Up Ghost River (24 page)

Then Bill held up a book called
Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism
. He called it the Big Book. He had several copies and he passed them around the class.

It was about the same size as the Bible. Inside were a lot of stories about finding God. One chapter was called “Crossing the River of Denial.” Another was “The Keys of the Kingdom,” another about some doctor who had lost his way until he realized that God, not he, was the Great Healer.

I remembered Father Gagnon's prayer. “Oh merciful God: have mercy on all Jews, Turks, infidels and heretics and also upon all those
heathen nations, on whom the light of Thy glorious Gospel hath not yet shone: especially the Indians of this continent.”

I shut the Big Book and took a deep breath.

A few days later, after the aerobics class, there was a morning lecture by a guest speaker named Julian. A medium-sized man, he was a counsellor and an expert in alcohol and psychic trauma.

“How does alcohol work?” He turned around and pointed to the blackboard on which he'd taped a poster of a brain. “It's a sedative. It affects the brain's neurotransmitters, which are the chemical messengers that transmit signals that control thought processes, behaviour and emotion. It causes us to lose inhibitions, and increases our levels of dopamine, causing us to feel good. So why is this a problem? Why should a chemically induced high become an issue?”

“ 'Cause you start to need it,” Maurice said. “Every moment is spent craving the next drink.”

“Excellent,” Julian said. “Alcohol numbs psychic pain. In small doses, it can make you feel good. When it is used as a crutch, it causes serious problems. It affects our decision-making and our ability to assess risk.”

I thought back to when I had started drinking socially. Nicholas, Erick and I had gone out and bought some cheap wine when we were sixteen. They had been grounded, so we didn't try again that year. The following year, I had come home from Montreal, and I knew that there was something wrong with me. I was marked. Damaged goods. Who was going to go for that? No girl. Drinking made things a bit easier. Gave me some confidence. Not much. But enough to take a few girls to the movies. I figured out how to kiss, but even with alcohol, it was hard for me to go further. Too much shame.

When I got back to Fort Albany after high school, I wondered if it would ever happen to me. The years had ticked by, eighteen, nineteen,
twenty—they were supposed to be the time of your life. I saw my life accelerate, and me turning old before I had become a man. Then Joan had arrived in Fort Albany from down south. I was twenty. Alcohol made everything easy. I flirted with Joan. Opened up. She liked me.

I'd been without it now for a total of seven days, and every day stretched out like a treacherous icy river. I was deep in it, and I felt unable to swim or walk, weighed down—by my past, by my mistakes and by those I had hurt. Every day there were more questions, from the counsellors, psychologists, addicts and experts. Why
why
WHY? I started to explain, and then I tumbled into memory, images spinning ever faster until the words didn't matter, there was only thirst. I would say anything for a moment's relief. Give everything for a drink.

Things got better midway through when a Cree healer named Terry came in for the presentations that were aimed at natives. We sat in a circle—Terry, Maurice, me and Geraldine, a Stoney woman from Nakoda Nation, who was just here for a couple of days.

“You know, I used to be in your shoes,” Terry said. “Managing my mood swings with alcohol. Always running from my past. Then I came here for some healing a few years ago, and never looked back. I started asking some hard questions about my life here. Had someone come in and give a presentation, just like I'm giving to you. That's when I realized I had to start figuring out my culture. That I was a little lost.

“Anyway. Enough of me. Let's talk about you. You've come here because you're probably drinkers. The other people at the addiction centre might have other substance abuse problems, but for us, it's probably booze. When the white man first brought alcohol, they knew what they were giving us. The beginnings of broken families.

“To start, let's go around the room. Loosen things up a bit. Natives have a lot of names for booze. Anyone know a few?”

I put up my hand. “Firewater,” I said.

“Yes,” Terry said. “The old people called it firewater because they used to make homebrew out of anything they could find. Real booze was banned for Indians. When you make booze in your backyard, it usually burns. Water that sets your throat on fire. Anything else?”

“We call it crazy water,” Geraldine said. “
Gahtonejabee meenee
. Because it makes you crazy.”

“You already were,” Maurice said. She smiled at him. He had the hots for Geraldine. We weren't supposed to get together romantically at the centre, although I didn't think Maurice cared much for the rules.

“What else?” Terry said.

“In Mohawk we say
deganigohadaynyohs
,” Maurice said. “The mind changer. Because whatever mood you're in before, it makes you happy.”

“Yeah, I've heard of that. Of all the names, I think that's the worst of all. Because people do use it to change their minds. They try to change their minds instead of changing their circumstances.”

I wondered whether I'd used alcohol to change my mind instead of my circumstances. I was sure I had. But what had been that wrong with my circumstances? Hadn't I already got all I wanted? After high school, I'd wanted to become a teacher, and I'd managed, and I'd loved my job. I'd wanted to marry Joan, and she took me even though I wasn't much to look at and she could have chosen anyone. I'd wanted to go to university, get my degree, and it had been hard, but I'd succeeded. Hell, I even had three amazing kids. Why had I screwed everything up?

It was evening, near the end of the program, when a middle-aged counsellor with red hair named Barb gave us Self-Monitoring Logs. She asked us to write down when we felt the urge to use drugs or drink. Everyone had to fill out that part except for the newbies
because Barb said every newbie had urges so bad they might as well be teenage boys. She kept laughing long after the rest of the room had fallen silent.

The next part of the form dealt with the causes of our addiction.

What were the triggers for you wanting to drink alcohol/use drugs?

I thought about all the things that made me want to drink. Why did they give us such a tiny box? I needed a filing cabinet. I felt embarrassed about my brown body. It felt small and weak. Unlovable. Every failure compounded my growing shame. I felt lost and out of control when I let my students down. My overwhelming remorse when I came home drunk and saw Joan looking tired and broken. The better question was when I didn't want to drink—that would be easier to answer.

When had I first tried alcohol? I thought back. I remembered finding Pa's bucket of homebrew when I was about five. I stuck my finger in and tried it. It set my mouth on fire, burning through my cheeks and throat. Ma got mad when Pa drank too much, and I didn't want her finding out.

After that, the memories took hold in Technicolor. I was seven, walking to the school with my dad, having my hair cut, playing soccer in the rain and seeing Mike fiddling with his umbrella. The memories sped up and I could smell the old meat and cologne and I just needed it to stop and for there to be space.

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. So were my legs. I left that part of the form blank and excused myself.

When I came out of the bathroom, everyone had been paired off. We would be doing breathing exercises that were supposed to help take our mind off our cravings. A plump woman with messy, curly brown hair named Trish didn't have a partner so I became hers.

“Can you believe this shit?” she said, and pointed around the room.

“What shit?” I said.

She started to laugh. “You got the shits too?”

“No,” I whispered.

“Come on, every addict gets them. Either it's stuck all the way up or it's flowing like the River Ganges.”

“River what?”

“Brown river in India,” she said. “Flowing like the floods of the monsoons.”

“Can you keep it down?” said the woman who was sitting in a chair in front of us. “I'm trying to breathe properly.”

“The problem is you are uptight,” Trish said to her.

The women in front turned around again. “Be quiet,” she said.

“Breathe on my shit, baby,” Trish said. “ 'Cause it's coming at ya like roses about to burst.”

“Hey, Trish,” I whispered. “Let's not start.”

“I ain't starting, I'm finishing!” She got up and began singing. It sounded a little like the Rolling Stones' “Brown Sugar,” but with poop lyrics. As soon as Trish belted her first note, Barb got up and left the room. Once she left, more people began laughing. A few moments later Bill came in and led Trish away.

The next day Bill left a note on my door that he wanted to meet me one-on-one. I was already late for the AA meeting, but I stopped by his office on the way there.

“Sorry about what happened with Trish yesterday,” he said. “There's a lot going on. Sometimes things get out of hand.”

“It's fine.”

“You didn't fill in all of your form,” he said.

“Which part?”

“Question thirteen. ‘What were the triggers for you wanting to drink alcohol/use drugs?' ”

“It's difficult to say,” I said.

“Difficult how?”

“I'm not sure which one to write down.”

“Why don't you write down all of them?”

“All?” I asked hesitantly. There were some things in my past that I didn't think I could talk about.

He looked at me dubiously. “You know, Ed, we stress total honesty here.”

“Yeah. I know.” I looked at him. He had the same tone as Brother Goulet when he was lecturing boys about why they deserved the electric chair, and it was making it hard to concentrate.

“It helps with the healing process,” Bill said.

“Healing process …” I repeated faintly.

His eyes narrowed. “I want you to go to AA now. When you've finished we can talk over question thirteen.”

I left his office and went to AA, dazed. It felt like someone else had stepped into my body and taken over. I was so confused that I got lost on the way and arrived a few minutes late. I stuck my head in the room where I thought the meeting was supposed to be, but it didn't look right and made me feel dizzy.

“Why did you move the chairs?” I asked. They weren't in a circle anymore, but in rows so we were all facing the blackboard like at St. Anne's.

“It's easier for the exercise,” Barb said, one hand on her hip. “Come in, you're late.”

The AA 12 Steps were written on the board. Barb read number three aloud: “Made a decision to surrender our will and our lives over to the care of God
as we understood Him
.” She asked if we were ready for the Lord to take us. If we were ready to surrender to a Superior Being.

I looked at the board, specifically the word “surrender.” Pa had talked about that word. He said the Indians had surrendered their land to the white man who had moved us to the reserves. We had
surrendered our culture and our way of being so that we wouldn't be killed and didn't starve. And then Ma had surrendered me to Father Lavois so that I became a ward of the church-state partnership that ran the residential schools. Then I had surrendered to Mike.

I looked back at Barb. She was dressed all in black, just like a nun's habit. Her face shifted and I saw Sister Wesley's face on top of her body. She was looking at me. There was vomit on the floor. She was going to make me lick it up.

“Where are you going?” Sister Wesley asked.

“Please!” I begged.

“Please what?”

“Please don't make me, Sister!”

“Sister?” she said.

“Please, Sister Wesley!”

“It's Barb.”

“Who?”

“Barb.” In front of me was a forty-something woman with red hair.

“Where am I?”

“At the addiction centre.” I looked at her again. She was wearing the nun's habit. Was it her or Sister Wesley? Maybe they were lying. They did that. Wanted to catch you out.

“Please. Miss. Please. Please can I leave?”

“What for?”

“Please. Please … I'm … I'm going to be sick.”

She looked at me dubiously. “Fine. Go and see Dr. Wozechowski.”

I hurried out the door and went to the toilets. I tried to vomit for a while. Nothing came up. I washed my mouth and face, and went outside to search for the Standing Ones. Beside the centre there was a picnic table and some grass. A man was having a smoke.

“You look like you've seen a ghost,” he said, offering me a cigarette. I looked at him. He looked too old to be at St. Anne's.

“Who are you?”

“Maurice. Remember?”

“Maurice?”

“Yeah buddy. Maurice from Wahta Mohawk First Nation. We met a few days ago.”

“We did?”

He put his arm on my shoulder. “Hey brother. Come on. Calm down. Just breathe.” We stayed like that for a few minutes.

“I know you,” I said at last.

“You sure do.”

“It's Maurice, right?”

“Yep.”

“Sorry 'bout that.”

“It's fine. What happened? Barb not floating your boat?”

“Not too keen on these classroom exercises,” I replied. “They remind me of residential school.”

“Flashbacks. We all get 'em. That's why we're here, isn't it?”

“I guess,” I said.

“Mine are mainly at night.”

“What happens?”

“Oh you know,” he said. “All the people I've let down come back to tell me that I fucked up. How disappointed they are.”