary like that because the rosary can be a challenging prayer because you are holding the mysteries in your mind. But to realize that that’s a time where you could just allow Mary to intercede for you, that’s very beautiful. I’d like to talk to you about meditation and contemplation as well. I have a ministry called The Prodigal Father, and I try to help people enter into meditative and contemplative prayer so that they can really experience and encounter God in the way that I think our hearts really desire. What’s that been like for your own recovery and helping other people enter into meditation?
Scott Weeman: I would summarize it best as a practice of emptying my mind and opening my heart. God can’t fill what is already filled. There’s even a little prayer that I will say oftentimes before entering into prayer which is the set aside prayer. It is along the lines of, ‘God, help me set aside everything I think I know for a new experience with you.’
Father Michael: Wow.
Scott Weeman: Help me to understand blank, blank, blank. It just aligns my spirit in a way that allows him to do, I certainly need to take responsibility for my actions and my behaviors, but it helps me to surrender and really put the power in God’s hands, and Lord, much like a potter forming clay, ‘Lord help me to be as open and willing as I can be, and to accept, having a spirit of acceptance goes hand-in-hand with surrender, hand-in-hand with prayer as well.’ Of course, acceptance does not mean approval, you know, accepting life exactly as is in this given moment doesn’t mean that I have to approve everything that’s taken place or even if we’ve been wronged by someone or something, that doesn’t mean we are giving the okay, we’re just accepting reality and life exactly as it is. Rather than what I spent years doing, running and hiding and trying to escape from God and the reality of my situation. So, contemplative and meditative prayer, it’s just as much silence and listening as possible. As is evident in this discussion, I like to talk and put words together, but if I can just sit and listen and feel at rest in God’s presence. That’s beautiful. In alignment with adoration, that can be a powerful force.
Father Michael: That’s one of the ways I like to describe it too, is resting in his presence. We don’t have to do anything or accomplish anything, just be like a child, be held and loved by him.
Scott Weeman: For me, having children has given this to me as well.
Father Micheal: Tell me about that.
Scott Weeman: I don’t think we mature as much as we like to believe we actually do, and the needs of a child are just the same, there’s a dependency upon a parent to grow and learn, but we all are still dependent upon each other and dependent upon God our Father. The unconditional love that I have for my children isn’t even close to the unconditional love that God has for my children, for myself, or my children or others and I even say that I think that there probably are some conditions to that love but it’s the most unconditional form of love that I’ve found on this earth. Whatever they might do, I want to be there for them, I want to know them, I want them to be honest with me and tell me the truth not as a way to condemn them but as a way to love them and provide whatever care I can for them. I can translate and understand them and understand my relationship with God the Father in a way that it just gives me a small glimpse into the way that he loves me and the way that I get to love my children.
Father Michael: Wow. That’s beautiful. I mentioned a little bit about what it’s like to be a priest and to hear confessions, what’s it like to be a counselor or a fifth step sponsor?
Scott Weeman: Those are very parallel, somewhat come nuanced differences to the two. It’s a privilege to be able to step into a place where a lot of times, in both settings, someone is sharing something with me that they haven’t shared with anyone, and may not feel comfortable sharing with the people who are the closest to them, whether it’s a spouse or a parent or a sibling or a friend. The protection element is there too, just like your experience in the confessional, that it’s not going to shift my thoughts about them and that I’m not going to tell people about it. It’s a very privileged relationship where I get to hold their sacred blessings and challenges and have been entrusted to do that. It’s such a gift. Then also to see the growth and transformation. It allows me to experience the miracles that God’s working in their lives and be a reminder of the miracles that God is working every day in my life. It brings about a great sense of humility; it’s an honor, a privilege and a joy to see other people’s joy and to see a fellowship grow about them, and to see new life form.
Father Michael: As your ministry has grown, what’s that been like, just to see some of the fruit of that?
Scott Weeman: Sometimes, I could do a better job of stepping back and seeing the way God’s working through me. It’s great, I get to see both sides of the coin. People come to me, or come to our community in a great place of desperation and need, family member who have lost the life of a child, or a spouse, or someone very close to them, mourning and grieving through one of the most challenging moments of their lives. Others who have tried so many things in the past and they just can’t seem to not engage in a behavior or substance, but then come to a fellowship where they might believe that they are going to experience some judgement or condemnation, but instead get to experience that love that we were talking about and that mercy. I also get to hear people whose lives have been changed, especially people who have been in recovery for some time, and maybe have heard a little bit of anti-Catholic sentiment in 12-step meetings, a little bit of spiritual but not religious sentiment. People have shared with me, saying ‘thank you Scott, Catholic and Recovery has allowed me to be a Catholic in recovery again.’
Father Michael: Yeah, which is so wonderful. It is so rich and such a blessing; it doesn’t have to be seen as a negative.
Scott Weeman: Exactly. And we don’t have to take off our Catholic hats to go into a recovery meeting. I don’t have to take off my recovery hat to go into the Church. A friend of mine early in my recovery, and kind of coming back to the church, we used to share a quote, a mantra really, “In weakness there is unity, and in unity there is victory.” We can connect with people on our shared strengths, but for me, those kind of come and go like the wind, but it’s really in a shared desperation and a shared need for each other and for God that that creates bonds that are very close and very intimate. It brings the fullness of life.
Father Michael: One of the privileges of priesthood is we grow up with this sense of fraternity that we really need, we need each other, to spend time with each other and share deeply with each other. But, that’s true for all of us. All of us need community and that’s one of my hopes…
Scott Weeman: Would you say that that’s easier said than done as a priest perhaps even as you have been a priest for a while?
Father Michael: I think it’s harder as a priest in some ways because, I think sometimes in the priesthood, we think that we need to hold ourselves to a higher expectation. That does create a challenge even sharing amongst brother priests, that in some ways, it’s hard for us to do that. ’ve been frustrated sometimes, over the years with priest groups because sometimes I feel like I overshare and it’s hard to get to that deeper, intimate level, because there is that expectation that in some ways, we have our lives under control. My annual spiritual director, I have a couple of brother priests that I can share with on a very deep level like that, but I think that we probably have a struggle with that as any other human does.
Scott Weeman: One of the things that I think is a lot of what we know about addiction is rooted in myth and these ideas that do us no good and really are barriers to finding help. One is this idea that addictions got to look a certain way. One of the truths that counteracts that is addiction does not discriminate based on gender lines on class lines or vocational lines and sometimes that high expectation that community members and perhaps even brother priests might put on each other can create a lifestyle or high expectations that can lend itself to unhealthy behaviors or other attachments in order to cope with that. So certainly, all of us are in need of his mercy and help. I just appreciate your shared experience with them.
Father Michael: This gave me a renewed understanding of that need that we have for community. Not only the need for it, but the beauty and the goodness, just the wonderful aspect that comes from having this body of believers that you can share with and experience incarnationally in the flesh, the love of God through other people.
Scott Weeman: As our technology advances, even after the pandemic a few years ago, it’s a little bit harder to find that intimacy sometimes in great ways and subtle ways. Sometimes when I’m in mass, when we are praying the Lord’s Prayer, it’s very uncommon to hold hands with someone outside of your family anymore. It used to one of my favorite parts because it’s almost like this expression of ‘I trust you and you can trust me, hold my hand through this.’ It might sound very silly and I understand that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but that distance between each other, that subtle lack of touch and it’s probably more apparent in some other ways. It’s just like we need that touch even with people who might be anonymous to us. I mentioned that prayer when we all put our arms around each other’s shoulders and pray the Lord’s Prayer at the end of our recovery meeting.
Father Michael: That is so beautiful!
Scott Weeman: There’s just something about that trust, that unity, that openness to each other, that we all need, we all desperately need. We never graduate from that.
Father Michael: Say somebody is watching this right now and they feel a little bit of spark. You mentioned it earlier, if we can open that just a crack, if we can open the door just a crack to let God and to let other people in, what would you say to them if they are just beginning to crack open this possibility that maybe God can do something wonderful for them?
Scott Weeman: God will break the door off its hinges. I would say you should take action upon that impulse or the inspiration as soon as you can because oftentimes that window of Grace doesn’t stay open too long. It doesn’t take long for us to rationalize; I used to do this every day. I used to wake up in the morning thinking ‘I feel terrible, today is going to be a new day, today’s going to be the tomorrow that I always talked about.’ Then by around noon time I would have enough hydration and caffeination to think that maybe that was a bit of an overreaction. Then just spiral into the same cycle that had gone through the day before and the day before that. So, pray and ask for God’s courage to seek out that person who you know might be able to offer some kind of connection or brotherhood or fellowship, and do so as fast as you possibly can. Don’t be worried about the results. Know that there are others who have been through exactly what you’re going through. You are not alone. You are not beyond help. Don’t let the shame and isolation, that the evil one wants us to stay in, get the best of you. Allow this moment be the moment where you break free, not by your own strength, but by the strength of God, and by the communion with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. You are a beloved child of God, a beloved son or daughter of God and he wants what’s best for you. He will move mountains and he will ask you to pick up the shovel. Today, this moment is the time to pick up the shovel.
Father Michael: Wow. I think that’s a great place to end. These moments of Grace, when they come, you’ve got to take the step. I remember when I was going into the seminary, there was a time where I got invited to go to a retreat and I knew if I didn’t take that step I might never do it. This could be the moment right now for you to take the step; you can go to the Catholic and Recovery online and find some resources there, you can get the book and the journal as well, they are a tremendous help. I thought it would be neat to end with the Serenity Prayer; I was trying to find it in the book, but I can’t find it right now. If you could also talk about the end of the Serenity Prayer right now, the part that maybe not a lot of people know about I think is really powerful.
Scott Weeman: Yeah, we are probably all familiar with the first part of the Serenity Prayer which was a prayer, in my early recovery, I prayed the Serenity Prayer hundreds of times a day; the fullness of it is very Christian in nature and I think really speaks to the principles of our faith and a lot of what we discussed today of surrender, letting go and mustering the willingness to break free from whatever might be challenging us or just to surrender and be affirmed in God’s love.
Let us pray: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
God, Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time
Accepting hardship as the pathway to Peace,
Taking as Jesus, did this sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it.
Trusting that you will make all things right,
If I surrender to your will,
That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with you forever in the next.
Amen.
Father Michael: Amen. Thank you so much. I’d like to bless you and all our viewers.
“The Lord be with you.
And with your Spirit.
And May Almighty God bless and keep you,
the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Come down upon you and remain with you forever.
Amen.”
