Almost Paradise - Part IX

Not So Restless and Discontent

Post Introduction:

When I complete a Substack post, I go to my newsfeeds to search for the next topic of interest. As my readers and subscribers have come to expect, my topics vary widely from business and politics to religion and philosophy. If the topic captures my imagination enough to warrant 1500 words, I develop it into a future post. Recently, I stumbled upon an article talking about the "suicide belt" of the American Rocky Mountains. Specifically, the article described how suicide rates had quadrupled in America's mountain towns. My research on this topic led me to a recent documentary titled, The Paradise Paradox produced by Podium Pictures and Hall of Fame skier Bode Miller. It is available on Amazon Prime for a nominal fee.

As a lifelong, visitor to many of those resort towns in the "suicide belt" and a recovering alcoholic, I relate to the mental health struggles that many in America's resort towns experience. I feel compelled to share my recovery journey, not because it is ever pleasant recounting the low dark crevices of my past, but in the hopes that my story may help someone who is struggling with depression, anxiety or addiction find hope and recovery. My work on this topic will span multiple posts. If you connect with any part of my story, please sign up for a free or paid subscription. Moreover, if my story compels you into further action, consider donating to one of the mountain town organizations working to expand mental health services and stem the tide of suicides.

At precisely 8 PM on July 8, I awoke suddenly. My heart was pounding like I had never felt before, racing as if I was being chased by a bear. I had zero clue as to how much I had drank or when my last drink was? Despite that, I had incredible clarity of that moment. I remember as vividly today as I did nearly 16 years ago. I thought I had finally done it, I thought I'd finally drunk myself to death. This was to be the end, all I had to do was find more vodka and I could bring my miserable life to an end on that sweltering hot July evening in the tiny, overpriced house.

Except something miraculous happened. I came to 100% realization that I didn't want to die. I got off the couch and flittered about the house trying to figure out what to do about my dire condition. In the kitchen, under a couple bottles of vodka, I saw the note from codependent that she had gone to Chicago to clean out her brother's apartment. Should I call her I thought? No, all she would tell me to do was to sleep it off you f***ing loser. My heart was racing a mile a minute and I needed real help, and I needed it real fast. So, I thought of a friend, a medical doctor who lived several miles away. I called her on that late July evening and described to her my condition. She arrived promptly and assessed my vitals. I had a sitting heart rate of about 170 beats a minute, and blood pressure of 300 something over 200 something. She called an ambulance, and I was whisked off to an emergency room. Thinking back that evening, the only memory I have is from the time I woke up at 8 PM to the time I was laid down on the gurney in the ambulance. Perhaps EMTs injected me with something to put me back to sleep or the residual alcohol coursing through my veins did the trick. But the next memory I had, and to this day I don't know how many days past July 8 it was, was lying in a hospital bed, wired and I.V.'ed up with a morphine drip and a hospital chaplain praying by my side.

The doctor, sadly I do not remember her name, eventually came to my room to explain to me my condition. The obvious was that I was an alcoholic and nearly died on my way to the ER but that I also was suffering from a severe case of pancreatitis. The morphine was to ease the pain that was caused by my near nonfunctioning pancreas. She also inquired into who I was and who she could call to tell them that I was alive. I thought about it for a minute, other than the family friend and physician who ordered the ambulance, there was not a single other soul who knew where I was. I thought about having her call my parents but at that point, I couldn't take handing them another defeat. Reluctantly, I gave her codependence phone number.

That attending physician, who genuinely seemed to have compassion for me, disappeared for a while. When she returned, she told me she had spoken to my wife. Her eyes were staring towards the ground. She said she explained to my wife that I was in the hospital, that I nearly died from alcohol induced poisoning and that I was severely sick with pancreatitis. At this point, codependent was still in Chicago packing up her brother’s apartment and had zero interest in what the doctor had to say. In fact, when the doctor explained to my wife that I was gonna need help when I left the hospital and that codependent was going to be in charge of making sure that I don't drink alcohol ever again, all that poor Dr. got for her concerns was a tongue lashing from codependent that she had no right to dictate what my wife should do and that she was gonna sue the doctor for malpractice. I never saw that caring physician again.

But as I recovered in the hospital, an episode that took eight days, a young internist by the name of Dr. Allan became my attending physician. He was kind and took the time to explain to me precisely what was going on in my body regarding years of alcohol consumption as well as the sorry state of my pancreas because of that abuse. He explained to me what condition my body was in from years of alcohol abuse and what would happen to me if I didn’t stop. It wasn’t an end too far off from what I had recently attempted, but less flashy and more painful. I listened intently and promised him that I would seek help once I left the hospital. I like Dr. Allan so much that I continued to see him at the clinic he also served for the next year until his residency was up and he took a full-time practicing position in northern Minnesota.

On day seven at the hospital, they were ready to release me. Except there was no one available to pick me up. I had been delivered there via an ambulance with no clothes, no money, and no cell phone and codependent was still in Chicago. The hospital said they would clothe me and give me money for a taxi. I thought to myself, it doesn't get much lower than this, being discharged from a hospital, penniless and probably wearing a homeless person’s clothes that had been laundered and stored for just such an occasion. Upon making one more phone call to codependent, she informed the hospital that she was returning from Chicago the next day and could pick me up. Graciously, the attending physician lobbied to let me stay one more day in the hospital until my wife arrived with a clean set of clothes and a ride home. It was the coldest ride home on a July day anyone has ever felt.

Fulfilling a promise to Dr. Allan, I did seek help for my addiction when I left the hospital. Being flat-assed broke with no health insurance and overextended on the mortgage for the tiny, overpriced house, I sought help for my addiction through the local county services office. I set up an appointment to apply for financial aid and admittance into the addiction services they offered. Interestingly, when I met with the services agent, they had zero interest in me, my addiction, or explaining to me how they may be of help in my current predicament. All they wanted me to do was to list myself and all of the dependence in my home along with their Social Security numbers. By agreeing to accept help from the county, I was basically required to sign a document that social services could enter my home and dictate what and how we were to operate and could remove my children if it suited their fancy. Being entirely unwilling to grant that level of control over my life to a government agency, I refused to sign and left the meeting dejected.

There I was, I knew I had a problem with alcohol addiction, I knew I needed help, and I then knew that bureaucratic government assistance was the last place anybody should go if one was truly looking to heal. As I left that meeting and was returning to my home, I remembered that there is an organization that helps alcoholics and one of their primary tenants is anonymity. I was introduced to this organization seven years prior when I attended an inpatient treatment facility. I quickly looked up meeting locations near my house and found that there was one occurring in about half an hour. I sheepishly walked into that meeting, pulled my baseball cap low over my eyes, and announced to the group that I was an alcoholic. It was through that organization that I got sober, learned to deal with other people's addiction, and found the strength to rebuild my life.

As of the posting of this article, I have been sober for 5,745 days. That is a lot of "one day at a time" days. In that first year, it was difficult. My addiction drove our family into financial ruin. First up was losing the tiny, overpriced house. Second was dealing with maxed out credit cards, and third was trying to earn enough money to keep my family fed and clothed. I sold restaurant POS systems on a 100% commission basis as well as drove a hotel shuttle bus in the mornings and evenings that first year of sobriety to keep my family afloat. I was also dealing with staying sober in a household where codependent had no interest in supporting my life altering choice or curtailing her drinking.

After about a year and a half of juggling the jobs to bring in money for the family, attending meetings, staying sober and watching codependent travel down the same rabbit hole I had escaped, I determined my only pathway forward to blissful sobriety was to end by marriage. I filed for divorce in late 2010 and spent all of 2011 suffering the most inhumane taxpayer-funded system known as the "Family Court." Trust me, there is an entirely different multi-post dissertation I could write regarding how my country handles divorce and child custody through the Family Court system. But Almost Paradise is not about that. It is about how my restless discontent led me on a 20-year journey to find the ideal location that would bring me happiness – a type of happiness that I was entirely convinced would make consuming alcohol superfluous.

When the dust settled on the divorce, I ended up with sole custody of my three children. I'll leave that up to my readers to imagine what kind of circumstance I was living in where the Family Court in St. Paul Minnesota finally determined that a recovering alcoholic father with less than three years sobriety was the better solution for my children.

I was then not so restless and discontent and became determined to make my new family dynamic work. With three children spread between elementary and junior high school, I made a commitment to see all three through their high school graduations. No more dreaming about the perfect job or perfect location. With a renewed relationship with the church and a firm reliance on Divine forgiveness, I embarked on a ten-year commitment to raising my three children in a new type of home. A sober home, a clean home, and a home where they could bring their friends in at any time without worrying about what state of inebriation their parents might be in. I created a welcoming home where food and laughter were as plentiful as the bottles once were in my liquor cabinet. In that home, friends were always welcome and there was always an extra plate set for a nightly home cooked meal. Restless discontent found contentment, and it happened when I dropped the fantasy rock that location creates happiness. I found contentment when I learned that happiness comes not from external “idyllic” locations – I found happiness when I discovered that it comes from within.