Father Peter Watters is, by his own admission, “the best known drunk in town.”
Even after 50 years without a drink,
the retiring priest still takes sobriety a day at a time, counselling
others crippled by booze and other addictions.
“If anybody had a problem they always
said, ‘Go see Watters.’ I get dozens of calls each day,” says the
82-year-old Oakville priest.
Watters is moving out of the rectory
at St. Andrew Roman Catholic Church this week and settling in at a
nearby retirement home, where he’ll continue to say mass in a little
chapel and counsel those who ask.
“Ten years ago, I came back here to
settle down, take it a little easier, but it didn’t work out that way,”
he said. “I actually got busier.
“I’ve got arthritis in both knees and I’m slowing down.”
But he’ll still be offering advice to
anyone who asks, because he knows well how important a few good words
can be in a moment of need.
Watters said he “drank away” a
successful Oakville paint and wallpaper business in the late 1950s and
spiralled down to skid row in Toronto for more than two years.
“I was bumming nickels and dimes, living in alleyways, eating at the missions,” he recalled.
Watters ended up in jail on Jan. 31, 1961, a day that changed his life.
“I borrowed a car — the fellow I
borrowed it from didn’t know I borrowed it — and I hit a streetcar,” he
said.
“I had a spiritual experience in the bottom of Don Jail and asked
God to relieve me of the obsession to drink.
“I never had another drink.”
After he was released from jail, he
sought out Alcoholics Anonymous and clung to the spiritual nature of its
12-step program to recovery.
He rebuilt his life, becoming active
in the community and serving on Oakville’s council and library board. He
was the first chair of the Halton Catholic District School Board.
And then, at 50, he felt a calling that rekindled youthful dreams of joining the priesthood that booze interrupted.
“So I went to the bishop and I asked
him, ‘Are you taking any old men these days?’ The next thing I knew I
was in the seminary,” he said.
He was ordained a few years later and
even received dispensation from the Vatican to celebrate communion with
grape juice, so he doesn’t have to sip sacramental wine, because “it’s
pretty good stuff,” he laughed.
In the years since, he’s counselled
people for myriad addictions, including alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex
and — what he calls the fastest growing addiction in North America
— pornography.
Many have been referred to him by
local lawyers and doctors. He said he uses the principles of AA to
inspire others to beat their demons.
Earlier this year, he marked 50 years
of sobriety with a celebration in Oakville attended by many of the
thousands of people he’s helped over three decades in parishes across
the Hamilton diocese.
Watters said it can be difficult to
spend so much time listening to people empty their souls at the lowest
moments of their lives.
“I lost myself, but then I found myself again,” he said.
“God’s been good to me and I’ve had a wonderful life, but it’s time I had a little rest.”