Free Wasted: An Alcoholic Therapist's Fight for Recovery in a Tragically Flawed Treatment System by Michael Pond, Maureen Palmer

greet another newcomer.
    It’s a large hall, like an old high schoolgymnasium, the raised stage bumped and scratched from decades of Christmas pageants and year-end recitals. A Christmas tree stands forlornly at the back of the stage, a nativity scene at its feet. A large, sliding room divider is half open, revealing a circle of wooden collapsing tables with stackable chairs around its perimeter. A single row of mats with blankets line up along the long wall belowthe windows.
    I collapse onto a mat. It’s comfortable and warm. Half a dozen snoring bodies lie in a row alongside me. An old white-bearded fellow curled up beside me murmurs, “It’s brutal out there, eh? I’ve been on the streets for eighteen years and I’ve never seen a winter like this. Thank God for this church, eh? I’m pretty damned sure I woulda froze to death this past week.”
    “Yeah. It just feels good to have something warm in my stomach.” I shut my eyes.
    I wake up with the young church guy gently shaking my shoulder.
    “It’s time to go, sir. I have a voucher here for a breakfast meal at McDonald’s.”
    “But I have nowhere to go.” It’s a limp protest now.
    Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. I have to say it a few times before it sinks in. Oh myGod. I am truly homeless now, just like the decrepit old man being nudged awake beside me. I gaze across at him; raw fear like I’ve never before experienced grips my heart and won’t let go. No more second-rate motels or hostels. No more couch surfing or sleeping in my truck or crashing in my office. No more home.
    “I’m really sorry.” The young guy shrugs. “There’s an AA meeting here thismorning at seven. Why don’t you stay for that?”
    He points to a middle-aged fellow making carafes of coffee with a Bunn industrial drip machine.
    “That guy over there may know someone who can help you.”
    I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with AA for years now. I hate to go to the meetings because doing so means I have to admit I have a drinking problem. Rhonda,desperate for me to get help, used to drive me to Kelowna, an hour’s drive from home, so I could attend a professionals’ AA meeting. She’d drop me off, go shopping and come back to get me an hour and a half later.
    I never went in. I went shopping, too—at the nearest bar.
    Now I have no choice. This AA meeting is the only place I have to go. I walk over to the guy on coffee duty.We shake hands.
    “My name’s Clifford,” he says. “There’s a big meeting here every morning. I’ll introduce you to some of the guys.”
    Exhausted, dehydrated, I’m barely aware of time passing by. My head droops loosely on my shoulders, and saliva pools and dribbles from the sides of my mouth as I nod in and out of sleep. Like time lapse on TV , each time I come to, more bodies fill theroom. By seven a.m. the hall holds over seventy-five people, mostly men, of all ages.
    AA meetings typically begin with the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”
    “Is anyone coming back?” the chair asks.
    AA experience tells me I will be asked to share. I’dprefer to sit in silence with my shame. My hand slides up, sheepish and slow.
    “My name’s Mike, I’m an alcoholic. I’ve slipped and slid in and out of AA and sobriety for three years,” I say to the packed hall. “I just can’t seem to stay sober. I’ve lost my family, my home, my career, and my self-respect. In the last six months, I’ve moved from a beautiful and successful life in the Okanaganto living as a down-and-out skid-row bum on the Downtown Eastside. I sold my brand-new laptop for five beers. I’ve probably been to a half-dozen treatment programs. Drunk tanks, hospitals, detox centres—I know them all. I’ve had seizure after seizure. I’ve racked up half a dozen drunk-driving-related charges. Every day, I thank God I never hurt or killed