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

the air stinks of stale cigarettes. Several men crowd a small foyer, drinking coffee and eating toast.
    As I soon learn, though it’s a relatively short drive from South Surrey, We Surrender might as well be a million miles from the safety, security and medical supervision of the Phoenix Centre.
    A young shortstocky guy in his early thirties extends a large, muscular arm to me. “Welcome to We Surrender.” He shakes my hand. “They call me Tom ‘Guns.’ I got here ’bout three months ago. You don’t look so good.”
    “My name’s Mike, and yeah, it’s going to get worse.”
    “Detoxin’, eh? Hey, man, you look really familiar. Have I met you before? Surrey? Newton? No, I know. Kelowna!” Tom scrutinizesmy face.
    “I’m from the Okanagan.” I shrug. “Maybe from there.”
    We stare at each other as he hands me a coffee. My foggy brain flips through thousands of case files until I find him: “Tom ‘Guns.’”
    “I worked with you in juvie,” I tell him. “You were just a kid.” I first met Tom as an adolescent at the Youth Detention Centre in the early nineties. He earned the nickname fromhis juvenile delinquent peers, who stood in awe of his massive biceps.
    “Yeah, I know. I’ve been fucked up a long time.” Tom laughs and shakes his head in disbelief. “Holy shit, man.”
    My presence here in front of him in this rundown recovery home is out of time and out of place.
    “How did you end up in this hole?” Tom looks shocked. “You’re a professional shrink. You helpedme a lot back then.”
    “Looks like I could have done a better job, eh, Tom?” I sip my coffee. “On you and myself.”
    “Yeah, man.” Tom laughs humourlessly. “This building should be condemned. Other than on the streets, this is as bad as it gets. Actually, sometimes I’d rather be on the streets.” He surveys my skinny body.
    “You should have something to eat,” he says.
    “I’m hungry but I can’t eat. I’d puke it right back up.”
    Tom nods. He knows the detox drill.
    “Eli will put you on the couch of willingness,” he says, with a dark note in his voice. “Do you know what that is?”
    I take a guess. “Where the new guy bunks out so the staff can determine how willing he is to get clean and sober? Like a probationary period?”
    “Yup. Let meshow you around. Then just rest for a while. You look like shit.” Tom takes me on a tour. The halls are narrow and dark, the rooms small. Single-sized rooms are crammed with two, sometimes three beds. Dust layers upon grime upon dirt. I stop at a closet-sized bathroom to relieve myself. Even for a guy straight off the streets, the filth disgusts me. I postpone my pee and rejoin Tom’s tour.

    “Who’s Eli?” I ask Tom.
    “Eli Wagner is the director of We Surrender. He’s ex-army. Sobered up when he was fifty and opened this place. His way of giving back, I guess. He’s a diehard AA old-timer. Runs this place like a drill sergeant. Don’t get on his bad side.” Tom shoots me a look of warning.
    We walk into a small lounge with glass doors leading out to a patio and generousgarden area. Massive cedar trees, heavy with fresh snow, stand sentry over the sprawling lot. With his bulging arm, Tom gestures to two old sofas in the lounge.
    “Those are the couches of willingness. You’ll be sleeping on that one. There’s another one outside in the smoke pit. Too cold out there right now. But when the weather’s good, it’s the best couch. I know. I’ve been on them all.”

    Several men sit smoking on sixties-era living-room furniture in an area off the kitchen. Butts fill an ancient standing glass ashtray.
    “Practically everything here has been scrounged or donated,” Tom explains. “We get a lot of the food from the local grocery stores and Cobs bakery. It’s expired and just gets thrown out.”
    I’m starved but my stomach recoils at the thoughtof food, and it shows on my face.
    “Lie down and rest, Mike,” Tom says. “Maybe you’ll feel like