Healthcare Mishaps

Throughout my 43 years of life I’ve had some interesting doctors and medical situations. The first one that comes to mind is the dermatologist I had when I was a teenager. I suffered from extremely bad acne as a teen and was referred to this doctor. He was pretty up there in years and was what some would call old school (A dermatologist I saw a few years later had heard of this doctor and called him a guru). To treat my acne he had me wash my face every night with chamomile tea and then put some brown concoction on my face. Every couple of weeks I would visit him for other treatment. He would have me lie down and would precede to use this pointed instrument (much like the instrument a dental hygienist uses to scrape one’s teeth) to pierce the zits on my face. This was extremely painful. After that was done he would reach into a special cooler he kept beside his desk. Once the lid was removed smoke would fill the area around the cooler. He would reach in, pull out dry ice and precede to press it onto my face. I did this for approximately four years a few times a month. During one of my visits I showed him a wart that had grown on my foot. He took out some liquid nitrogen and applied it to said wart. He pressed down hard. While doing this he looked at me and asked, “Are you feeling excruciating pain yet?” Wincing, I mumbled, “yes.” To which he pressed down harder. I swear this guy was a sadist.

During my university years I was living in an apartment with two buddies. Both of my friends were over six feet and I was a mere (and still am) five foot two. One day I was lying in bed and awoke to this debilitating back pain. I crawled to the couch in the living room and lied down. I was in so much pain that I was having trouble breathing. My one roomy gave me a muscle relaxant but it didn’t seem to help. My breathing was getting worse so my roomies decided to call 911. When the paramedics arrived they asked if I had taken any pills and I said my bud had given me a muscle relaxant. He looked at my friend and said should I arrest you now or later (luckily he was joking). I was loaded into an ambulance and one of my roomies went in the front of it. One paramedic grilled him and one grilled me as to what had happened. They both thought that my six footer roomies had done something to me. Finally after five hours waiting in the ER a doctor saw me and told me to take two Tylenol every four hours. I was a bit irked by this time and got him to prescribe me some muscle relaxants so that I at least got something for my troubles. The next day I pretty much stayed on the floor lying on my back and drank beer. One of my friends went and picked up my script. I looked at the bottle and began taking one pill every four hours. The next day I woke up and looked at the bottle again. It turned out I had read the directions wrong. The directions said take four a day. Doh!!!

Later on in life I had settled down in Toronto and began seeing a person who would become my favourite family doctor of all time. This guy was great but had a weird sense of humour. The time period in which I saw this physician was during the peak years of my drinking and drug use. He was fully aware of my risky lifestyle but never talked down to me. He would mention getting help in a roundabout way but never pushed it. I’m sure he knew that an alcoholic/addict had to decide for himself to get help or it wouldn’t work. Anyways, during this time I would show up at his office and tell him about the various things I was doing in life. He would make comments like, “sounds like you’re having too much fun so we better lower your dose of antidepressants”. One time I had to get a tetanus shot because I stepped on a broken piece of glass (from a shattered beer bottle) and it disappeared into my foot – never to be seen again. I asked him if the needle would hurt and he replied, “like I’m smashing an iron bar into your arm.” He then gave me the shot. One of the antidepressants he put me on had this side effect where I could get an erection but could not release anything out of said erection (if you know what I mean). When I told him this he replied, “the women must love it”. I loved this doctor and was sad when he moved his practice. I ended up writing him a letter a few years into my sobriety. I hope he received it and is doing well for himself.

When I was 17-years-old I travelled to Israel with a youth group. I became very ill from the water. As a result of this a fissure formed in my rear area which resulted in lots of blood and hemorrhoids. I used to have to go see this doctor at the aptly named Upper Canada Lower Bowel Clinic. My friends thought this name was hilarious and I told the doctor he should put it on T-shirts. To make a long story short I would kneel on a step and rest my body on a table. The doctor would press a button and the table and step would start to move up until my butt was way in the air. You can figure out the rest for yourself.

Speaking of bowel issues– there was one day during my drinking days that I woke up with a pain in the ole Gulliver (I love that saying), actually it was in my side. I drank some wine and it went away. I awoke the next day and it was worse but, again, after some drinking it away. The next day I couldn’t even lie on my side. I went to a walk-in clinic and they misdiagnosed me with a clogged bowel and gave me an enema. I just happened to have an appointment the next day with my family doctor (this was before he moved away). He touched my side and I jumped in the air (I was lying down). He told me to get to the ER right away. It turned out I had pancreatitis.  

To get back to my family doctor situation. After my fave doctor moved away I sought a new doctor. By this time I had moved back to Oshawa. I found a great doctor who I liked a lot. One day I called up to make an appointment and the receptionist at the clinic told me the doctor had disappeared. Apparently he just never showed up for work one day. The crazy thing is she said he had done this before. When I asked her what I was supposed to do about a doctor she said she couldn’t help me.

I have since found a family doctor. He seems pretty nice but he’s not as good as my favourite one. I suddenly have these cysts growing on various parts of my body. He keeps telling me not to worry about it. Hope he’s right.

Dave the Dude

Is the PQ Canada's Taliban?

I love being a Canadian. I love the fact that we are a diverse country that welcomes newcomers and celebrates diversity. Toronto has the most diverse culture than any other city world-wide. I am Jewish and grew up, and continue to reside, in Oshawa (a small city by Toronto standards). Oshawa doesn’t have quite the diversity other places have but I faced little Anti-Semitism. In fact when I was a kid the teachers would have me stand in front of the class to teach about Jewish holidays such as Hanukkah. Everyone seemed to enjoy learning about a new culture. This is what makes Canada great.

When I heard about Quebec’s proposed Charter of Values and what it entails it made me sick. Quebec Premier Pauline Marois of the Parti Quebecois (a separatist party) has come up with this new charter. The charter would:

·         Ban “overt and conspicuous” religious symbols by public employees (including yarmulkes, turbans, head-coverings and hi-jabs).

·         Make it mandatory to have one’s face uncovered while providing or receiving a state service.

·         Entrench the concept of religious neutrality in the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

It’s the first part that I have a problem with. It’s bad enough that Quebec and it’s language police already dictate what types of language private enterprise can have on its signs and the size of the font now it wants to tell people how to dress. Is it a province’s responsibility to dictate how people should dress? Despite all this the PQ insists that the Christian cross will remain in Quebec’s legislature. Hypocrisy or what? The PQ says there will be no “Religious Police” but I find that very hard to believe. I can seem them modeling this new police force after the Taliban’s officers that used to go around Afghanistan and whip people they thought were not following Islam properly.

From what I’ve read and heard the father of Quebec separatism and the PQ, Rene Levesque, would be disgusted if he saw what his party has turned into – a bunch of US southern style good ole boys. The PQs’ and Quebec nationalists’ main error in logic is they think they can legislate and use punitive measures to protect the Quebecois culture. From what I can see and from what I’ve heard the pundits state is that this is has not been the case. These types of Draconian measures have just driven business and responsible citizens out of the Province of Quebec. Cultures and religions have thrived without these measures just look at the Caribbean population in Canada its giant festival held annually in Toronto. Jewish people thrive in Canada as well as Italians, Greeks, Polish people and many others. All this diverse culture is thriving without impinging on other people’s beliefs.

 As long as someone is doing their job properly what business is it of mine what they wear on their heads or around there necks? What business is it of the government? I want my government to offer me services and keep my infrastructure intact not dictate how my fellow citizens express themselves culturally.

I say where your crosses, where your Star of David’s, put on a yarmulke, a hi-jab, a turban or a head scarf. Put up a Christmas tree in city hall and place a menorah beside it, heck put up an Islamic symbol a Wiccan symbol. As long as it doesn’t affect people’s safety bring it on. The more cultural diversity the better.

I’ve heard the pundits give various reasons for this proposed legislation by the PQ minority government. The overwhelming belief, and I concur, is that the PQ want the Charter to pass and then have it shot down in a court challenge (which will inevitably happen). That way the PQ can use this as an election issue to convince its paranoid population that the province must separate from the Rest of Canada. The PQ will say, look the Rest of Canada is interfering in our culture if we were our own country this would not happen. Then another referendum will commence causing more economic instability for the Rest of Canada. If a referendum is held in Quebec I say all the other provinces should hold their own. Our referendum question will be a simple one (not some convoluted, manipulative, question like Quebec’s past referendum ones have been): if Quebec separates can it keep our money, passports and northern lands? My answer would be a simple “NO”. Well maybe a “HELL NO”. 

Dave the Dude

Good friends and things kids today will never get to experience

When I was in high school it seemed like everyone knew everyone and I had lots of friends and a core group of guys and gals I could call good friends. Today, in my early 40s, it seems my friends have dwindled. I have lots of acquaintances but only a few people I can truly call good friends.

Although I don't talk to my high school buddies on a regular basis I know that our friendship endures to this day. There are two guys in particular that I know I will consider my best friends until the day I leave this earth. Chris, Neil and I knew each other since grade school (Chris since kindergarten and Neil since grade three). It wasn't until grades seven or eight when we bonded and became best friends. Neil and Chris were buddies with each other before that and for some reason I entered into the group. We used to do everything together: watch movies, play video games, hit on girls, party, etc, etc. The reason I know our friendship continues to endure is that whenever we get together it feels like we just saw each other the day before. There are no awkward silences and the laughs are genuine and aplenty. The three of us have much different lives from one another, hell Neil lives four hours away, but the bond we formed in our youth remains. For me, at least, it's comforting to know that exists. I always have someone to depend on and I hope they feel the same way.

Speaking of youth I've been thinking of things that I experienced growing up that kids today will never know. The way we listened to music was much different. There were vinyl records (45s and LPs) and tapes. I was on my tread mill the other day cranking up the tunes and trying to remember the lyrics of songs from my teenage years and it occurred to me that part of the reason I was able to memorize all the lyrics was because you'd would actually purchase an album and the lyrics would be included. Whenever I bought a new album I would put on the ole record player, lie down on the floor with the album spread out in front of me, and read the lyrics as the music played. The album covers were awesome as well. The artwork/photo would have me mesmerized. Double albums were even better (there's another one no more double albums). We became experts at air banding. In fact at our high school one of the teachers would put on a huge air band contest. Much thought was put into the performances by all involved and it was always an entertaining evening. My group of buddies entered the contest three years in a row - first year we did Alice Cooper's Schools Out and the other two years we did Def Leppard's Photograph and, if I remember correctly, Pour Some Sugar On Me. It was a ball.

I don't know how kids today would survive back then. My friends and I didn't have instant communication with one another. The only thing we had was a plain old land line and we had to deal with the ever-annoying busy signal. There was many the time I smashed the phone down into the receiver after hearing the busy signal for the umpteenth time. Oh yeah, we had a receiver to smash the phone down into. Today when you get angry at someone you can't end the conversation by smashing the phone down. A silent "end conversation" just isn't the same.

When I tell my de facto step son about how I watched television he is astonished. We had a big ass television that was extremely heavy and it didn't get over 100 channels nor was it high definition. In my household we didn't even have cable. We had a big ass aerial that you controlled by a box beside the TV. When trying to receive a TV station you would have the aerial turn in the direction the signal came from. I watched approximately six or seven channels back then and a lot of the American ones (from Buffalo) were pretty fuzzy. I remember watching those TV stations from Buffalo there was always a fire in Cheektowaga or Tonawanda.

Back then and up to the late 1990s we also wrote actual letters. I went to university in Montreal and one of my favourtie things was writing letters back forth to Neil and Chris. We would send each other letters that were several pages long. I feel receiving a letter in the mail is much more gratifying than receiving an e-mail. More thought had to be put into an actual written letter. It was more personal and you could hang on to it. No one seems to write letters anymore. I think this will be disadvantageous to future historians as they will not have a permanent record to look back on to see how things were in our time.

Yeah, things sure were different back then. However, things aren't too bad today either.
Dave the Dude

How I Did the Twelve Steps of Recovery

When someone is trying to get sober, whether from alcohol, drugs or both, there are various methods out there for that person to try. There is harm reduction, which in my opinion just kills someone slowly (see previous blog for more details). Some people white knuckle it. Others take medication such as Antibuse or Campral. The problem with medication, particularly Antibuse which makes you puke if you drink, is that it may stop you from drinking but does not get rid of the mental obsession of wanting to. The bottom line I learned from my addiction was that I didn’t have a drugging or drinking problem but a thinking problem. Alcohol and drugs were but a symptom of a larger problem. I did not know how to live life on life’s terms. After several attempts to become sober I finally found a method that works for me – the 12 Steps of Recovery. This is how I did the 12 Steps.

Step One – We were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable. The first word of this Step is extremely important – “we”. This reminds me that it is a “we program”. Before entering into the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous I was always trying to quit on my own, under my terms. It wasn’t until I finally admitted defeat and asked for help from others, facing the same disease as me, that things started to get better. It was easy for me to admit I was powerless over alcohol (and all other mind altering substances) as it had control over me. I planned my day around alcohol, I spent all my money on alcohol (and drugs). I ignored my family and friends for it. My addiction had all the power and I had none. I had a physical allergy to alcohol and a mental obsession with getting it. My life had become extremely unmanageable. I couldn’t pay my bills, I had run-ins with the law, I couldn’t be depended upon, I quit jobs before I got fired. Most importantly I couldn’t manage my feelings. Any feeling I got I numbed out through self-medicating. Basically I had to admit that I could not safely take a drink or drug again. I could not accurately predict what would happen if I were take that first drink or drug. Step One is the only Step that I had to take 100%.

Step Two – Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. I was stuck on this step for awhile due to the fact that I waffled between atheism and agnosticism for years. I finally got over it when it was pointed out to me that the Step was “came to believe” not “believe right away”. That simple statement helped me move on. The second part of the Step discusses my lack of sanity. I had to admit what I was doing was insane. Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Every day (and it was daily by the end of my drinking/drugging career) I would wake up and say today is going to be different. I’m only going to have a couple of drinks and no drugs. I would take that first drink and all my good intentions would evaporate and I would do the same thing I did the day before. The next day I would awake making the same resolution only to fail at it again. I had become insane.

Step Three - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. The first Three Steps are not action Steps. You are coming to realizations about yourself and your disease – that you have one, that only a higher power could alleviate you of this disease and that your way wasn’t working out. In Step Three I am asked to make a decision. Merely a decision. A riddle often used to explain the first part of this Step is: there are three birds on a wire. One makes a decision to fly away. How many are left? If you answered three you are correct. The bird merely made a decision it did not start to fly away yet. The second part of the Step is turning our will and our lives over to a Higher Power. When I first began this step I didn’t know anything about my higher power. I still don’t know much. I like to keep it simple – there is a Higher Power and I’m not it. All I know at the beginning of my sobriety was that I had to stay sober. That was my Higher Power’s will for me. As I began to move on into the Steps and discover my character defects my Higher Power’s will expanded to me striving to rid myself of those defects.

Step Four – Made a fearless and moral inventory of ourselves. People tend to complicate the hell out of this step when they don’t have to. I like to follow the recovery slogan – Keep It Simple. Why complicate things when I don’t have to? The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous explains how to do this step. Make a list all of my resentments, write down what they affected in me (self-esteem; lack of control, etc.) and look at the part I played in it. The Book tells me to take a look at my sex life and to investigate my motives when having relations with another human being. Simple and straight forward. I didn’t need to fill out some form with 100 questions.

Step Five – Admitted to God, ourselves and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Again I kept it simple. I read my moral inventory to my sponsor. As I shared my Fourth he shared similar things with me so that I knew I wasn’t alone. Following my Step Five (and following the meeting I went to afterwards) I went home and did the Seventh Step Prayer:

My Creator I am now ready that you shall have all of me good and bad

Please remove every defect of character that stands in the way of my

Usefulness to you and my fellows

Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Amen.

Steps Six and Seven - Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. And Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Steps Six and Seven are when I began to work on ridding myself of my character defects and shortcomings. I know I will never be completely rid of some of them but as the Big Book tells me I strive for progress not perfection.  For me these steps are a big part of my emotional sobriety. I had put the proverbial plug in the jug but I also had to learn how to change my behaviours, thinking and reactions to emotions. This is an on-going process that I will do for the rest of my life.

Step Eight – Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Again I kept it simple the list for this Step was made up of the names from my Step Four resentment list. As time went by and my memory cleared others would be added to this list. I looked at the names and prayed for the willingness to make amends to those people. I started with the easiest and made my towards the hardest – the willingness came when it was meant to.

Step Nine – Made direct amends whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Again as in Step Eight I began to make amends that were the easiest to make and then worked my way towards the ones I was having trouble getting to. Again I was able to make amends when I was meant to. There was one incident where I saw someone who was not on my list who I hadn’t even thought of. It clicked in my mind that I owed this person an amends. He was in the driveway of his parent’s house and I zipped over there in my car, blocked him so he couldn’t drive out and proceeded to make amends. It went extremely well. The hardest amends I had to make was to my Mom who had passed away a couple of years prior to me getting sober. I was told, from those who had gone before me, to go to the cemetery where she was buried and make amends there. The first time I tried I felt silly and didn’t feel that I had made amends properly. I tried again with similar results. The third time seemed to work and I felt I had cleared my side of the road. As I am Jewish it is customary to leave a rock on the gravestone of the person you are visiting as a symbol that you were there. I left my silver chip. Almost five years later I would return to that cemetery to bury my father. In my grief I saw the silver chip was still on the stone. It was a reminder that Alcoholics Anonymous is there for me in times of happiness and grief and would support me through thick and thin. Not all of my amends went well. One person refused to accept them and I had to accept that. I do not make amends in order to get something in return. If I do get forgiveness it is just an added bonus, but not to be expected. There’s a reason the Ninth Step is not near the beginning of the Steps as one has to be prepared for the amends not to go well. If I make amends in the early stages of my recovery and it does not go well it could cause a resentment which any alcoholic/addict knows could send one back out drinking and drugging. There were some people I couldn’t make amends to right away (for various reasons). This did not mean that I stopped moving on in the steps. I could not stagnate for that could have devastating consequences. I moved on to the next step with faith that my Higher Power would put the rest of the people I needed to make amends to in my path when the time was right.

Step 10 – Continued to take personal inventory and when were wrong promptly admitted it. – This step I do on a regular basis. Some people do it at night time but I try to do it throughout the day. I usually can tell, from that uneasy feeling in my stomach, that I have done something. I then make the proper amends. If I do this Step properly I will not have to do a Step Four for anything new.

Step Eleven - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. I do the Step Three, Seven and Eleven (St. Francis of Assisi Prayer) prayers on a daily basis. I look to the Eleventh Step prayer as a guideline to strive for. It lists all of my character defects and their opposites. Being Jewish I had never said The Lord’s Prayer, which is recited at the end of meetings in my area. I would join hands but not say the prayer. In my Fifth year of sobriety I listened more closely to the words and decided that they were actually good guidelines to live by and began to say it. I’ve also started realizing there are not coincidences in my life but God-incidences.

Step Twelve - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. The Big Book’s Spiritual Appendix tells me a spiritual awakening is a personality change sufficient enough to bring about recovery from [addiction]. I am a recovered alcoholic (I no longer have to drink or drug to live – the obsession has been removed from me) I have had a spiritual awakening. I carry the message to other alcoholics (addicts) by speaking at meetings, sharing at meetings, setting up chairs at meetings, taking down chairs at meetings, greeting people at the door, welcoming newcomers and many, many other ways. For it is only by giving it away (the message) that I am able to keep it.

I do my best to live these Steps on a daily basis. So far they have worked for me. They worked where no other type of program had worked before. When I see in the new or hear that a friend has died due to the disease of addiction, I have to say But For the Grace of God Go I.

Dave the Dude

How I Learned To Be Happy

I've been clean and sober for just over eight-and-a-half years now and have grown a lot during that time. The most important thing I learned was how to be happy. When I first got sober in 2005 one of the first things I learned was that I didn't have a drugging or drinking problem -  I had a thinking problem. I was unsatisfied and unhappy with my life and who I was and didn't know how to fix that. I had thought that by drinking I could become happy. It worked at the beginning but as all alcoholics/addicts come to realize that after awhile that solution becomes another problem.

First I had to put the proverbial plug in the jug and start to change. Learning what I could and could not change was a huge step in finding happiness. There's a reason that all 12-Step meetings begin with the Serenity Prayer - it is a message of truth.

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

I cannot change another person, institution, policy, etc. I may have some influence but I cannot change them. The only thing I have power over changing is myself and my reactions to people, places and things. Once I accepted this I gained a huge step towards happiness. Being young in sobriety the only thing I understood about that was that I had accepted that I could not change the fact that I was an alcoholic/addict. I cannot predict what will happen if I take that first drink or drug. Simple and straightforward. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't an easy lesson to learn. I had to hurt myself, and others, along the way to this enlightenment. It took a lot of emotional and spiritual pain to come to this conclusion but come to that conclusion I did and thank God I did for it allowed to me begin a journey of change. The last line of Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is, "We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny." This says to me many things. One that there is a happy destiny in my future as long as I stay sober and continue to change for the better. Also that this journey will not be smooth gliding, like people who are not alcoholics/addicts, I will face bumps along this road. Health problems, deaths, relationships issues, etc. As long as I can accept that I must face whatever life throws at me without self-medicating I'll be okay.

Another realization that led me to happiness was that I had to look inward to be happy rather than outward. If I am not happy with who I am than no amount of wealth, material things or another person will make me happy. This was a hard lesson to learn. By the time I sobered up at the age of 35 I didn't even know who I was. I had learned from an early age to wear different masks for different people. I wore a mask for how I thought my family wanted to see me. A mask for people at work. One for my friends and later different masks for different friends - be they good friends or fair weather friends. I once thought that I would be happy if I identified myself with my job. I began to hate that job and so I hated myself as well. People use to ask me when I was going to stop partying and I would answer when I get a girlfriend. I got said girlfriend but the only thing that changed was I took a hostage and made her life miserable. In sobriety I realized that if is unfair to another to depend on them to make me happy. Unfair and impossible for that other person is human and fallible. I had to learn to love the person I was before I could even begin to love others. 

Once I came to a place where I knew who I was and could love others I had to be aware of my motives when dealing with them. If my motives were ones of selfishness then that relationship would not work out. If I am to enter into a relationship with another human being I have to be straight up front and not manipulate or use that person for my own gains. It has to be an equal, open  and honest relationship. The key word being equal whereby I don't allow myself to be used unfairly. Not to say I don't or won't make self-sacrifices for the people I love. That is part of happiness as well. Being able to give and accept unconditional love. 

The last change towards happiness I had to make was to stop having to be right all the time. I learned a valuable lesson from Alcoholics Anonymous - I can be right or I can be happy. When I first got into sobriety I kept trying to be right - particularly in my intimate relationships. This lead to constant bickering and relapse. Not relapse as in I took a drink or drug but relapse of my emotional sobriety. I learned that after I sobered up I had to manage my emotions because one of the reasons I liked to use was that I couldn't manage them - they were unmanageable.  When looking at the 12 Steps of recovery one will see that the only Step that mentions drinking/drugging is the first one. None of the others do. That's because it's a program of living. I thought I had joined up with Alcoholics Anonymous to learn how to not drink. In fact, I joined to learn how to be happy, joyous and free. 

Today I am free from my addiction. I do not have a mental obsession to use any type of mind altering substance. I face life on life's terms. I choose happiness over having to be right. I accept that I must change and not expect others to. Most importantly if my acceptance is higher than my expectations than things will turn out just fine.

This is how I learned and continue to learn (nothing changes if nothing changes; if I don't change my dry date will) to be happy.

Dave the Dude.