The
last five years I was an active alcoholic/addict the functioning part of my alcoholism
became very dysfunctional. At one point I was sleeping on a friend’s couch. If
you had told me then that I was homeless I would have said you were wrong. Many
years later, when I entered the field of social services, I would learn that
“couch surfing” is considered homeless. I was shocked. As my disease of
addiction grew bigger my apartments grew smaller. A couple of years following
the couch surfing I found myself in a bed bug infested, bachelor apartment, by
Sherbourne and Dundas in Toronto. It was here that my addiction grew even bigger.
The funds for my rent went to drugs and alcohol and I was on verge of
homelessness once again. I was only in that apartment for four months when I
was whisked away, in the dead of night, by my sister to my parents’ place in
Oshawa. It would be another few years before I surrendered, on January 7, 2005,
and began a program that would relieve me of my obsession for alcohol. My journey
of “trudging (sic) the road of Happy Destiny” (AA Big Book, 1939) began. The
first month of sobriety I was walking on eggshells with my family. I knew if I
slipped up I would be heading to a homeless shelter. Today I know that would
have been the right choice for my family but back then I was in denial over the
emotional consequences my behaviour had caused – especially to my father (my
mom had passed a few years prior to this).
Near
the end of my first year of sobriety I went back to school for a Post-grad
Addictions/Mental Health Diploma as I wanted to help people who found
themselves facing the same disease as me. Fast forward almost 16 years later
and I began a new job as an Outreach Worker for the Mobile Jewish Response to
Homelessness with a great organization called Ve’ahavta. There’s a slogan in 12
Step Programs called “But for the Grace of God go I”. Grace being an “unmerited
gift”. My first week on the job this slogan went through my head over and over.
I became especially choked up when we helped people at Sherbourne and Dundas. I
had come full circle in life.
It’s
a privilege to be able to help people who are in a similar situation as I once
was. As an Outreach Worker, for Ve'ahavta, I hand out food, clothes, hygiene
and harm reduction. When people ask me if I’m not just enabling people to use
drugs by handing out harm reduction? I tell them that I’m helping them stay
safe and alive because one day they may want to make the choice I did to get
sober. I’m making sure the road is clear of some obstacles for that time.
At
every job people tend to get caught up in the everyday minutia of things and
slide into a routine. Whenever I feel myself doing this, I try to bring to mind
the 12 Step saying “Remember When”. I always want to remember what I was like
prior to getting better so I don’t lose the empathy that those I meet, as an
outreach worker, need.
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