Wasted: An Alcoholic Therapist's Fight for Recovery in a Tragically Flawed Treatment System (20 page)

“Yes, I have.”

I know her next line verbatim.

“You are not safe, Mike. They can’t keep you here. They’re not equipped for this sort of thing. Are you on medication?”

“Yes, Celexa
and trazodone, but I haven’t been taking it. I don’t trust the recovery house to give me my correct meds.”

“Mike, as a professional, you of all people know you have to take your medication. You will never get better. What’s in the briefcase?”

“All my important documents.”

“Ah, I see. Where are your belongings?”

“At the recovery house. I don’t care about any of it.”

“Let’s go. We’re taking you back there. But first we’re stopping at the pharmacy to refill your prescription. You’re going to start taking your medication now. If you don’t, we’ll take you to the hospital. Got it?”

I know that the place I’m standing in right now offers the best possible chance for real recovery. But I’ve blown it. Back to Mission Possible.

Belinda, the constable
and I walk into the local pharmacy. Belinda tells the pharmacist my situation. The pharmacist enters my information into the computer and nods. “Yes, he is prescribed, Celexa and trazodone. I’ll fill it immediately. The costs are covered by Social Services and Housing.”

Once filled, Belinda hands me the two bottles. “Take these right now. And keep taking them as prescribed,” she orders.

We get in the cruiser and head southeast to Langley, destination Mission Possible.

“You were a psych nurse in the Okanagan,” Belinda says. She names a colleague who works up there. “We graduated together in 1971. She moved there twenty-five years ago. A community mental health nurse.”

I slip into rational thought for a moment. I surprise myself with my clear-mindedness.
I think I surprise Belinda, too.

“Yes, I worked with her in the early nineties. We started the provincial pilot project for Mental Health Urgent Response Services in partnership with the
RCMP
. It was the beginning of this program that you guys do now. I was the program manager.” Back then it would never have occurred to me I’d need the services of the very program I helped create.

“Do you still have your nursing licence?” she asks.

“It’s being reviewed right now.”

“I don’t think you should be nursing. You’re not competent to practice. I’m going to report you to the College.” She nods.

Well, take a number and stand in line.

The blue and white police cruiser glides up the treed lane to the house. Two days after my failed suicide attempt,
after two nights of wandering, I’m back at Mission Possible.

I’m cursed.

It’s sunny and warm. Several of the guys are smoking on the front porch, and they bolt when they see the cop car. Crushing their cigarettes in the gravel, Ken and Jordan approach the vehicle with caution.

“Looks like you found Crazy Mike,” says Ken. “I used to be an auxiliary police in Chilliwack.
Before I became a heroin addict, that is.”

The constable says, “Can we have a look around the place? A little tour of the facility.”

Jordan and Ken exchange queasy glances. I spot Cal peeking out the small bathroom window. I hear the toilet flush. The guys are getting rid of their stuff. The house is on red alert.

As Ken tours the guests around the house, all the men have
mysteriously disappeared. The place is deadly quiet.

Belinda looks around the messy dorm. “This place is a disaster. Do you guys not have any health standards? Is this place licensed? Who’s in charge here?”

“I am,” says Ken. “I’m the house manager.”

“How long have you been clean and sober?” Belinda asks.

“Two months,” Ken says.

“Oh my God! Who’s responsible
for administering the medication?”

“I am,” Ken says.

As expected, Belinda disapproves. “You’re an addict! I’m going to report this place to the Health Authority. Here, Mike. Make sure you take your meds. We’re going to follow up on this place.”

Ken throws me a sideways sneer as we follow the constable and Belinda out the door to the patrol car. Ken and Jordan wave and smile
sardonically. I hang my head.

“What are you thinking, Pond?” Ken spits on the driveway. “Bringing the fucking cops here. That’s all we need is the fucking authorities roaming around here.”

“I’m on parole,” says Jordan. “They could’ve hauled my ass to jail.”

Ken immediately gets on his cellphone. “Hello, Neil? He’s back. He showed up with the cops. They were checking the
house out. Okay. See you in a bit.” He flips his phone closed. “Neil will be here in a couple of hours. He’s not happy.”

A couple of hours later, Neil, the house therapist, arrives. I step out the front door. There he is, in studied repose, leaning against his black Mercedes. A cold smile breaks his handsome face.

“Well, well, Dr. Pond,” Neil smirks. “You spineless piece of shit.
I thought you wanted to off yourself. No balls, eh? Come on, let’s go. I’ll drive you to the Port Mann Bridge right now myself. We’ll stop at Canadian Tire and pick up some rope. Let’s go. Let’s fuckin’ go.”

I look him directly in the eye, do an about-face and walk directly back into the house. Fuck you, Neil.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Pond? Coming back here with
the cops,” scowls Psycho Jordan.

Slowly the guys slink back, emerging from their respective hiding holes, like rodents after the cat has departed.

“We’re really worried about you, Mike,” says Cal. “We don’t want anyone offing themselves here, man. That scares the shit out of everybody.”

“I’m here on probation, for fuck’s sake. I coulda been breached,” a new guy says.

I take the stairs down to the dorm. Neil’s cruel goading has managed to accomplish what nothing else has. It’s yanked me out of my suicidal spiral. I often think that it was pride that took me down. Too proud to admit I’m powerless over alcohol, I’d drunk so much my illness had spun so out of control, I’m losing my mind. But I know psychosis ebbs and flows. I’ve observed my own clients,
deep in its grasp, display unpredictable yet perfect lucidity. Right now I’m lucid and prideful and thinking there’s no way the old Mike Pond would put up with this bullshit.

I am a professional, and I will not let that bastard get the better of me. I’m better than him. I will get sane and sober just to prove it. I haul out my briefcase, plop it on the bed and, click-click, it flips open.
An unopened letter from the Fraser Health Authority sits on top. After I relapsed, this letter was sent to We Surrender. It’s been forwarded to Mission Possible, and only now do I have the courage to open it.

Fraser Health Authority

Mr. Michael Pond,

Please contact Ms. Colleen Slater, Fraser Health Authority Occupational Health Nurse, as soon as possible to begin the process
of assessment to make a determination regarding your possible return to work.

Yours truly,

Robert Lyons

Human Resources Manager

Fraser Health Authority

I take a sharp breath. I can’t believe it. I’d only been on the job a few days before I blew it, showing up drunk. They actually might give me a second chance. Gripped by five parts anxiety and one part hope,
I call.

“Hello, Ms. Asher? This is Michael Pond.”

“Yes, Michael,” she says. “I’ve been trying to reach you. The people at the number on your personnel file said they didn’t know your whereabouts.”

Fucking We Surrender.

“I’d like to set up a meeting with you as soon as possible,” she continues. “Since you disclosed your alcoholism to your supervisor, we want to develop
a gradual return-to-work plan. The College of Psychiatric Nurses has already made medical monitoring a condition of maintaining your licence; Fraser Health will now be part of that monitoring. We have received a report from Dr. Acres, and he has provided us with recommendations for you. I’ll set up a meeting with
HR
, the union rep, the College of Psych Nurses and management for next Monday at
nine. Are you able to make it?”

My tongue catches on the back of my front teeth.

“Yes. Yes. I will be there. Thank you so much.”

I march straight to my bunk and scribble out my own treatment plan to present at the meeting.

Will abstain from alcohol and all non-medically prescribed substances.

Will be medically monitored by an addictions specialist.

Will provide random urine samples as directed.

Will attend three AA meetings per week.

Will attend addictions counselling with a qualified therapist.

I smile to myself. I’ve written plans just like these when my clients needed them.

Mere hours ago, I was fixated on offing myself. Now I’m fixated on showing Neil and Rotten Randy and Ken, the bastards, that I will
make it. For the first time in a long time, I’m aware of feeling hungry.

I walk up the stairs into the kitchen. The new guy stands at the stove, boiling rice. Again.

“There’s nothing to fucking eat here,” he grumbles. “Randy hasn’t bought groceries in weeks. Nobody can reach him. Ken says he’s in Vegas on our rent money.”

I fling open the cupboards in search of anything
to augment our carb-rich diet. The cupboards are largely bare, save for a fifty-pound bag of pancake flour, a commercial restaurant-sized box of spaghetti and remnants of a five-gallon pail of rancid, rock-hard peanut butter. And bread. Lots and lots and lots of donated day-old bread. Randy tests the theory that man cannot live on bread alone.

Clinical Notes—Mental Status Exam:

Appearance and Behaviour: Patient appears somewhat disheveled, unshaven and gaunt. Psychomotor retardation.

Speech: Slow and hesitant.

Mood and Affect: Depression and anxiety symptoms improved. Affect brightened. Angry at his situation.

Thought Content and Process: No suicidal thought nor intent. Motivated to regain employment.

Perception: No paranoia, no delusions,
no hallucinations.

Insight: Good.

Judgment: Fair.

Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) score: 60/100—Moderate symptoms.

PSYCHO JORDAN STILL
stares all night convinced I want to kill him in his sleep. The rancid odour of serious infection wafts from his leg. He gets up in the middle of the night to change the dressing, clogged with pus and caked blood. He uses
old plastic wrap and tape that he keeps stuffed under his pillow. No sterile technique here.

“The fucking hospital won’t cut it off, so I’m going to amputate the fucker myself,” he says, half to himself, half to me.

I drift off into the best sleep I’ve had for six months without booze as an anaesthetic. The trazodone finally works. Or is it a certain sense of peace of mind? Or
is it both?

Each morning I force myself to go for a long walk. It’s quiet in rural Langley. The early-morning sun turns mist to dew on freshly cut grass. A rooster crows in the distance. The odd farm truck rolls by with a load of hay. A hobby farmer in a Mercedes wears a business suit and heads into the city to begin a day of work.

Back at Mission Possible, a half-dozen sets of
old Nautilus fitness machines, donated by a local gym, sit in the garage. I push myself to work out every day. I read my
AA
Big Book every day too, and meditate on its principles and slogans:

Easy Does It

Live and Let Live

But for the Grace of God

First Things First

One Day at a Time

Let Go and Let God

I memorize entire passages. I learn
the Prayer of St. Francis by heart.

I hate the meetings but attend every day. The Elis, Randys and Neils are asked to share at every meeting and speak of honesty, love, compassion and acceptance. But life in We Surrender and Mission Possible is about shame, judgment, recrimination and intolerance. The dissonance rankles.

When I last visited Dr. Acres, he told me I needed $600 to
begin medical monitoring. With the possibility now of my job continuing at Fraser Health, I’ve got to get someone in my family to lend me the money for medical monitoring. I’m forced to ask, yet again, for money.

I call my dad’s wife, Christel.

We’ve shared a few conversations recently that make me hopeful. She told me my dad had been waking up in the middle of the night, crying
out my name. No one really knows for sure, but word has it Dad has been sober now for coming up on twenty years.

She picks up.

“Christel, I need your help just this one time, please. I need just enough money to get my medical monitoring started so I can work again as a nurse. Six hundred dollars.”

“Yes, Mike,” she says, “I will help you. But just this once. If you drink
again, this will never happen again. It’s your last chance. And we won’t speak of this to your father.”

Going out on a limb for me is way out of Christel’s comfort zone. Her stolid German upbringing taught her self-reliance.

“Thank you,” I stammer. “I appreciate it. I won’t disappoint you.”

Christel wires me the money. Another break.

Through May and June, I stick
religiously to my own personal program.

Concentration improves and I can finally put a pen to paper. I return to work on my Step Four—“Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself.” I write page after page, day after day.

The times I got drunk on camping trips, during holidays and at hockey tournaments.

The times I staggered about our hometown falling-down
drunk in a state of oblivion.

The embarrassment and shame I caused my family.

The countless times I didn’t show up at work and was not there for my clients in their times of desperate need.

The times I showed up but was so hung over and sick I was useless.

The time I missed my niece’s wedding in Manitoba. She had given me the honour of being the
MC
. I got drunk
instead and didn’t show.