The night before Thanksgiving has become one of the biggest binge drinking nights of the year, according to Father Ryan Brady, associate pastor at Our Lady of the Ridge and St. Linus Parish in the South suburbs.

That is why Brady, a recovering alcoholic, chose that evening to celebrate a Mass for the third year to pray for hope and healing for those suffering from addiction.

About 200 people joined Brady for Mass Nov. 22.

“We have come together tonight to pray, to love and to help bring addiction out of the shadows,” Brady said in his homily. “We have come together to see past the scourge of addiction in our lives, in the lives of those we love, in the lives of our friends and neighbors in the community. We have come together to see past addiction and see the freedom possible — to see the freedom that God so longs to share with each and every one of us.”

Brady got sober in 2014 at the age of 30. He had a full-time job and was going to mortuary school full-time. Cardinal Cupich, who ordained Brady in 2021, has encouraged him to share his story publicly in order to help others.

“I remember horrible nights which seem like yesterday,” he told those gathered for Mass. “Nights when I went out drinking, I didn’t have a choice. It was an obligation. Then filled with misery, guilt and fear, I snuck into the back of the adoration chapel at Incarnation Church, only 5 miles from here, straight south, and prayed. Well, I tried, at least. It was more like begging. My addiction was full blown and horrible noise ran through my mind like a freight train at full speed. And I had no ability to pray and to listen.”

The Mass offered an opportunity for people in recovery from any addiction to come together and pray for themselves and for those in active addiction. It was also for loved ones of those addicted, Brady said.

“Our addiction, or the addiction of those we love, is a great cross. But the cross is the path to the Resurrection,” he said. “We have a great opportunity to shed light on the major issue of alcoholism and addiction in our communities, in our homes, in our hearts. We have a great opportunity to shed light on the need to recognize that alcohol and addiction play far too great a part in far too many lives.

Tom O’Reilly has been sober since 1981 and was at Brady’s first 12-step meeting when he quit drinking.

“I come to, as [Brady] is, I think, attempting to do, to just bring some recognition to this area that you know, there is a solution and it happens to be a spiritual solution,” he said. “It works pretty well.”

Prayer is a powerful force to help people battling with addictions or for those in their families, he said.

“When we all come together as a community it’s a really powerful force,” he said. “It makes a difference that everybody here tonight said to their family before they left, the night before Thanksgiving, that I’m going to a special Mass for the suffering alcoholics and drug abusers in the area.”

The best thing to do for someone with an addiction is to pray for them, because they have to want to heal first to accept help, O’Reilly said. And those recovering from addiction can be examples to those still suffering, showing them that healing is possible, he added.

When he was drinking, O’Reilly said, alcohol was his god. His 12-step program told him he had to find a power greater than himself, but he did not really believe it.

“When I started to believe it was when you start to take those little leaps of faith, you know?” O’Reilly noted.

Even though Jenni Fields is not Catholic, she attended Brady’s Mass last year and this year.

“I come because it’s a special Mass and there’s a lot of people who are hurting out there, especially with addiction and especially at this time of year,” Fields said. “This is the worst time of year for a lot of people.”

She also comes to support everyone at the Mass and Brady.

“It’s special. It’s something significant for me,” she said.