Pond Michael - Wasted: An Alcoholic Therapists Fight for Recovery in a Flawed Treatment System

To my three sons: Taylor, Brennan and Jonathan, for allowing me to be their father again

PART I: THE COUCH OF WILLINGNESS

PART II: SEARCHING FOR NEW TREATMENT

MAUREEN:

MIKE:

I MET MIKE A few years ago on the dating website PlentyofFish. On our first date he arrived on transit and ordered cranberry juice and soda. Ashamed, he admitted he had lost his licence to drunk driving and had been sober just over a year. This is the part where my female friends screamed, Run, run, run for the hills. Over the next few dates, Mike revealed such a riveting story, I blurted, We have to write a book, to this near stranger. Initially, I was probably more intrigued with the story than the man. Wasted: An Alcoholic Therapists Fight for Recovery in a Flawed Treatment System is that story. Five years later, we are very happy together.

In telling this story, we needed to be respectful of peoples privacy. Many names and other identifying information have been changed. This book is Mike Ponds truth. As much as possible, we corroborated events with others.

MAUREEN PALMER

ITS LIKE A stuck record that no one nudges.

Let me outta here! You sons a bitches! I wanna talk to my lawyer! Danas caterwauling reaches me from the solitary cell in the womens wing. Its grating on my nerves. Three a.m. and shes been at it for hours.

Cocksuckers. Let me talk to my lawyer. Let me out of here, you sons a bitches.

Shut the fuck up, bitch! another female inmate howls, matching Dana decibel for decibel. Im gonna fuck you up when we get outta here, you drunken whore.

I roll over on the thin jail-cell pallet and pull the grey blanket over my head in a useless attempt to drown out the hollering. I fade in and out of sleep, no longer able to discern whats a bad dream and whats an even worse reality.

I wish Id never gone to Three Mile Beach.

THE WAN AUTUMN sun bathes everything at Three Mile Beach in light so fragile, so ephemeral its almost magical. A rare kind of day.

Mr. Pond. Dana emerges from the lake, runs across the sand and stands before me glistening in the sun. Lets move to Nelson and open up a treatment centre on Kootenay Lake. Its our destiny. Were meant to do something amazing together.

I gaze into Danas piercing blue eyes and Im sick with longing. I long for her and the fantasy weve built together, a fantasy so flimsy I already feel it slipping away. She arranges her perfect coral-bikini-clad body on the towel, plants a kiss on my sun-burnished brow, lies down and closes her eyes. At forty-two, Danas lithe, willowy beauty belies her age. I track a rivulet of water as it slides into the hollow between her breasts.

Id always wanted to open a treatment centre. Id been practising psychotherapy for over twenty years in Penticton, a small resort city in Canadas Okanagan wine region, and Id often thought I wouldnt have much of a practice at all if not for alcohol. From the surly conduct-disordered kid slouched on my couch to the shamefaced husband convicted of domestic assault, court-ordered into treatment, to the suicidal young First Nations mother of five, barely thirty and already worn out, you dont get too far in family-of-origin research before you stumble over an out-of-control alcoholic. Id helped hundreds of people kick booze. But I cant help myself.

Yeah, the universe has a grand plan for us, Dana. I try to muster enthusiasm as I lie back next to her. We were put together to make great things happen. Great. Now Im lying even to myself.

Dana exhales, her face breaking into a wide smile. Her perfect white teeth dazzle. I smell vodka. The fantasy fades just a little bit more.

Over the course of the afternoon at the beach, we polish off a litre and a half of Smirnoff mixed with Clamato juice and a generous splash of Franks hot sauce. We regale ourselves. We are as eloquent and witty and deep as only drunks can be.

Three Mile Beach edges Okanagan Lake in British Columbias hot, dry wine country. As Napa Valley is to California, the Okanagan is to Canada. Vines droop, burdened by lush late-harvest Gewrztraminer grapes, the air pungent with the earthy promise of ripe fruit. Vineyards march up every slope, stretching over the horizon, their uniformity broken here and there by the odd gnarled apple or pear tree, poignant reminders of the days when this was orchard country.

This is wine country, but we dont drink wine. One would have to drink too much and wait too long for its effect. Vodka is a much more efficient drunk. And after going hard at it for nearly a month, we are all about efficiency.

Forget wild sexual attraction, stimulating conversation, shared values and beliefs and interests. What keeps us together now is booze. Every encounter plays out in the same sickening sequence, from that first seductive sip to giddy intoxication, through belligerence and anger and exaggerated competence to melancholy and sullen self-pity, ending always in self-loathing.

Dana has just arrived at exaggerated competence.

Mike, I want my kids to meet you. She gets up off her towel, brushing sand from her bare legs. Theyre not far away, in Naramata. Lets go.

My judgment dulled by Smirnoff, I agree to this absurd idea. Who wouldnt want to meet moms drunken boyfriend?

DANA DRIVES DELIBERATELY slowly just under the speed limit so as not to alert cops. The late-afternoon October sun still warms our shoulders as we cruise up Lakeshore Drive in her little Miata MX -5. We first parallel the beach where sailboats dance on the sparkling water. Then we veer north up through the Bench plateaus, curl around the base of Munson Mountain onto Naramata Road and meander through the Upper Bench vineyards and orchards to Naramata Village. A tiny warning pings in my head.

Dana, I dont think this is a good idea. Lets turn back, drop me off at my place.

Oh no, I want them to meet you. Dana focuses on the road ahead. Im so proud of you.

Im not proud of me. Im a drunk.

We pull up to a 1960s two-storey and Im filled with a sense of foreboding. Dana and her husband are separated, and her boys are living with their dad. He sounds like a pretty good guy. He lets Dana drop by to see her sons as much as she likes. Im not sure how hell feel about todays little unscheduled stop.

Dana slithers out of the drivers seat and staggers to the front door with me in tow. Her nine-year-old son, just home from school, spies us first as we step into the house. He runs up and hugs Dana. Her older son walks in, and he and his brother exchange anxious here-we-go-again glances. The boys back away and sink simultaneously into the couch.

My presence seems to barely register, for which I am thankful. My stomach knots and my jaw clamps and my eyes dart around the room. I wish for a cloak of invisibility. Im sobering up quickly, but Dana keeps kicking the vodka-and-orange back. She emerges from a bedroom, her drink mysteriously refreshed. Shes got a stash everywhere. Under different circumstances, I consider that one of her greatest attributes.