Wasted: An Alcoholic Therapist's Fight for Recovery in a Tragically Flawed Treatment System (13 page)

As I bolt, Josh yells after me.

“You’re a dead man, Pond! You’re not going to make it, you know that? Money and pussy kills every drunk.”

That’s funny—Josh is screwing another client’s mother.

“I’m leaving, Josh,” I yell over my shoulder as I open the door. “I have a job and a place to live.”

“You haven’t surrendered yet, Mike. You’ll be drunk again within
a month, guaranteed. I’ve seen it a thousand times.”

“Not me. I’m done. I will never drink again.” I strut out the door, my chest puffed, my head held high. Several of the guys hang out in the courtyard and watch. Dressed in jeans and a baby blue V-neck cashmere sweater, one hand on her hip, the other resting on the hood of the car, Dana paints the kind of picture reminiscent of early
1960s girlie magazines. Glossy red curls pinned up, lips rose red and Gucci sunglasses. I can smell green apple shampoo as I nuzzle into her neck.

“Well, Mr. Pond. How does it feel?” Dana smirks. “You’re out. Fucking scumbags. Stand there in front. I want to get a picture of you. Just to remember it, and know you’ll never be in this shithole ever again.”

I stand in front of the
main gate of the old wooden fence, one hand on my hip and the other shouldering my duffle bag. I smile wide for the camera and the watching crowd. I know leaving with Dana is a bad decision. But I’m more worried about being alone. The people I care about the most now want nothing to do with me. I fear loneliness more than I fear alcoholism.

“Come on, take it quick,” I say, antsy to get
going. “Let’s get out of here.”

We merge onto Highway 99 north to freedom. Bob Marley teases “Is this love?” on the sound system.

“Well. How does it feel, Mr. Pond? We’ll crash at the little rooming house for five days and then we move into our new place on the first. It’s beautiful. You’re going to love it.”

I gaze over at her. Dana has rescued me once again. When I checked
into the Phoenix Centre, I had no money. Short of cash herself, she bought me a winter coat and new boots. She knew I’d spend a lot of time on the streets. The coat and boots are long gone, disappeared in the blur of benders.

Dana pulls into the driveway of a modest house somewhere in North Surrey. A woman meets us at the door.

“I will show you your room. It’s downstairs. Twenty
dollars a night. Five nights: one hundred dollars in advance. No refunds. You work at Surrey Memorial Hospital, right?”

“Yes,” I say.

The room downstairs is small, but tidy and clean. I obsess over the bed, perfectly dressed in a crisp new blue duvet. After I’ve covered myself with filthy, smelly blankets for weeks, the cleanliness makes me cry with relief. I share a kitchen and
bathroom with two other men in adjacent rooms.

It is peaceful and quiet here—makes me a bit twitchy.

“This is perfect,” Dana nods. “Okay, Mr. Pond, let’s go get some groceries.”

The local Safeway is just around the corner. We meander through the aisles picking up staples. Bread, butter, eggs, milk, cheese. It’s been over two months since I’ve had an egg or a piece of cheese.
As Dana heads to the deli section for cold cuts, I unconsciously grab a two-litre carton of fresh orange juice.

“Why orange juice, Mike?” Dana asks with a tilt of her head.

“Oh. I’m craving a glass of real juice.” The carton chills my hands. “All I’ve had is those no-name-brand bags of crystals you mix with water. Diluted to death. Zero nutritional value.”

When we leave,
I notice the liquor store across the parking lot. The green and yellow neon sign glows.
Open. Open. Open
.

“I have to go to work,” Dana says. “I’ll drop you off and you can make a nice ham and cheese omelette.”

Dana drops me off with the groceries and backs out of the driveway of the rooming house. As I wave goodbye, my throat constricts. I’m suffused with gratitude that she is
still in my life. She rescued me from We Surrender. She bought groceries. She’s lent me money until payday. All the while I know she’s struggling herself. The disappearances, the long periods of silence when I don’t hear from her for weeks—I know she’s drinking. Now that I’m sober, maybe I can help Dana stay sober, too.

Everything goes into the sparkling clean fridge. I pour myself a huge
tumbler of juice. It’s ice cold, tart and sweet. I flop on the bed and turn on the nineteen-inch flat-screen
TV
. Eli doesn’t allow
TV
at We Surrender. It distracts from recovery.

“Attraction-Distraction-Subtraction”—another one of his mottos.

The Bruins are playing the Leafs. Well, we know how this will end.

God, this juice tastes good, but freedom tastes better. No one
tells me when to eat, when to sleep or what to think. No one holds a knife to my neck in the middle of the night.

Now: for that omelette. Shit—I forgot ketchup. Can’t have an omelette without ketchup.

I hike back the three-and-a-half blocks to the Safeway. There it is: a plastic squeeze bottle of Heinz. It sits upside down so you don’t have to fight the ketchup out. What a brilliant
idea. Why did it take them seventy-five years to figure that out? Oh. Might as well pick up another carton of orange juice. After all, I’m going to be here five days.

As I step out into the parking lot, the neon beckons again.
Open. Open. Open
.

MY EYES OPEN
but refuse to focus. In the corner the
TV
flickers streaks of blue and blurs of bright orange. It sounds like
TSN
highlights.
The audio is on steroids, blasting the results of the Canucks game. I smell burnt toast. I grasp the edge of the bed, shove my splitting head over and discover a white plate and the charred remains of a ham and cheese omelette. Smears of ketchup and bits of half-eaten black toast circle the plate. Two empty bottles of Smirnoff lie on the floor. Dead soldiers. A couple of ounces left in one. Thank
God. I grab it, arch my head back and hold the bottle up forever until the very last drop falls and melts on into the tip of my tongue. My head aches. My brain is log-jammed in the deepest fog. I reach up gingerly, touch the right side of my cheek and jaw. There is blood on my hand. I want to go look in the mirror but—

Shit! Did I leave the stove on?

I stagger to the communal kitchen
in my brand-new rooming house. The stove is off. A wreck of dirty dishes clutters the counter and sink.

As I pass the Ikea dresser at the foot of the bed, I glance in the mirror and catch sight of a head that looks like a red and purple volleyball. Holy shit, it’s mine.

Black-caked blood paints the entire side of my face and down my neck. An arrangement of deep raw scrapes and
cuts highlight the wound.

I need to go to the hospital. My cellphone flashes. I need to call in to work. Have I missed any work? How long have I been drinking? My brain rapid-fires in panic mode. I count three bottles; two on the floor, one under the bed. That computes to two, maybe three days.

I think I had two days off. I think I’m supposed be at work right now.

• 13 •

MY STOMACH PLUMMETS.

I remember now. I was at work. I went to work drunk and was told to go home; the familiar sinking realization. Fucked up again, did you, Pond? What am I going to do?

I check the messages on my phone.

Dana. “Mike, where are you? Answer your damn phone. I
knew
you were going to drink. How could you do this to us?
We have a place. We have a new start. Damn you!”

Work. “Hello, Mike. This is Odette. We have you scheduled for work today. Can you please give us a call?”

Dana. “You son of a bitch. Answer your goddamn phone. Are you dead? I hope to God you are dead, you prick!”

Work. “Hello, Mike. This is Odette from
APU
again. We have you scheduled for an evening shift. We haven’t heard
from you in a couple of days. Please call the unit as soon as possible.”

Dana. “I’m drunk again thanks to you. I want to die.”

Work. “Mike. Please call
HR
.”

One day out of the recovery house and I’m drunk. Barely a week into my new job, I’m convinced I’m fired. Dana is drunk and angry. Our new place is probably history.

I need to puke. As I stand over the kitchen
sink, the landlady walks in. One hand on her hip, the other finger wags at me.

“You leave now. You drunk three days,” in her truncated English. “Face very bad. You go to hospital. Then you get out.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“You go now.”

Once again I cram my duffle bag with my precious briefcase and my meagre belongings. Still half drunk, I walk the eight blocks to the
hospital
ER
in the March drizzle. Each time a vehicle approaches, I fight the compulsion to jump in front of it. A black eighteen-wheeler accelerates toward me. It would be so easy. It would be all over.

Clinical Notes—Mental Status Exam:

Appearance and Behaviour: Patient is intoxicated and smells strongly of alcohol. He is unshaven and has a 6 cm laceration, deep scrapes and gouges
to the entire left side of face and eye region with significant swelling. Patient is agitated, restless and impulsive.

Speech: Slurred and pressured.

Mood and Affect: Patient reports he feels depressed, anxious, full of despair and hopelessness.

Thought Content and Process: Admits suicidal ideation and intent; however denies a plan. He is oriented to person and place but
not time. Poor short-term memory and poor concentration.

Insight and Judgment: Impaired.

DSM-5
Diagnosis: Alcohol Use Disorder—Severe; Major Depressive Episode; Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) score: 45/100.

Plan: Hospitalization for medical treatment and detoxification.

The hospital
ER
overflows. Old men groan and babies
cry. Beds line the walls, packed with the sick and injured. After registering, I sit and watch the large digital clock in the waiting room, from 7:03 to 9:19. It’s dark and raining outside. Creekside and the Phoenix Centre are two blocks around the corner. The adolescent psychiatric unit where I work (worked?) is just down the corridor in the south wing. Minutes become hours. Hospital
ER
s work
on triage systems. Drunks fall lower and lower on the list of priorities. At eleven p.m., I walk out.

I head for the bus stop. I have no choice. I have to go back to We Surrender and Eli’s and Josh’s self-righteous “we told you so.” They are right. They told me so.

The bus arrives with the hiss of air brakes. I present the driver with eighty-seven cents. With a twitch of the corner
of his mouth, he allows me on. Although I know I’m a sight, in North Surrey an old guy with a smashed face reeking of liquor is not novel.

All buses smell of diesel and vinyl. I add not-so-stale booze to the mix. I lean my head on the window and watch the wet stream of coloured lights drift by. Images of Eli’s face taunt me.

“Hey, guy, I told you you’d relapse. You won’t surrender.
Your ego will kill you.”

Why hasn’t his ego killed
him
? Shame and self-loathing fill me.

My downward descent into extreme alcoholism began in the spring of 2005. That’s four years ago now. I’ve fought countless times to stay sober. And I always lose.

Begrudgingly, I recognize that I have to thank Eli. Without him, without his innate understanding of how guys like me tick,
I’d have nowhere to go. If Eli takes me back, it’s because he knows exactly what it’s like to be me. He’s been there.

I’m dying for a drink.

The bus drops me at the stop by the corner store by We Surrender where Dana took my picture.

“Just to remember it, and know you’ll never be in this shithole ever again.”

I will actually be lucky to be in this shithole again.
Eli may not take me back. I limp, defeated, into the house. It’s just past midnight. My head and face throb with pain. Dan, the night watchman, sits sentry alone in the kitchen foyer listening to Pink Floyd’s
Dark Side of the Moon
on his Sony portable. The crooked, chrome telescope aerial refuses to stay upright.
Dark Side of the Moon
dissolves in a wave of static. He double-takes as I sit down.

“Holy shit, Mike.” His mouth hangs open. “What happened to you? Your face is a mess.”

“Don’t know, Dan. Woke up this morning from a three-day drunk and this is what I saw in the mirror.”

“You better lie down. Let’s make up the couch of willingness outside. It’s wet and cold out there, but that’s where Eli will want you. I hope he lets you stay. You just left a few days ago.”

“Yeah, I know. I really screwed up.”

Dan and I make up the couch of willingness in the smoking pit. The area is roughly roofed in, like an old porch. Heavy clear plastic hangs on three sides to keep out the wind and rain. It’s not very effective tonight. The couch is cold and wet. I pull the old blankets up to my eyes. No crisp blue duvet here. The weight of the blankets hurt the
raw spots on my face.

I can’t believe I’m back on the couch of willingness. Barely a week ago, I strutted out of the house in defiance, saying, “I’m ready to go.” The insistence of the down-and-out Greek chorus of fellow We Surrender clients could not drown out my confidence.

Coming back, picking up, relapse, reload. There’s no end of words to refer to the essential challenge of
the alcoholic—establish a period of sobriety and then, just when things get going good, you sabotage yourself.

I have one solace: Brett and his creepy sidekick Kevin have moved on.

I bat the disgusting pillow onto the floor and shiver under the pile of ancient blankets. Involuntary tremors start in my sternum and rattle out through my arms and legs. Withdrawal and the damp chill
partner up. Detox begins. How long will I be on the couch of willingness this time? Dan arrives with the familiar pink plastic pail and sets it on the concrete beside my head.

“Hang in there, Mike. You’ll be okay in a few days. If they let you stay. You were only gone a few days.”