Wasted: An Alcoholic Therapist's Fight for Recovery in a Tragically Flawed Treatment System (35 page)

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Mike

DURING SPRING IN
North Vancouver, the leaden clouds will sometimes part to reveal the North Shore peaks, freshly dusted with snow. Not this spring. It is so warm that progressive sheets of storms we call the Pineapple Express march in, one after another. Slate grey skies slide further down the mountain, enshrouding our home, day after day.

I’m rattled. Just like it says in the
AA
Big Book: restless, irritable and discontent.

I think it’s in part because we’ve been filming a documentary for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s prime-time science program,
The Nature of Things
. The documentary follows my search for the best new evidence-based treatments—that is, treatments that have been tested by randomized controlled
trials—for substance use disorders. That’s what addiction is now called in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (
DSM-5
), which is the bible for diagnosing mental disorders.

I know this documentary has the potential to help so many people who are battling addiction, but I can’t help but feel a bit like a bug under a microscope. The film scaffolds the
new science of recovery on my own personal story, which is impossible to tell without delving into my worst days as a drunk. Something that by now, I’d prefer to leave in the past.

Got to get out of here. I stare out toward English Bay. A slip of blue sky opens in the southern bank of grey clouds. The rain stops. Finally: escape.

I lift my left leg high over my Harley, straddle
the black leather saddle and turn the key all in one smooth motion. I grab the chrome grips, squeeze the clutch and fire her up. There’s a loud bang and throaty roar as I twist the throttle, clunk into gear and roll out from our building’s underground parkade and make my way down the mountain. The road is shiny and slick. I pump the rear brake to test my traction. Not too bad. The wet wind fresh
on my face, the cherry blossoms scent sweet in my nostrils, the angst starts to ease.

I approach the steepest part of the street. A car appears out of a back alley. The driver and I make eye contact. I ease off the throttle, feather the rear and front brakes.

“Don’t you dare pull out,” I mutter.

His head jerks left. Back right.

He pulls out.

“No.”

I squeeze both brakes, harder on the rear. Crank the handlebars hard left. The tail slides sideways. She goes over on her side. Both of us skid down the road and ram the side of the car hard. My body launches forward, face slams into the top edge of the Harley’s windshield. I’m trapped now beneath the bike. It’s still running, the rear wheel spinning, the hot engine cylinder scorching my knee. Pain
rips through my upper lip and nose. There’s the taste of iron in my mouth. I fight to get the bike off me, but it’s too heavy.

The driver stares down at me in horror. “Oh my God! I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

A young couple rushes to my rescue.

“You pulled out right in front of him,” the woman remonstrates.

The man with her lifts the Harley just enough so I can slide my
leg out.

The woman gets on her cell phone. “There’s been an accident. We need an ambulance!”

I see my reflection in the car window. My upper lip is split through to my right nostril. Dark blood pours down my chin. I touch my mouth, grab my teeth hard between my thumb and forefinger and try to wiggle them. Solid. Thank God.

I stumble to the bike and try to lift it upright.
“Goddamn it! Shit!”

A police cruiser pulls up. The police officer says, “Sir. I think you should sit down. You’re hurt.”

The driver still sits in his car, his face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

Frustration, anger, daze and shock. Why did I go out on the bike in this weather? Why did he pull out? How am I going to do the film now? I’m an idiot.

The ambulance pulls into the Lions Gate Hospital Emergency Department in North Vancouver and the attendants wheel me straight into the unit. A nurse takes my vitals. She says, “You’re going to be okay. The doctor will see you shortly.” She hands me a stack of two-by-two gauze pads and I press a few on my mouth. I lie on the gurney. Phone rings. Maureen tells me she’s on her way home. I
tell her where I am. I wait alone in the examining room. I hate the
ER
.

Maureen

I RUSH INTO
the Emergency Department and the ambulance attendant points to the bay where they’ve just deposited Michael. He tries to smile and his lower face breaks in half. Literally. Between his nose and mouth is a large gash, split clean through to his palate. I feel queasy. “The surgeon says he
has quite a bit of sewing to do,” Mike jokes half-heartedly.

I feel like a horrible human being because I have to admit my first thought was, “How can that gashed face be on
TV
?” My producer/director brain scrambles to put this in filmic context while I know my first thought should be for Mike’s wellbeing.

“What happened?” Me, anxious.

“The Harley and I had a wee spill.”
Half his face smiles dejectedly.

Mike

THE DOCTOR FINALLY
arrives and in a flurry begins to stitch my face. I sit as still as possible. Maureen sits, silently watching from the foot of the bed. The last time a woman sat at the foot of my hospital bed, it was Dana, a can of Red Bull in her hand and bottle of vodka in her purse.

The doctor finishes and stands back to admire
his handiwork. “You’ll look like a tough guy,” he says.

My sewn lip stretches in a failed attempt to smile. “I’m already a tough guy,” doesn’t quite come out right.

Maureen drops me at the house. We’re having people over tonight. She offered to cancel, but I know how much she loves entertaining. She’s off to pick up a few things. Autie, our sweet black lab, lies on the carpet.
Her dark eyes track me as I limp into the kitchen. Her tail wags tentatively. My ankle hurts. My knee burns. There’s a hollow pit in my stomach. Even after the painkillers in the hospital, my head aches. My face throbs. The lip all sutured up, swollen and stiff, begins to unfreeze. I open the fridge.

Cranberry juice. A couple cans of San Pellegrino; blood orange is my favourite. In the
fridge door beside the ketchup a bottle of Maureen’s favourite wine, opened but almost full, Quinta Ferreira 2011, a British Columbia gem. I can just hear her now: “It’s so buttery, so oaky, it’s right up there with those classic California central coast chardonnays.”

She’s right.

It does taste just like that.

Pour a bit more into a glass, just about an inch of liquid.
Hold it up. Look at it. Swirl it. Smell it. One genteel sip, then a swig and it’s gone.

“Okay... put it back in the fridge now, she’ll never know.”

I fill the glass. Glass in hand, I peer out the kitchen window. A young guy walks by with his golden retriever and Autie trots onto the deck. The dogs wag their tails at each other. I drain my third glass. The bottle is nearly empty.
I squeeze the cork back in and put the might-as-well-be-empty bottle back where I got it.

Now I’m on a mission. I open the bottom cupboard where we store wine. None. But in the back, behind the casserole dishes, stands a bottle of Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum. I spin the cap off. It flies out of my hand, clacks onto the floor and rolls under the fridge. I hoist the bottle to my lips
and drink.

Maureen

IN HALF AN
hour our guests will arrive. I open the fridge door to pour myself a glass of wine. I like to sip as I put the finishing touches on the table. Light candles, dress the salad.

Only, there is no wine. The bottle in the fridge is empty. Where did it go? I only had one glass out of that bottle. Or did I? Maybe I’ve forgotten. Glance over at Mike,
working intently on his laptop, then back into fridge door. Disconnect. We’ve had wine in the fridge for five years. He’s always said it didn’t bother him that I had the occasional glass. But I have to ask.

“Mike, did you drink that wine?”

He looks up from his work, irritated. “No. Don’t be ridiculous.” Something’s different. Voice too thick. Maybe it’s from his swollen lip.

Focused on the fact that guests will be arriving in five minutes, I want to believe him.

I return to the kitchen. Wary. Something is off-kilter.

“Maureen, come and sit with me for a minute.” Mike’s voice is flat.

I slide onto the couch beside him. He looks at me and speaks. Voice slurred and leaden.

“I did drink that wine. And a third of a bottle of rum left
over from Christmas.”

My stomach plummets. Shock. Disbelief. Anger. Fear. The phone rings. It’s the entry intercom. Guests have arrived. No time to process.

I pour drinks. Make small talk. Did someone make a joke? Laugh now, with everyone else. What’s going to happen? Is this the beginning of the end? Am I going to find out how it felt to be Rhonda, Mike’s ex-wife? Mike drinking
is a train wreck. I know. I co-wrote the book. Everything is going great. We’ve been asked to write a second edition. We’re going to get published in the U.S. We’re filming a documentary on addiction for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He’s blowing it. Only this time, he’s blowing it for both of us.

I sleepwalk through hosting. Mike is sullen and mostly silent, thank God. He goes
to bed early. Seeing his swollen lip, our guests nod in sympathy and bid him goodnight.

After everyone leaves, I open the bedroom door and see Mike on his back, snoring loudly. I flip open my laptop to dubs of our interviews from our first filming road trip for the documentary.

Mike

EYES OPEN. BIRDS;
too loud. My head pounds and my mouth is dry. I lightly touch the puffy
line of stiches on my upper lip. With sickening clarity, last night slams in.

Damn it. I drank. I drank a lot. Images flicker through my brain. Shoving aside all the casserole dishes and cookie trays, grasping back deep in the cupboard to retrieve the bottle of Captain Morgan rum. Guzzling it straight from the bottle. Pouring glass after glass after glass of wine. Jamming the cork back
in the empty bottle.

What’s wrong with me? What did I do last night? What did I say to Maureen? We had guests. What did they think? What’s going to happen to the film now? After five-and-a-half years of sobriety, I drank. I blew it. The whole world will know. Mike Pond is a hopeless alcoholic. We told you it was just a matter of time. He was getting too cocky. How will I face the shame
and humiliation?

I fumble my way out of bed and head to the kitchen where Maureen pecks with purpose on her MacBook. She’s surrounded by research for our film.

She looks straight into my eyes. “We’re going across the line. A doctor in Bellingham administers Vivitrol injections, a drug believed to keep cravings at bay for up to thirty days. It’s not available yet in Canada. His
receptionist says they can have it ready for you in a few days.”

“That’s really expensive. Over a thousand dollars.”

“Twelve hundred American. Plus an administration fee of four hundred... And, Mike­—we need to talk about this, but I think we need to bring the camera crew.”

My queasy stomach lurches. Oh, great. Not only do I blow five-and-a-half years of sobriety, I have
to do it on national television.

But she’s right. I can’t change attitudes about how we perceive relapse if I hide mine. The whole premise of the film was me, sober five years, searching for the best new evidence-based research and treatment. I can’t be that guy anymore.

I glance Maureen’s way with some trepidation. I can only imagine how she must feel. She looks at me for a long
time. Her face softens. “Mike, as every addiction specialist told us: relapse is a symptom of the disorder. You didn’t have much success with the twelve steps, or
AA
, so it seems logical we try something else to get you well as quickly as possible.”

I’d been expecting a blast. Instead she quotes a variation of what Dr. Keith Humphreys, an addictions expert at Stanford University, told
us: “If punishment cured addiction, we wouldn’t have any addicts.”

She doesn’t need to punish me. I’m doing a good enough job of that myself.

Maureen

DAYS LATER WE
pull into the Bellingham parking lot of Dr. Greg Sharp, a man who considers Mike’s relapse a matter of life and death.

“When I get a call from a patient and they are in an addiction cycle, I act like
they are suicidal. It’s a crisis. When someone gets ready to deal with their addiction, that’s the pivotal moment. If we don’t throw everything we have at them, it’s malpractice, in my opinion.”

Dr. Sharp has been administering Vivitrol for years, and has Canadian clients who make the monthly trek across the border. He’s open to trying various therapies and medications if he thinks his
patient will benefit. “When it comes to recognizing the effectiveness of some of these medications, the medical community is really behind the curve.”

Mike gets his shot, takes note of the side effects and stares gloomily out the window as I drive back to Canada. Both Mike and I are exhausted by the upheaval of the relapse. I’m worried how we’ll move forward with filming. I need Mike to
be well, but I also need to confront the reality that we may have a different outcome. As a journalist, I’m torn. I know this recurrence actually ups the dramatic stakes in the storytelling, which the storyteller in me loves. It will make for a better story. But we’re also going to end up filming scenes that will be very “triggering,” to use an addiction term. We will go places where Mike had very
bad experiences. To continue filming may make Mike’s relapse worse. Our relationship may implode under the pressure of getting Mike well and continuing to film.

As we drive, I raise the issue with Mike.

“I wonder if we should consider stopping filming for a while, to give you a chance to feel better. Everywhere we film, there’s booze. And we actually take steps to make that booze
even look better, more enticing, for the camera. That will be hard for you.”