Here's a little synopsis of my story. I hope I don't scare people away LOL
This is before I get clean and sober in 1986
Living in the streets is starting to take its toll on me. With winter here everyone is running for shelter. And the shelters are full and there is a waiting list. So I had no choice but to live in the streets. I’m not eating anymore. I have gotten to the point in my alcoholism food is not important. Any money I have is to buy the next drink. Drinking is destroying my mind and body. I lost a tremendous amount of weight. Since being kick out of the shelter I haven’t showered, shave or change my clothes in weeks. But if you ask me, In the deep denial of my current state of mind, I look great. I have taken to panhandling on the street corners for change and drinking cheep wine. A pint of thunderbird for $1.25 how can you beat that. To be truthful, In my condition, I would drink anything to avoid going into delirium tremors. If I didn’t have enough booze in my body I would start having hallucination. When I did hallucinate I began to hear voices and accept them as death omens. My shakes have become so bad I have to hold the bottle with both of hands to take a drink. I am slowly drinking myself to death. I don’t care about life anymore. I would sleep during the day. If I got any sleep at all. The streets are to dangerous to sleep during the nights. At night is where the action is and when I made most of my money panhandling.
To fight off from going into delirium tremors and control my shakes. The minute I woke up I would hustle up enough change and run to the liquor store to buy me a cheep bottle of wine. As soon I had a couple of bottles of wine in me, I could go out and start panhandling again. I panhandle day and night until reach my nightly quota. Then I was off to the liquor store to buy a quart of vodka. Vodka and cheep wine as a chaser. Those who are down and out and are alcoholics generally sponge off whoever they can, especially for that next drink. So once I had my booze for the night I step off into the dark streets of NYC silently in my thoughts getting drunk. I would roam the streets for miles drinking vodka looking for any opportunity that would make me money. The morning would come intoxicated I was off to find a safe place to sleep. Then start the insanity all over again at night.
The truth is, even though I was slowly drinking myself to death with alcohol. I wish the time I overdose on heroin I was never brought back to life. It would have been a painless death and my suffering would have come to a end. The nonstop haunting memories of my lost love and life it self is to much to bear and I wanted out of this life. But for some insane reason the memories that has brought me to my knees, are the same memories that is keeping me from taking my own life. In deep denial and delusional thinking. I believed that one day we will be back together again. Even though she is married and fourteen years have past since I last seen her. With my distorted perceptions of reality, I wanted to hear her voice. Every Sunday diner was a tradition in Arlene house. So in my alcoholic distorted thinking. Every Sunday around three after a half a quart of vodka, I would get up enough courage to call her mothers house. Hoping that Arlene would answer the phone just to hear her voice. Instead I got her mother the witch and I would hang up. I miss her so much, I just needed to hear her voice one more time before I ended it all.
Late at night In a drunken stupor someone offered me some pills. I had no idea what they where but if they where going to get me high, I took them. I was wondering the streets panhandling for change. I came across this guy who was washing car windows with a squeegee on a corner for tips. I had nothing to do and time on my hand so I join in. Washing car windows was easy money. The next thing I remember is waking up in the gutter. With the booze and the pills I took I had a blackout. When I woke up from laying on the gutter I had blood all over me. Staggered, I got up and assume I must have been in a fight with someone. So I brush myself off and I went on my merry way looking for the next drink.
I remember this day like it was yesterday. It was mid afternoon and I was walking downtown when I came across a big RV on the corner of 14th st and seventh ave. Big sign across the RV that said project return. But that’s not what caught my attention. Oh no. What caught my attention they where giving out free hog dogs. I haven’t eaten in two weeks. When I seen the hot dogs my hunger came ragging back. In a drunken stupor I walk into the RV to get my free hot dogs when one of the project return worker said. My god what happen to you. I said what do you mean what happen to me. He said, you look like you been beaten up by the hulk. Have you seen the cuts over your eyes and look at your knees. I said what cuts. He open the bathroom door that had a full length mirror and for the first time in a year I look myself in a mirror. What I seen would have shock you. I was completely emaciated from not eating. I look as white as casper the ghost. I had a huge cut over my eye that need stitches. I had cut scrapes all over face and nose. And somehow I rip the skin off both of my knees.
And for a very first time reality hit me. You see, before this day I truly never understood what a alcoholic was. On looking back of my life. I can’t see anything that would of warn me of the devastation that alcoholism had in store for me. To my collective memory I truly never met an alcoholic. It never register that drinking might be the cause of all my misery. At this point I realized that have a problem with alcohol and I needed to stop. If you believe things happen for a reason. Then believe this. The RV that I walk into to get a couple of hot dogs, was also an alcohol and drug mobile referral services called Project Return. I wound up in my first detox, which probity save my life. I do not remember how I got there. I do know I became suicidal and I had to be restrained. I also remember hearing voices and the building swerving back and forth. On the sixth day the voices and hallucinating stop. When I was released from the detox I wasn’t finish with the drink, yet.
Two more detox and rehab
When I left my first detox, I had no idea how to recover from alcoholism or drug addiction. Until that point in my life I never heard of detox, rehabs, outpatient, counseling, therapy, AA, NA or 12 step programs. I was very naive to that world. I do not remember if I was offered outside support when I left my first detox. But what I do remember when I left detox. I was frail, I had uncontrollable shakes, my thoughts and judgment were cloudy, I felt like I was in a different time zone, I was extremely paranoid of my surroundings. It wasn’t long after I left detox I pick up the drink, and got wasted. With the drink in me, all my confidence return, my direction seem clear cut. Nowhere to go I went back to the streets, hustling for money to feed my demons.
Drinking to escape became as important as eating to survive. I was on a mission to drink myself to death. But it wasn’t my time yet. On a two week bender, hopelessly walking the streets, I came across another hospital and admitted myself into my second detox. You see, I’ve always been the type of person when you teach me something once, I never forget. If I got anything from my first detox, it was, free tranquilizers, three meals and a warm bed. So by going to my second detox, Its was like a mini vacation away from all the insanity my drinking brought me. At detox, I got my first taste of AA. Every one from detox who was capable of walking had to attend the AA meeting. In double hospital gowns and paper slippers, the orderly march us all down to the AA meeting. I ask the orderly, why do I have to go I’m not a one of those people, a alcoholic, with a smirk on his face, he said, it was mandatory for everyone to go. To be honest, I wasn’t impress with my first AA meeting. The people at the meeting gather around all of us in kindness. Something I wasn’t use to, In my delusional world, kindness is weakness, or ether you wanted something from me. And all the higher power talk turn me off. I hated this world, its people, and its punishing god. I just did not believe AA would help me. I wasn’t an alcoholic.
Without alcohol to escape reality, I found myself in a constant battle fighting off the demons in my head. I needed a drink to shut off all the loud chatter that were rushing through my mind. I wanted to leave detox, I wasn’t in the same condition as I was in my first detox, frail and disoriented. I felt well enough to leave, or so I thought. But for some irrational reason I became comfortable there, so I stayed. Not having any mind altering chemicals in my system, memories I been suppressing and drowning for over a year are coming back with a vengeance. Its been over a year now since I left everyone who I cared for, and those who cared for me. Its been over a year since I have last spoken to my family, my poor Mom, or Jennet, I can only imagine the suffering that they are going through, not knowing if I’m dead or alive, they must be worry sick. Thinking about my past and all the wrongs and hurt I coursed, I started going through, guilt, shame and remorse. Words I didn’t understand and never heard in my life until I got into recovery.
In detox, you got what they call retreads. Alcoholics who been to detox over and over, who are experience with the system. The system of getting over. In detox, if you listen long enough you learn how to work the sysyem. Quickly, I learn if I was offered rehab after detox, take it. Who would refuse three meals and a cot one of the retreads said. The retreads made rehab sound like a three star hotel. What did I know, I’m a newbie to all this. So when I was offered rehab, I took it.
When I left detox I had money in my pocket, the minute I left the hospital I went into a holy trance. As much as I tried not to pick up that first drink, the obsession to drink was more powerful then my promise not too. In a trance, like a person possessed, I walk right into the liquor store and bought a pint of vodka, and with one gulp, I was off to the races, again.
This time out, not only did I have to suppress the memories of my lost love, now I have to suppress the memories of the people I hurt over my alcohol, drug induced past decisions. Feeling guilt and shame now for my past destructive behavior, deep inside, I wanted to call my mother. In drunken stupors with tears running down my face, I made several attempts to call her. Every time I got the courage to pick up the phone and make the call, I would hang up the receiver. Do you know what stop me from making that call. The thought of my mother calling Arlene when I despaired, and telling her all the horrible despicable things I did to Jennet. I had layer upon layer of denial, In my delusional thinking, I couldn't bear the thought knowing my mother did tell her. I would never give up the fantasy of one day me and my love would be back together again. And for that reason only, I never reach out to my mother for comfort or help.
On the forth day after leaving detox, I went to the appointment I had with rehab. Drunk, I walk in to see the intake counselor, automatically he smells the booze on me. He ask me if I was drinking, I hesitate for a second thinking its a trick question, I said yes. I’m in a rehab because of my drinking, of course I’m drinking, I say to myself, sarcastically. Apparently, unless you are cold sober rehab will not accept you. Told me to come back in twenty four hours if I was sober he would have to problem taking me in. The little I saw of the rehab, I said to myself, the retreads were right, this does looks like a three star hotel. For the first time since living in the streets, I went twenty four hours without having a drink. I went back the next day, and I was admitted. My rehab experience lasted all of ten hours. Every six hours a bell ring out, and everyone in rehab would gather around in this large room with huge pictures of god hanging on the walls and start praying. It was a religious based recovery program. I wanted nothing to do with god at that time of my life, so I left rehab.
Couple more weeks in the streets, and don’t ask me how, I have no conscious memory of this, but I ended up in Brooklyn, NY. My third and final detox. (well almost, more later) what I remember of my last detox. Dexter the intake counselor from Phoenix House. I remember the day Dexter walk into my room and introduce himself. As I was sitting up in bed, he started asking me all kinds of questions. How much was I drinking and drugging, am I homeless, etc. Suddenly, he got up from the chair without saying a word, with a stern look on his face, he started walking out of the room and said, your not ready. As he approach the door to leave, I burst into tears and with a loud and frighten desperate voice, I said, please, I need help. He turn around and said, now your ready. He ask me when was my last day in detox, I said Friday, I could be at Phoenix House on Monday. Dexter said no, knowing full will left on my own as soon as I got out from detox I was going to have a drink. We will come and pick you up Saturday morning. Sure enough, Saturday came and I was off to Phoenix House.
I was an rehab for 26 months and graduated Phoenix house. I stayed clean and sober until I relapse in 2000. I got clean and sober in 2004 and I have a little more than 11 years of sobriety.
Next, the RV years.
Hugs and prayers
TB