Episode 54: Finding Joy After Tragedy with Tom Farley, Part One

00;00;07;29 – 00;01;54;23
Kelly Parbs
Laughter is often called the best medicine, but what happens when it’s also a disguise? When the funniest moments mask the deepest pain? Today’s guest knows this all too well. Growing up in a family that laughed together but struggled silently. Tom shares how he learned to face grief, addiction and the journey of discovering who he truly is. Beyond his brother Chris’s shadow. Welcome to OnTopic with Empathia. I’m your host, Kelly Parbs, and today we’re honored to be joined by a truly special guest, Tom Farley. Tom’s life has been profoundly shaped by personal loss and recovery after the tragic death of his brother, actor and comedian Chris Farley, to a drug overdose, Tom found a calling and advocacy. He served as the director of the Chris Farley Foundation, using humor to reach young audiences and promote substance abuse prevention. His own journey through addiction and recovery further deepened his commitment to this work. As the coauthor of The Chris Farley Show, a New York Times bestseller, Tom offered an intimate portrait of his brother’s life and struggles. Today, he continues to impact lives as the community outreach director for Recovery.com and as a motivational speaker. Tom’s story is one of resilience, hope and a deep desire to support others battling addiction. Join us as we explore the powerful lessons Tom has learned through tragedy and triumph, and how he continues to inspire a path toward healing and recovery for others. Hello, Tom, and welcome.

00;01;54;25 – 00;01;57;02
Tom Farley
Hey, how are you Kelly?

00;01;57;02 – 00;02;03;24
Kelly Parbs
Doing all right. Thanks. I’m so glad that you’re here. And thanks for putting up with the little technical trouble we had at the beginning.

00;02;03;27 – 00;02;08;26
Tom Farley
Oh, yeah, it gets worse with age so, where I am at, yeah, it’s not good. Yeah.

00;02;08;27 – 00;02;09;28
Kelly Parbs
Good to know. Good to know.

00;02;10;06 – 00;02;11;18
Tom Farley
I get it, I get it.

00;02;11;21 – 00;02;22;02
Kelly Parbs
The first time that I heard of you was when you taught a class at the college that one of my daughters was attending in Madison, Wisconsin.

00;02;22;19 – 00;02;23;14
Kelly Parbs
Edgewood College.

00;02;23;17 – 00;02;26;00
Tom Farley
Now Edgewood University.

00;02;26;04 – 00;02;29;05
Kelly Parbs
Now Edgewood University. Okay, I guess I didn’t know that.

00;02;29;06 – 00;02;35;02
Tom Farley
Yeah, it’s kind of, it kind of changed its name. So your daughter’s diploma just went up in value.

00;02;35;03 – 00;02;35;28
Kelly Parbs
Excellent. Good to know.

00;02;36;03 – 00;03;37;20
Tom Farley
That was, that was such a, because, you know, I you know, I obviously went to the high school, and a little bit to the grade school. My sister went Edgewood grade school, high school, Edgewood College, got her master’s degree at Edgewood. Her entire like education was in that one city block. So when I, they approached me to, to do the, you know, they do a student read you know, all the incoming freshmen read one book and they picked my book, you know, my biography of Chris that I had just come out The Chris Farley Show. And so everyone was gonna get a copy. And I, I also volunteered to sign every copy at, that was, that was, a chore. But, then they asked me to teach a class on the book, and I’m like, I’ve always wanted, you know, my my, I always wanted to be a teacher. A missed calling, but, Oh, my gosh, there’s this little small class of freshmen. And it was just. I’ve lived off that for, for forever. Yeah. I’m so glad she was a part of it.

00;03;37;22 – 00;03;59;16
Kelly Parbs
Yeah. My daughter was one of ’em, and I have to say, I was kind of jealous that she got to meet you. How cool that, that she got to meet the, the brother of Chris Farley and now, all these years later, I find out that you, like me, are committed to helping people navigate mental health challenges. And I just really love that we have that in common.

00;03;59;18 – 00;04;29;25
Tom Farley
Yeah, absolutely. And I just love the way I, you know, the way I, the way I do it. It’s funny, when I taught that class, you know, they, they, they gave me an actual, you know, professor to kind of monitor me, you know, like the adult in the room and, you know, agendas, syllabuses. And I’m like, I’m like, we’re not gonna, I’m not gonna do that. And it was very frustrating, I’m sure, for her. But I was like, we’re gonna make this a fun college class like the one I always wanted.

00;04;30;01 – 00;04;32;06
Kelly Parbs
Right. Oh, I’m sure they all appreciated that.

00;04;32;13 – 00;04;35;04
Tom Farley
The students did for sure. Yeah.

00;04;35;07 – 00;04;50;16
Kelly Parbs
So thank you, Tom, for agreeing to talk with me about your family story. Growing up in Wisconsin, as I did too, and ultimately, your story of recovery and your desire to help other people with their recovery journeys. We have lots to talk about.

00;04;50;18 – 00;04;52;27
Tom Farley
We sure do. Yeah.

00;04;52;29 – 00;04;58;18
Kelly Parbs
So could we start with your family story? What was the Farley household like?

00;04;58;21 – 00;06;26;06
Tom Farley
You know, it was. It was, it was fun. It was chaotic. You know, my sister Barbara-Anne was the oldest, you know, girl. And then there were four boys, me, Chris and John. And, I think, you know, my dad loved whipping us into a frenzy. He just love the fact that he had these, like, like, toys to play with. I don’t know, it’s just, he was definitely instigator, but we we just loved to laugh, you know, we we enjoyed our company and laugh, laughter. And, you know, we’ll get into the, the, the downside of all that. But you know, on the surface it was, we just we were, you know, we were fun. We loved to laugh. We loved when other people, you know, laugh, to try to make us laugh. I don’t know, it just was you know, it got us through a lot of, you know, it made the fun times much more enjoyable. And it made the, difficult times, you know, less painful. However, as we know now. Yeah. You can’t avoid life’s pain. And sometimes you need to experience that, you know, and get comfortable with it. That’s a lesson I learned many, many years later. So growing up, it was like, no, we don’t, pain’s not good. So let’s laugh our way through it. And it was that that coping mechanism that became a, just one of the traumas that we developed, you know, again.

00;06;26;09 – 00;06;29;01
Kelly Parbs
So humor, it both helped and and.

00;06;29;01 – 00;07;55;02
Tom Farley
Oh Absolutely. You know, it was it was wonderful. But it was, as I said, it was like, I guess we, you know, we used it when some, when somebody was stressed out. I like to say, you know, we laughed. When somebody was angry we definitely laughed. When somebody was, fell and hurt themselves we laughed. That’s not to be mean. We just, we didn’t like other people’s pain, and we thought that we could, our humor could kind of, you know, snap ’em out of that, bring him out of that. And so that’s what we did. And, you know, we could only, we ended up only being able to, you know, the only emotion we had was, was humor. And that’s and that’s what we used for everything, you know. And when, even to the point when somebody in my family was experiencing a moment of joy, we laughed, which isn’t the same thing, you know, we couldn’t go to the positive end of the emotional, you know, scale. We just stayed right there in humor and then sometimes if we didn’t get the reaction that we expected or wanted or needed, then we would get frustrated, maybe even angry, and we would just kind of ping pong between these two. And you never knew when 90% of it was fun, happy, and all of a sudden, boom. Like somebody’s like yelling and angry, you know, because we couldn’t.

00;07;55;09 – 00;07;56;01
Kelly Parbs
Where’d that come from?

00;07;56;26 – 00;08;47;07
Tom Farley
I think it came from just, you know, bearing all the, all these emotion, you know, like bearing it all and just laughing about things. And, you know, as I like to say is like, you know, you know, as humans we don’t know this, but we, we, we, we become collectors of trauma. We don’t know it. But every day there’s something that we’re, you know, pulling in and burying deep within us. And until, like, you know, it all mashes together until we can’t keep it down anymore, and then it just explodes out of us. And I just remember my family, like, saying to me, like, why are you angry at this? That dumb little thing? Why are you angry about that? And I’m like, I, you know, no, I’m not angry about that thing. But, like, it all came out like I didn’t know how to keep it down anymore.

00;08;47;10 – 00;09;07;26
Kelly Parbs
Because you never along the way, you didn’t really learn how to deal with each individual feeling that came along because you left it off. And then they built up and built up and eventually it became explosive. Was that true, we know right, that that was true for your brother. Was that true for other members of your family as well?

00;09;07;29 – 00;09;33;28
Tom Farley
Oh every member yeah. I mean, you know, some of us didn’t show the anger side of things, but, you know, get really silent or removed themselves. You know, there was some that there was like, well, like, my sister would just look at really, kind of, you know, really within herself and, you know, withdrawn. But for the men, you know, it came out. Yeah. In, came out, you know, very high volumes.

00;09;34;01 – 00;09;59;10
Kelly Parbs
So I’m imagining there were some just very hysterical moments in your household that were wonderful and you have great memories. But then at the same time, because you never really learned to deal with emotions and in real time, that led to a whole lot of problems. And and we know that that includes addictions, because that’s very much what we’re going to talk about today is your journey. Tell me more about how that played out.

00;09;59;12 – 00;12;01;16
Tom Farley
Well, I mean like, yeah, what we’re talking about is not really, developing any of those other emotions we have. We had laughter down and we had, you know, the flip side of that, which was anger, you know, I had to learn and most of it, most of it was fairly recent, like, it’s, you know, I really, truly leaned into recovery and learned things like, you know, gratitude and and humility and, and rigorous honesty. I’m like, I didn’t know what they even meant when I, when people and, when I came into recovery and people talked to me about these things I’m like, what are you talking about? I had an interesting conversation with one of my daughters, like, maybe last year we were talking about some family memory. Vacation we had, and, we were laughing and everything, and, and I think I got a little kind of quiet all of a sudden and, you know, and she sensed that and said, “dad, you know, you don’t have to regret that, you know, like that, we, you got divorced, you and mom got divorced, and, you know, you know, these are still good memories,” and I’m like, I’m so glad you said that, because I don’t regret it. I don’t I’m not angry about the divorce. Like, whereas I would have and I did feel that way, you know, when I go. But now I know what that emotion is, you know, am I sad? Yep, 100%. But before I didn’t know. I didn’t equate what I was feeling with the proper emotion, like, okay, you’re not angry. You know, you’re frustrated, but why is it coming out of anger and why are you yelling? Because that’s all I know. You know why? But you’re sad. Why are you like, you sound like, you know, you know, you’re like. Because I just know two volumes. Yeah. And so rebuilding, you know, that toolbox of emotion after all this time in my life, has been, incredible, you know.

00;12;01;16 – 00;12;09;06
Kelly Parbs
That’s awesome. And how lovely of your daughter to just give you that permission to put, to put some of that aside and forgive you.

00;12;09;09 – 00;12;59;26
Tom Farley
Yeah, like, who raised you? Like yeah. Oh, I. Yeah. My, my my kid. All three of my kids blow me away sometimes that you know, you know, we talk a lot about, breaking the cycle. A lot of for us, it’s like the, you know, Irish, you know, family breaking that, you know, alcohol cycle or, you know, the, the, the that, the, the emotional cycle. And, I know I always wanted to do that and I did things to try to do that, but ultimately I was given the playbook that my father gave me. So I, I, you know, I’m, I didn’t think I did a good job of that. And then my daughter will say something like that and like, oh, you know, I, I did break the cycle, I guess I did, you know, or.

00;13;00;02 – 00;13;15;13
Kelly Parbs
It’s important to recognize that the work that you have done. And I want to talk about the hard work that you’ve done, but I’d like to get a little better of a feel. You talked about growing up in an Irish family and in a drinking state. Tell us a little bit more about what that was like.

00;13;15;15 – 00;14;47;17
Tom Farley
Well, you know, we grew up thinking that just say drinking was, not only was it, you know, being Irish and being, living in Wisconsin, that it was our behaviors that we were were was very normative. Everyone else was doing it. But we also saw, we also thought that’s who we, it’s our identity it’s who we were. If you were a, if you were a Farley, you you drank because there was this long, you know, generational, you know, track record of that. You know, if you’re if you’re Irish. We were taught right away, like as part of your identity, you know, Dylan, Wisconsin absolutely it’s part of our identity. So we we bought into it and you know, said, okay, you know, and that’s that’s the way it was. And, you know, it wasn’t till I went out east first to college, you married, you know, my my wife was, you know, from New York, like, you know, she grew up in a big Irish family, too, but like in Westchester, New York. So, like, oh, yeah, we’re the same. It’s like, no, no, we’re not. We aren’t even close the same. I didn’t realize I stuck out as much as I did, but I, I’m pretty sure I, I did, you know, clinging to this, these, this identity and this normative, this is the way, you know, everyone drinks that’s like. Well, and maybe in your small circles, but it ain’t.

00;14;47;19 – 00;15;05;05
Kelly Parbs
In my field. I am definitely not an expert in addictions. But one thing that I do know is that addiction is a family disease. And typically there are different roles in families where where people have addictions, and oftentimes the oldest are you the oldest?

00;15;05;07 – 00;15;09;22
Tom Farley
My sister’s older. I’m the oldest of the four boys. So yes.

00;15;09;25 – 00;15;21;09
Kelly Parbs
Okay. And so from what I understand, oftentimes the oldest kind of takes on more of the the hero Type A perfectionist. Yeah. Fix it guy kind of role. Was that true for you?

00;15;21;12 – 00;15;34;22
Tom Farley
Absolutely. I was I was the first son I was, you know, you know, Tom Farley Jr. I wanted to do anything my dad did. I all the expectations. Yeah, 100%. I try to live up to that.

00;15;34;24 – 00;15;37;11
Kelly Parbs
And what what birth order was Chris?

00;15;37;14 – 00;15;48;13
Tom Farley
He was he was he was the next male. But so a five, he was, smack dab in the middle. He was the third middle child.

00;15;48;15 – 00;15;48;29
Kelly Parbs
Okay.

00;15;49;05 – 00;16;25;23
Tom Farley
And, as I always like to say, like I spent most of my years just kind of living up to that expectation, trying to toe the line, in doing what I thought was expected of me. And, and then it literally frustrated that just to turn around and see my next younger brother falling over that line and, ignoring it and just being himself and, and here’s the kicker, doing all of that and yet and also just effortlessly making friends in the process.

00;16;25;26 – 00;16;38;00
Kelly Parbs
When you say doing all of that for our listeners who don’t really know his story and yours, what was he like? What was the decline like when did you notice it was really a problem?

00;16;38;03 – 00;18;04;20
Tom Farley
Okay. With Chris, well, what was, what was interesting. So I, after college, moved to New York and had a job out in New York and obviously, Chris, came to Saturday Night Live a couple of years after that. And, I like to say it’s, you know, we didn’t know the term back then, but I, I, the concept of being a first responder. At least that’s what I felt like. My family was all in, Wisconsin. It was just Chris and I in New York and we grew up in this, you know, a very, structured 1950s model family where, like, whatever problem was happening with one of my siblings, my parents were like, you know, you don’t have to worry about it. We got it, you know? Okay. And, you know, like, they’re in charge, they make the decision like, okay, so we didn’t worry about, you know, what we were doing and other people were doing. But all of a sudden, Chris and I are in New York and my parents are out in Wisconsin. I’m like, I’m the older brother. I, I have to, I’m, not only am I first responder, but I thought at that time that I had to I had to solve, I had to be that, you know, like that, like my parent was like, now it’s me. I gotta I gotta solve this and handle it. And,

00;18;04;20 – 00;18;13;12
Kelly Parbs
You felt some responsibility for your brother. And what were you seeing in him that made you feel like I, I need to take some responsibility for him?

00;18;13;14 – 00;19;02;20
Tom Farley
It was interesting. It had nothing to do. You know, like, we look at every other aspect of, we didn’t look at the drinking, the substance use, the mental illness part of it. Back then, we, you know, we saw it. I saw it the way everyone else did, behavior. It was it, it was a behavior thing that needed to be modified. And the danger was that, and this is, you know, the first thing that Chris I know, Chris kind of felt that made him kind of want to, you know, do something about this. And the same for me. It was like, he’s going to lose this dream job. He’s going to lose this great, he’s on Saturday Night Live. You know, he’s in jeopardy of losing it all because he, because his behavior is wrong.

00;19;02;20 – 00;19;05;23
Kelly Parbs
And his behavior was related to use of of drugs and alcohol.

00;19;05;26 – 00;20;07;00
Tom Farley
Yeah. Absolutely. And so you know worry about, you worry about that. You know, how do we how do we help him with this, you know, correct this this behavior, you know, it’s, you know, a lot of people and not people are trying to help them, but, you know, just wanting him to stop the behavior. You know he would go to treatment a couple times, thinking that that’s all he needed to do and just come back into the same environment in New York. And it’s, you know, it didn’t last, you know, a month or two. And before he’s back in, you know, where he was before. You know, he, yeah. It’s just, you know, the he had this this is a lot of people still are when they go into recovery is is into treatment is like, all right, 30 days and I’m fixed. Right? I’m cured of, you know, my, my my broken bone is set and I’m, cast is off and let’s go back at, you know.

00;20;07;01 – 00;20;08;03
Kelly Parbs
Ready to go. Yeah.

00;20;08;05 – 00;20;08;17
Tom Farley
Yeah.

00;20;08;17 – 00;20;13;05
Kelly Parbs
But we know that’s not the case. There’s a lot of healing to do.

00;20;13;08 – 00;21;08;14
Tom Farley
Yeah. Totally. And so and the thing is, on top of that, the reasons why he went into treatment at that time, as I said, were to, you know, not, so you wouldn’t get fired. Yeah. We’ve always been, people pleasers. So he did it to make people happy. “Okay. You want my treatment? I’ll go a treatment. Are we happy now?” Or, you know, a lot of compliance, like, you know, you know, “I’m, I’m being good, aren’t I?” you know, and of course then there’s, you know, Chris always being, you know, as we all are, and, you know, people of faith, you know, he kind of leaned on even his faith as kind of, really childlike, kind of, I, you know, I go to confession and say I’m sorry, and I, I get to do it all over again. I’m good to go. You know, just really a more just a strange way of looking at our faith, even.

00;21;08;17 – 00;21;21;05
Kelly Parbs
Well, then I would imagine it’s complicated because these behaviors that seemed like really extreme were really part of what made him hilarious and and popular as well.

00;21;21;07 – 00;21;24;26
Tom Farley
Yeah. Yes. To a point.

00;21;24;29 – 00;21;26;06
Kelly Parbs
To a point.

00;21;26;08 – 00;22;59;22
Tom Farley
Well, I mean, that and I kind of realized this myself too. Like, yeah, he just wanted to make people laugh. So he, he would like, draw these people to him. And it was always really hard for me to see Chris in those situations. And as the night wore on, you know, people started walking away. It’s not funny anymore. Now he’s being mean, now he’s being like, and I know the next day, you know and Chris realized, you know, he started the, you know, the night off surrounded by those people, making him laugh and then knowing that he ended the night completely alone. Yeah, I don’t know, like I’m sure that had. Yeah. That that horrible feeling. That isolation you know gives us. So yeah I mean you just went through that the, those cycles all the time. A friend of ours who was his personal assistant when he went out to Hollywood. But it’s a childhood friend of ours worked for him, which was. That was risky. But he said something in my book that was interesting. He said, you know, the first hour drinking with Chris was fun. The second, hour drinking with Chris was literally the best time you ever had in your life. And then the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, however long the evening went with drinking with Chris was just just brutal. It just it, just, just deteriorated so bad quickly. And but it went on we just we had no off switch.

00;22;59;25 – 00;23;32;22
Kelly Parbs
So as his older brother, you felt this sense of responsibility and you could really you could see his behavior, you could see him declining and you knew something was wrong. What did it take for you to know something was wrong inside of you in terms of addiction? Not only did did Chris need help and and we know how that ended. Which I would like you to talk about as well. But I’m also interested in knowing when did you turn that attention inward and realize you needed help as well?

00;23;32;29 – 00;23;55;04
Tom Farley
Wow. It took, well, you know, a long time and a lot of pain. But, you know what happens, at least in our family, you know, when you have somebody that’s just that much more acute than everyone else. It was easy for us to point to Chris and say, well, we’re not that bad, so I guess we’re okay.

00;23;55;07 – 00;23;56;15
Kelly Parbs
Yeah, that makes sense.

00;23;56;18 – 00;25;22;13
Tom Farley
Well, we certainly we’re not. So, you know, we saw it then we saw it is that’s Chris’s problem has nothing to do with us. But as you’ve already said before, like it absolutely has to, it’s a family thing. But we so it’s like that’s you know he’s got to do it, we don’t have to change. I honestly think there was so much fear like in being honest about this kind of family disease, if you will, that we probably couldn’t, we didn’t help Chris as much as we probably could have as a family because we’re fearful of like, being honest about like us. You know, what was, it was all of us. And I I’m literally, you know, I had this vision in my head, and it’s it’s so vivid. I recall it so well, I remember one Christmas, Chris was just coming out of treatment. It was a Christmas Eve. We’re all home doing our Christmas Eve. You know, let’s all open presents, we’re all adults. Let’s all open presents Christmas Eve and like. And we’re all doing our you know, brandys and you know, and beer and cocktails and, you know, having a great time and and there was Chris sitting among us with this mug of coffee, just trying to be just working his recovery and we were like, you know, well, that doesn’t have anything to do with us. And here we are just doing all the same stuff like, oh, that must have been just brutal for him, you know.

00;25;22;16 – 00;25;27;20
Kelly Parbs
So knowing what you know now. It sounds like you do something different.

00;25;27;22 – 00;26;04;17
Tom Farley
Well, I started to I, you know, as I said, you know, when I, you know, I, I started like, this is, this is not good. You know, we got to do something about, you know, Chris was really struggling. You know, it wasn’t just about losing his job. You know, it just it just wasn’t, we weren’t able to to really to really go there. So to this day, you know, my brothers, my other brothers, you know, may not maybe have, maybe sober or have like long, long sobriety but they’re not in recovery. Like I like the, you know, they’re dealing with all of these things pretty much along with that.

00;26;04;17 – 00;26;14;02
Kelly Parbs
Addiction will always be a part of your family. It’s just really a matter of how you are all dealing with it.

00;26;14;04 – 00;26;14;13
Tom Farley
Yeah. Well,

00;26;14;15 – 00;26;18;20
Kelly Parbs
Do you deal with guilt and shame?

00;26;18;23 – 00;28;06;22
Tom Farley
Yeah, Interesting. No it’s not guilt and shame so much, as I said before, when I started to look at what I was causing in my own life, you know, then I at first I was, you know, I had guilt, shame, anger, all that kind of stuff, because I still was kind of, pointing, you know, my problems outward, like, it’s it’s it’s because of this person or I’m in the wrong job or this happened to me and it was very ego based. And so, yeah, you know, the guilt and shame just thrives in those, in that kind of scenario. And when I kinda started to take responsibility for, for these things, I’m like, no, that person isn’t making you angry. You’re angry. Like, so deal with it, do something about it, you know, like, yeah, I’ll, yeah. So I, it’s kind of like, I was asked on a podcast like 3 or 4 years ago to explain the difference between recovery and long term recovery. And I’m like, well, I’m just I’m just I don’t really, I’m in recovery that’s all I care about. But I said, if I gotta answer that question, I’ll answer it this way. When I first got divorced and somebody asked, and this was probably, you know, I got divorced 12 years ago, 13 maybe, I don’t know. So when I said, like ten years ago when I had divorce and somebody asked me, why do you get divorced? My answer was, I got divorced because my wife didn’t respect me, didn’t support me. You know, she had her own agenda. You know, it just was very one sided. And and it caused this, you know, the breakup of whatever. That’s somebody that has, you know, guilt, shame, anger, all that stuff.

00;28;06;24 – 00;28;11;00
Kelly Parbs
So all of those statements about why you got divorced had nothing to do with you really?

00;28;11;05 – 00;28;11;23
Tom Farley
Yeah it was everything else.

00;28;11;28 – 00;28;13;27
Kelly Parbs
She did this or she didn’t do that.

00;28;13;29 – 00;29;08;03
Tom Farley
And then I got into recovery and I started going to meetings, and I started really embracing the stuff and people, somebody asked, I remember shortly after that, somebody asked me kind of the same question, why’d you divorce and I, and my answer change to, well, you know what? If I’m honest, I wasn’t very supportive. And, or respectful to my ex-wife either. And I thought that was a pretty good answer. I don’t have a responsibility for it, but I didn’t. I was only halfway there and now, but now somebody asked me that, my only answer is. And the way I’ve lived my life, and I’m 100% I mean it, is like why did I divorce? I got divorced because I, I wasn’t respectful and and supportive of my wife and my family, period. Like, their role didn’t have anything to do with the way I was living my life. Like I was in control of that.

00;29;08;05 – 00;29;10;12
Kelly Parbs
Quite a transformation. Quite a journey.

00;29;10;16 – 00;29;54;00
Tom Farley
Yeah. Well, it it it refocused it just it it. And not only that because I, I believe that and started living my life that way and working on those things, an amazing thing happened is, is all of a sudden, people started coming back, even my ex-wife now. Well, you know, we’re friends when we talk, and like, I, I have that relationship back, you know, in my life, because we both have the same love for the same three people more than anyone else on the planet. So, like, why would I want some relationship with that person? But, you know, is that the one I have I always wanted or, you know, worked 23 years on a marriage? No, but the relationship is what it is. And I’m so grateful for that.

00;29;54;02 – 00;30;00;02
Kelly Parbs
And it’s healthier now. You take more responsibility. Control over what you can control.

00;30;00;04 – 00;30;21;17
Tom Farley
And and and nor am I. I’m not a threat to other people who I used to blame for all my thinking. Now I’m like, yeah, no, it’s me. And, and, not being that threat like, you know, judging them for whatever they’re like. No, I, I, I save my judgments for myself. And.

00;30;21;20 – 00;30;27;16
Kelly Parbs
Did you learn these healthier behaviors going through a treatment program?

00;30;27;19 – 00;31;13;14
Tom Farley
No, no, I didn’t I didn’t go to treatment, but, you know, meetings, you know. Certainly. But but but but really leaning into that, like I, there were times when I was, you know, out after Chris died talking to, you know, I wanted to do this. I wanted to do this, you know, do this work telling Chris’s story, because I thought his story could help others. But I also had some sadness and grief that I needed to to work through. And I think I was I say I’m very fortunate. I don’t know how that happened, but for some reason, I sensed that the only way to get through that grief and that pain was to talk about it.

00;31;13;16 – 00;31;53;06
Kelly Parbs
And how very complicated for you. Number one, you’re grieving the loss of your brother, whether or not he is famous, comedian or not. You’re grieving the loss of of a brother. You have all of the issues that come with having grown up in an addicted family, even though at that point you may not have fully understood that. And then you’re having this desire to help the world learn from what you’ve been through, but you haven’t even entirely processed all of that. That sounds like a really intense and stressful time and again, for our listeners who maybe don’t know the story, can you just tell us about how Chris died and how you found that out?

00;31;53;08 – 00;34;14;23
Tom Farley
Oh, yeah. That was well, it was it’s interesting. So, you know, it was December 18th, 1997. And, Chris was going home for the holidays. He, coming back from LA, stopped in Chicago where he had an apartment, and my brothers live there, and so but but he was going home to to my parents, who, still thought or, you know, at least as you know, believed even though they probably didn’t really believe that he was in recovery or at least being sober, and he knew he would have to kind of behave himself. So he just blew it out in Chicago and, you know, just to, you know, to just, you know, had a, you know, an opioid overdose and I was, you know, the next day, I lived in Connecticut, in Fairfield, Connecticut, and I was in a friend’s office that day, actually, he was a friend of mine from college, and he had some entertainment industry experience. And we were just talking about some kind of fun stuff we could do, like a charity event or something, where we bring Chris and some of his SNL buddies in and do something really fun, you know broadcast on, and he always had a TV on his desk, and he had CNN playing, it was muted while we were meeting, but it was on and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this flash of Chris, on the TV and I turned over to to turn up the volume, you know, nothing really anything. And like, at that point, I’m pretty used to seeing my brother on TV. I’m like, oh, you know, like, what’s he doing now? And I turn it up and the screen goes to his apartment, you know, the John Hancock Building in Chicago and the anchor saying that we just heard the Chris Farley died of a drug overdose. And that’s that’s how I heard, you know. Yeah. And like, you always knew that was a possibility, but he didn’t believe it. And, you know, I’m like, you know, again, we didn’t it was I’m that old. Yeah. We I don’t know, you know, if I had a cell phone, but, I called home, to Madison, and my dad picked up the phone, and as soon as I heard his voice, I knew, you know.

00;34;14;25 – 00;34;16;27
Kelly Parbs
So you, your dad had heard.

00;34;17;04 – 00;35;17;03
Tom Farley
Oh, yeah. They were looking for me. They couldn’t find me because I was out, and as I said, no, we didn’t have, you know, immediate access the cell phone gives us so they were trying to find me, and, I think I was probably maybe three miles to my home from this guy’s office, I don’t remember I don’t remember that drive at all. But, you know, then all of a sudden, you know, the the. Yeah, I, you know, I had Access Hollywood calling me, like, four times. Can we get a statement? I’m like no like, and 11:00 they’re, they’re knocking on my door with a film crew. I’m like, I told you no, and, you know, I just, you know, my first thought was oh my gosh, like, how am I going to deal with this? Like, this is so public and so unique. And I got to kind of create a message to protect not just Chris, but also our family. And the shame and all that stuff, like all that stuff was going through my mind instead of processing this.

00;35;17;06 – 00;35;36;15
Kelly Parbs
Right. Grief is hard enough. Under the best of circumstances, grief is hard enough. And then you have all of those other dynamics. And then on top of all of that, you had a family who only knew how to cope using humor. And and you all knew that that wasn’t going to be the way to cope with this.

00;35;36;17 – 00;35;38;07
Tom Farley
But but we did.

00;35;38;10 – 00;35;39;15
Kelly Parbs
But you did.

00;35;39;17 – 00;36;14;06
Tom Farley
I mean, not only that, but like, you know, two days later, we had we had a funeral in Madison, Wisconsin, you know, with the Mount Rushmore of comedy, you know, there. Tons of people and we had to put on this face. And, you know, humor was our thing. And here we are. It just it was surreal. And, you know, honestly, maybe I think, you know, maybe, maybe we needed that. I, you know, I kind of give myself grace to like, say, you know what? There was no way you could have been, you know, truly, you know, dealing with that.

00;36;14;09 – 00;36;17;20
Kelly Parbs
Absolutely not. All you could be at that point was in shock.

00;36;17;22 – 00;36;22;08
Tom Farley
And and so I’m thankful, you know, I guess for that.

00;36;22;11 – 00;37;01;20
Kelly Parbs
Stay tuned for part two of my conversation with Tom Farley, when Tom will share more about how growing up in a family full of laughter shaped his understanding of emotions, the challenges of stepping out from his brother’s shadow, and the life changing work he’s doing today. To hear that episode and other episodes of OnTopic with Empathia, visit our website empathia.com. Follow us on social media @empathia and subscribe to OnTopic with Empathia to hear new episodes as soon as they go live. I’m Kelly Parbs, thanks for listening to OnTopic with Empathia.