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Recovery in the News
Recovering addict tells terrible tale, with laughs
Bangor Daily News
January 12, 2007
PORTLAND - Al Joyce, 52, has no right to be alive.
Masquerading as comedian "Felon O’Reilly," Joyce recently was the opening act for comedian Bob Marley at The Grand in Ellsworth.
The unlikely subjects of his comedy discourse include his alcoholism, drug addiction and criminal career. "Some people have a bad day. I had a bad decade," he said at a waterfront coffee shop, a short walk from the Comedy Connection stage, where he has perfected his act.
Amazingly, he said he has been arrested 73 times. "But only 40 were felonies. And of those, only four were convictions," he said.
Most "normal" heroin addicts will do three or four bags a day, he said. "I was up to 40 bags a day. I did eight bags just to get up." Heroin addicts normally melt the powder in a spoon held over a match or lighter. "I did so much that I cooked it up in a beer can," he said.
How does one feed such an enormous, expensive habit? "I stole," Joyce admitted. He said he might have put a million dollars into his arm.
"I am 52. But my liver is 65," he said.
He has been "in recovery" for the past 10 years. But he admits that he has not been clean and sober for all of that time.
When Joyce finally got of jail and on parole, it was on the stipulation that he attend five meetings a week of a 12-step program, which he declines to identify. When he spoke at those meetings about his criminal, drug-abusing past, his audience laughed more and more. One night on Martha’s Vineyard a dozen years ago, Boston-based comedian Lenny Clarke heard Joyce and approached him after the meeting.
"He said I should be doing stand-up comedy. A lot of people had told me that over the years. But coming from him, I paid attention," he said.
Joyce had been doing carpentry work for the owner of the Comedy Connection. When an amateur night was scheduled, he signed up. "It was the same stuff I used to say at the 12-step meetings. It was weird talking about recovery in front of a bunch of drunks."
People liked it. His girlfriend encouraged him to pursue comedy as a career. "I wasn’t sure. It took me 25 years to get out of the barrooms. I didn’t want to do something that put me back there."
But the "Felon O’Reilly" career took off in Portland with an occasional shot in Boston. He does volunteer shows in jails and high schools, delivering life lessons on the dangers of crime, alcohol and drugs.
When he started stand-up, he did a lot of jokes on the Irish and their drinking. When a friend suggested that Joyce wasn’t an Irish enough name, they settled on O’Reilly. They discussed possible first names. Joyce settled on ‘Felon" and a career was born.
"I tell people what I did to screw up my life. They laugh and pay me money for it. They think I’m making it up; I’m not. I have done a few hundred shows. The more paid gigs I get, the more volunteer work I can do in schools and jails," he said.
Joyce was born, ironically, in the dry town of Lancaster, Mass. No alcohol was sold in the town, but the neighboring town of Clinton was glad to slake any thirst. "Someone told me that Clinton was in the Guinness Book of World Records for having more bars per capita than anywhere else. I believe it," he said.
Joyce started on the bar stool at age 18. "We drank at the Gridiron, which opened at 6 a.m. If you didn’t get there by 6:30, you didn’t get a chair." He started shooting cocaine at age 17 and graduated to heroin by age 30. He quickly figured out that dealing drugs would pay for his habit.
He worked as a carpenter and criminal. "Crime paid better," he said. With 73 arrests, no one could call him lazy. "I was doing crime for 25 years and was only arrested 73 times. That’s only three arrests a year. I had 17 assault and battery arrests, and I was a happy drunk. Imagine if I was mean.
"With a record like mine, there is not a lot you can do. Comedy or run for Congress," the comedian said.
Ironically, Joyce has a college degree from Suffolk University — in criminal justice. His first job was counseling troubled youth in the Massachusetts correctional system.
He was arrested for felonious assault on one Friday, released and then arrested on Saturday — for beating up the same guy. When he went to court, the judge noted Joyce’s occupation and said, "It appears that the monkeys are in charge of the bananas," and sent him off on a vacation in the Worcester County House of Corrections, his first jail time.
In 1990, Joyce fled Boston with a "posse on my trail" and a host of outstanding warrants. He was arrested in Great Falls, Mont., in possession of a handgun. The federal marshals sought a life sentence on a career criminal charge.
Luckily for Joyce, the presiding federal judge had just lost his wife to alcohol abuse and understood the defendant’s problems. "I don’t think you are a career criminal. You are a drunk," the judge said, sentencing Joyce to 37 months in federal prison. "I was never so happy to get 37 months in jail," he said.
The day he got out, he got drunk just as fast as he could. He came out of a drunken blackout in Idaho, standing outside a wedding chapel. He asked the woman with him what was going on. "We just got married," she said.
"We better go get a drink," Joyce said.
Since his new wife was from Maine, the couple moved to Peaks Island. Again, fate smiled on Joyce with a parole officer who was himself in recovery. The P.O. ordered Joyce to attend five meetings a week. With all that soul-searching, "I came to the conclusion that the problem was not booze and drugs. The problem was me. I was sick of doing time."
He said: "The biggest fear in prison is getting out. In prison you might run a tier. You can be a big man. Back on the street, I’m just a junkie. Prison life is so backwards. If there is a problem, you deal with it. You don’t go running to the guards. If someone disses you, you stab them. It’s simple. When you are outside and there is trouble, you go to the cops. In there, that will get you killed," he said.
"I have been clean and sober for six years. I hardly ever think of drugs. But I think of crime every day. When I do my banking, I count the cameras. Some drunks have trouble when they see a Budweiser delivery truck. With me, it’s Brinks trucks," he said.
With all of the money lost to drugs and alcohol, Joyce said, "the best high I ever had was committing armed robbery."
He has won praise for his work with youth and inmates.
Karen Moody of the U.S. Probation Department in Portland said of Joyce: "He effectively uses his experiences both in prison and as a recovering alcoholic and addict in his routine. His ultimate goal is to use his comedy to reach alcoholics and addicts and those involved in criminal activity."
Linda Tiffany of the Day One treatment program said: "As a group, the teenagers in our program tend to be resistant to treatment and ambivalent about substance abuse and the impact on their lives. [His] presentation was very appropriate and well-received by them. They actively participated throughout the presentation. Feedback was very positive."
Felon O’Brien has opened for Marley many times and will appear with him in the soon-to-be-released films, "Tough Hombres" and "Fugitive from Goldtown," the first two of a trio of films written and produced by comedian Quinn Collins.
Future plans include a "laughs without liquor" night in Caribou and Presque Isle, for recovering addicts only. He also wants to increase his visits to schools and jails.
"I have been given a gift. I cannot keep it to myself," he said. He is also working on a documentary with Flying Fish Films and finishing a book on his life story, titled "Laughing on the Inside."
It would make one hell of a movie.
More information is available at www.felonoreilly.com
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