By the Summer of 2012 Dad had had enough of my shenanigans, false promises and anti-social behavior. He gave me an ultimatum and said that if I came home drunk again, I'd be out. Sobering up wasn't even an option in my mind, and I knew that getting intoxicated was an inevitability, so I impulsively asked Mildred if I could move in with her family. They lived about twenty minutes outside of town in a cute little community called "Nashwaak Bridge". As expected Mildred's family kindly said "yes", so I started the process of moving my belongings over to her place.
My Dad would later express that he was shocked and hurt by my decision, and to be truthful, I figured he would be. My plan was to bring about those feelings within him, I wanted him to regret his ultimatum, I was tired of being threatened, and even though I knew Dad wouldn't kick me out, I wanted him to see that I was perfectly capable of living without the crutch of his homestead to fall back on.
All motives considered, I really only contemplated the move because I knew Mildred's family would be an absolute pleasure to live with. Each and every one of them was selfless, calm and reserved, just a great family unit. To let Mildred's boyfriend move in with them, who obviously had some issues, was a testament to their benevolence and altruistic tendencies.
As time passed, I began to settle into my girlfriends cozy household abode, and lone behold, Sam began contacting me again. He apologized and expressed regret over what had happened. I really liked the guy, he was always good to me, and despite his inability to respond to texts, and his incapacity to stand up to his girlfriend, I was glad to hear from him again.
I found it easy peasy to forgive him because much to my sadistic delight, he offered to treat me to a night of drinking to smooth things over. That was all I needed to hear. He knew how I drank. "Let's get it on Mr. Sam!"
Going into the evening I knew full-well that since the Calgary trip and up until meeting with Sam and Sally again, my drinking had been fairly tame, and my tolerance level had diminished ten-fold. So when Sam, Sally, Mildred and I started ingesting poison that night I wasn't one bit cautious; we went fast and furious. Well, really, we always drank like that. I shouldn't say we; more me. That rhymed. Oh, how clever.....Debatable....
We all had a blast at the beginning as per usual. We'd play boardgames and I'd interrupt by using the bathroom fourteen thousand times, or by running around the room naked.
Midnight would always arrive far too quickly, and on this particular night , when the clock struck twelve, I found that I was utterly and despicably, black-out-drunk.
According to the others, I quickly vacated the premises and drove Mildred's parent's car downtown. Both Mildred and I had a vehicle that night, because her parents were kind enough to let me drive one of their old Toyota Corolla's into work that day. With that in mind the blackout turned into a brownout and suddenly I was back at Sam and Sally's apartment at 3:00am in the morning, three hours after I had taken her parent's car. Mildred and I were arguing. I spewed disgusting insults, attempting to torment and irritate her. Mildred... fuck; she was such a sweetheart. My goal was to get her angry enough to hit me, because I wanted to be punished for who I was becoming. As we spat venom at one another, self-disgust began to rise and I started rambling about ending my life, how I couldn't live with myself anymore, how this world was too dark for me and I couldn't cope. And then, amongst pizza boxes, slurred words and mutiny, we passed out in darkness and in tears, on Sam and Sally's futon.
The next morning as we walked outside to get into our respective vehicles, we both realized that the old Toyota I had driven in a blackout the night before was gone. I looked around frantically refusing to believe that the parking space in front of me was empty. My eyes panned over to assess Mildred's state of mind, she was calmer than a hibernating bear, while I was more anxious than a deer being hunted by "Shere Khan" the tiger.
We jumped into Mildred's car and began driving up and down the streets of Downtown Fredericton looking for the purple Corolla, "what will her parent's do if they find out I lost their car?", "how will I answer their suspicious questions?" "Is the car stolen?". "Did I crash the car?" These were the thoughts that turned my body into a stiff board of worry and distress.
It wasn't long before I told Mildred to check behind the Fredericton Library to see if it was there, I had a hunch that perhaps I would have thought to park there because it was somewhat out of sight from the downtown gaze. Sure enough, there it was, perfectly parked, and without a scratch. Based on the direction the car was facing, I must have backed it into the parking spot, which baffled me even more. On the way back to my Girlfriend's place
thoughts began flooding in, how lucky was I that "autopilot" worked out in the best way possible. I could have killed someone. The car could have been totaled. What if I had never found the car? Tragically, this was far from a wake-up call for me.
—Introspection—
Why must we fall so far before facing the obvious truth? Why must we kill others, destroy our families, neglect our children, and sometimes... why must we die before sobriety seems like a viable option? So many tears, so many pleas to God, questions unanswered, lives obliterated. This addiction that takes us apart piece by piece; piece by piece until we are on our backs in surrender or in death. If you are reading this, and feel worthless, lifeless, if your waking hours are tormented by self-hate and by chasing a drug that's killing you, please hold on. Even though I'm simply a human being, and
your reading these words, and our lives seem to be completely separate from one another, please heed my words, and know that you are worthy of every good thing this life has to offer and that we are interconnected in a way that goes beyond human comprehension.
No matter what you've done or how you've acted in the past you can just choose to be better in the "NOW'. It will not be easy, I can promise you that, but there is magic in the struggle, and it's oh so fucking worth it. Is there a secret to recovery? Yes, the secret is that there is no secret. We must just "do" what we don't feel like doing, and as time passes these changes that seem to be near impossible will become habitual. Life will become different.
And please, don't question your motives when you enter into recovery either. Whatever gets you the help you need, just go with it. Fight for your life like you fought for a drug, a drunk or a behavior. This world needs you. People would NOT be better off without you, that's bullshit. They just need you to help yourself, so you can help others and show up in life being the abundant, magnificent, sober you.
---
It was now winter of 2012 and I was still living with Mildred's family; not paying rent, eating their food and hiding upstairs in Mildred's room. I was hiding because my excessive drinking had become obvious, and the shame kept me in solitude for long intermittent intervals.
As December 2012 bled into January of 2013 and I could feel "the bottle" tightening its grip on me; iniquities began to escalate as my addiction to alcohol kept getting worse and worse until in January of 2013 I woke up in the drunk tank with not even a semblance of an idea of what had happened the night before. "I must have been publicly intoxicated again" I thought (no shit sherlock).
When I was released the cop on duty issued me some documents. I looked over the papers and much to my dismay it stated bluntly and soberly that I'd been accused of theft and was required to appear in court. I walked out of the police station perturbed and in utter terror. What was I going to do? What had I stolen?
Mildred came to pick me up and we drove back out to her place. That week I was either in bed depressed or on the couch chronically stressed and googling what to do about my situation. Days went by before anything changed. Fear had gripped me into inaction and I laid there, feeling powerless. Finally, Mildred took me aside and said that her father (Ted) was concerned about me and had asked her what was wrong. Mildred had told him what was up, and he decided to do some investigating. I was more relieved than anything that someone else other than my girlfriend knew about my predicament, it was like it released a bit of the burden from my unsteady shoulders.
Ted came to me and said that he found out I had stolen a chocolate bar (really?) from the Downtown Irving. He said that I tried to pay for it, but my card was declined, so I made a "noble" run for it with the snickers bar in my hand and a red bandana wrapped around my head. Apparently, I went straight downtown after taking the snickers bar. How clever.
The police found me walking on King Street, only a street over from the Queen Street Police Station (I was a cunning criminal mastermind) and brought me in. They said "what's your name?" I stood there like I was having a staring contest with a sheep and couldn't for the life of me, remember my own name (wish I'd made up some cool name like Rusty Musty) so they grabbed my driver's license and then placed me in a cell; bitterly cold those cells. The police didn't want it to be a pleasant experience I suppose; I get that.
Much to my relief and appreciation Ted told me that he had asked the Manager of the Irving if I could do some community service hours if he would drop the charges. He reluctantly agreed and said that theft happened far too often at the Irving and he was tired of being so lenient. Once again, Ben Ganong got lucky. More truthfully, I was rescued by Ted and his selfless ways. He said "we take care of our own".