Having just avoided a near death experience collision with a tanker (due to my wife’s lying, messing up the radar, not telling us and leaving tthe radar deceptively dysfunctional entering coming into San Francisco )we were immensely relieved anchoring in San Francisco Bay. All was forgiven in the ecstasy of safety the harbour gave us. Our crew departed. My wife sold kittens on the Pier. We continued on.
She and I did a fine job of sailing to San Diego. The natural oil springs off Santa Barbara were amazing. When one thinks of oil spills its worth while to remember these natural oil slicks that covered miles of sea. We acquired a fine slick of black along the water line.
In the Catalina islands off California we found an anchorage but the restrictions on spillage and discharge had ou outputs taped up for the over night stay.
San Diego was another great accomplishment. The most spectacular harbour and navy base. We were early for travel south as the hurricane season persisted. At dock a boat came round and removed our waste. We had water and electricity and stayed several weeks. We were concerned this was the ‘last stop’ so spent ‘unnecessarily’ on boat supplies stocking up on spares and anything else we thought we might need. There’d be other marine stores south but we didn’t know that then.
Given the marital problems and my wife’s fear of sailing further we had some serious discussions about our marriage life and future. Looking back she would say she was committed but it became apparent that she’d begun conspiring to hide money and make an independent life for herself. She was along for the ‘fun’ but no longer in it for the long haul. She’d learned she was wealthy beyond her wildest dreams after her mother’s death,as would become apparent in the later divorce. I was also unwilling to accept her dangerous behaviour. Without drugs she was not a happy camper. I wasn’t a ball of sunshine either.
Offshore sailing was said to truly make relationships or it could tear them asunder.
Our crew wanted to continue with us to Cabot and was available. Despite his mutiny I truly felt that my serious talk and expression of grave concern had sunk in. We would continue now as three. There was only one night when he’d he’d pull his wing on wing sailing event thereafter. I’d literally give him shit and he’d act like a sulking teen aged.
The trouble with ‘night racing’ in a foreign country at night is that if anything goes wrong night makes everything so much more difficult. We could hardly see in the water before us and racing we were at risk of high speed collision. I don’t even know why I’m explaining this. No sane person races wing on wing at night on watch with the rest of the boat asleep below.
Other than that We really did enjoy the sail south.
(Oops Except I forgot her getting so drunk on tequila across the border she hit a couple of girls ,denied she did and then I, not sober myself, was told by their boyfriends to control my violent partner. She proceeded to hit them again trying to make it look like an accident and pay them back for them telling their boyfriends. I was furious and was all set to fight but took her back to the boat and returned ready to ‘defend my lady’s honor’. Alcohol. Thankfully they’d left and I didn’t end up in a 3 against 2 fight as my crew had no experience in fights and Mexico is not tolerant of this sort of ‘gringo behaviour. Killing each other is more acceptable. We all had horrible hangovers and blamed tequila (to kill ya)
Mexico really was spectacular. I love my memories of the sunsets and sun rises. I loved the sea. We did amazing things and saw amazing things.
We rescued a couple of guys in a dinghy who’s boat had gone down after a fire. I’d publish the story of our lifesaving intervention in the Latitudes Magazine. I’d write stories for off shore sailing magazines that year.
My wife and I would help rescue a baby whale caught in the mangroves. Others had pulled it out from getting caught and going aground. My wife and I swam side by side touching it to keep it from turning back into the beach. We directed it by swimming on either side until it was beyond the point where the mother joined the many ton baby. What an incredible experience. Swimming with whales, saving a life.
We’d been told to take old playboys for barter with the Mexico fishermen who caught lobster like crayfish. It was against the law for them to sell them but there was a great trade in ball caps, tshirts and playboys. Apparently the ball caps work earlier in the season, then the t shirt but later in the season the gold is playboys. We got a wealth of cray fish and feasted with butter and lemon to our hearts content. There’s never enough of these tasty morsels and we just kept trading all the way along the coast.
Rosa was a favourite harbour when I used my electronic translator to tell the gorgeous custom’s agent that it was ‘hot’ but the word ‘hot’ has two translations. She blushed when I called her very hot and the Mexicans present chuckled. We had been learning spanish and trying it out as we travelled . Really wonderful days in the warm weather and kindly winds. Spectacular sailing.
Somewhere we got drunk and returned to find that the dinghy had been ‘holed’ trapped under a bit of dock by rising tide. We argued about direction and being an idiot I almost took us to Japan insisting this was the way all the while I was headed out to sea trying to keep inflating the leaking dinghy. Eventually she made me see reason, dark before us, lights behind us and despite my drunken superiority I humbly reversed direction and found our boat at anchor. I repaired the dinghy next day on deck.
I think that was before the crew rejoined us.
It was always exciting filling with diesel in Mexico as the hoses were usually meant for larger boats. There’s one memorable pump at a place called ‘Gordo’s” which meant ‘fat’s’. The hose dangled from a crane with no where for us to tie up so we maintained the position under this high speed hose by pushing off the piling.
Great barbecued fish meals. Wonderful sea birds. Dolphins as far as the eye could see. More grey whales. IT was a sailing wonder. Eventually we reached Cabot San Lucas. What a rush to sail into that harbour!
I loved the Broken Surfboard. I was able to visit there with a dozen other captains and we had many a great discussions. I’m forever thankful for the afternoon when each captain told their tale of their crew mutinies. One wife had actually locked her husband on deck in a storm and refused to let him come in insisting he take them home. There were story after story. The women on the women’s boat had locked their female skipper in the head and departed in the dinghy 4 of them leaving at the first anchorage. One of the skippers had heard the screams so came along side and let that female captain out of the head and took her ashore to regain her dinghy. She remained at anchor there till she could get another crew.
With my wife in evening we joined other cruisers. I played my Martin 6 string guitar in the cafe’s at night. My crew played his violin. I mostly sang Leonard Cohen, Suzanne being especially loved. It was good times. Well deserved. Well won.
Our marriage seemed on the way to healing as we actually began to enjoy the joy of the south and the reward of the long journey. Years of hard work and preparation.
One of the natives offered me a joint and here three months off weed I smoked one and took one back to my partner. She was off on a Castanadas trip and in another world. I just liked it. The next many months in Baja would include regular marijuana and mostly Mexican beer.
We discussed where to go, most boats going on to Puerto Vallarta. We figured we’d sail up to La Paz, the easiest destination and winter in the Sea of Cortez because we didn’t figure we’d come back this way. There was also a possibility of shipping our boat overland to the Gulf of Mexico rather than travelling south through the Canal.
We sailed up to La Paz where we docked and loved it. The marina was terrific. We had a fabulous home. We met the greatest folks. It was months of truly great times. We befriended a German sailor who survived by taking out Germans camping in the Baja or sailing on his trimaran. His girlfriend was a Nashville Country Star who had hooked up with an incredible spanish guitarist. We settled into a routine.
Shinto loved La Paz despite the heat. The winter months being moderate not at all like the tortuously hot summer months. For a time we anchored off from La Paz and Shinto and I would go for his morning walk. We’d both jump off the boat and swim ashore. There were tiny rays but his churning up the water before me meant I never needed to worry. He wasn’t stung. After this morning swim I’d take him for a long run then swim back to the boat. I had to wear a light scuba jacket because of the stinging jelly fish.
Thursday night we’d play blues in the local pub. The rule was that we couldn’t drink more than the customers. That’s where I started with 5 cords blues and left when I couldn’t remember what to do after one chord. I also played bongos. We had lots of fun with different folk singers, the amazing Oceanographer and his wife standing out. Things wnt south when a cocaine crew arrived and the atmosphere changed. We stopped going there then.
We helped with the cleaning and raising funds for a handicapped riding school. Riding in the old west of Baja Mexico was out of this era. Riding up to a saloon in a town where no cars or trucks came only horses, tying up the horses and ordering a cerveza, this was the life. We did this for months. We’d eat out for $10 a person each night often with three courses and white table cloths. We were now with the ‘locals’ and no longer going to the ‘tourist’ places. We did go to Hotel California where the Eagles song was made only because our German friend knew the owner. There was an artists commune there.
Feliz Navidad. We had all this food prepared but the coke boat won the toss and our friends left us for the coke and tequila night. It was a bit unsettling. I loved getting the classical flautest to improvise in our Thursday night jam. I’d practiced Buffet’s Teguila Ville with Changes in Latitudes, Changes in attitudes. The payment for our playing was free tequila but we filled the place.
I loved the pelicans. Waking day after day to the gently rocking boat and looking out at the pelicans which would literally dive bomb for fish, great splashes, then they’ d come up with a fish in their funny faces. The Malecon was always worth a walk. Huevos Rancheros breakfasts.
I thought we were in love. She was wonderful. Our costs once we were in Mexico plummeted. Living is cheap in the third world. I’d meet the local psychiatrist and dine out with him and his wife. Lovely people. I got my Single Side BAnd converted to include Hamm Radio Frequences by the former Navy communication expert. We did boat work and boat maintenance. We had our bottom sand blasted and painted
I guided a captain delivering a baby in the sea of Cortez and with the help of my psychiatrist colleague arranged for an obstetrician/pediatrician to go out with the coast guard to meet the returning guide boat hours half way hours from Le Paz. I’d give talks on emergency and wilderness Medicien at sea. I’d write an article for off shore sailors with colleagues. My radio operator friend would call me to assist several emergencies he’d get at sea. My partner did the same. We were really appreciated in the community. I saw a lot of cases mostly general practice. My first ever case of ‘chancre’ showed up when an American insisted I look at his penis. The tell tale sign was there.
She had beautiful legs and the cutest ass in short shorts. I’d never wear anything but shorts ,sandals and t shirt. At sea we’d be naked only keeping a sarong handy in case another boat came near.
I’d be asked to see a Canadian ‘psychologist’ who was accused by two American girls of sexually harassing them. The consulate to Mexico asked me if I’d look into the matter because he’d been approached to get the release of the “Psychologist’. I interviewed the two girls whose story was totally believable . The community had split and the little girls and their family were somewhat ostracized at this point. I’d actually expected to be able to get a history that would allow me to say they were not telling the truth or that nothing had happened or there’d been a misunderstanding. But I’d listened to hundreds of children and recognized that this was not ‘factitious’ but true.
I called the Consulate and recommended against him taking any action that weekend. The man was to face trial on the Monday withthe judge. I typed up a formal forensic psychiatric consultation of my examination of the two little girls . It was in English but I had this Spanish Translation program that I ran it through really uncertain what it said. I gave both to the parents and embassy who had them seen by the judge, the translation being adequate. He kept the man in jail as a result.
It turned out he wasn’t a ‘Canadian Psychologist’ but a pedophile wanted by the FBI in 5 states with hundreds of victims who’d fled to Ontario then Mexico. The Canadian embassy thanked me for assisting Canada the ambassador being delighted he’d not got between the Mexican justice system and a ‘norteamericano’ on this occasion. The Mexicans don’t take kindly to pedophiles and apparently I saved the embassy a lot of embarrassment. It really was great to get such thanks. The whole tide changed in the ‘expat’ community and the girls were vindicated with the parents thanking me and literally everyone thinking I was some kind of great psychiatrist as no one had guessed.
I also was called to a hugely wealthy Nazis Yacht. A multi millionaire who was having chest pain. Once inside it was like being in the third Reich. Pictures of Hitler, memorabilia and this old man with chest pain. I was able to assist him and solve his problem. He’d been using the Mexican ‘generic’ digitalis which was half the potency of the ‘real’ drug. I increased his meds and his breathing improved with a little lasix and nitro. He had a veritable pharmacy on his incredibly huge luxury yacht.
We ate. We slept. We gathered for afternoon drinks. We made music. I wrote poetry. She painted .We read in the sun. We made love often. It was a truly idyllic time.
She flew home too. She said it was to manage her affairs. She and the expoliceman had a grow op in the house the whole time we were away. During her trips back she moved all our money into her name and moved the money out of joint accounts into new accounts. She was preparing for her future and I was or was not going to be apart of it. She didn’t care.
We sailed north to the top of the Sea of Cortez where there was a marina that would stow our boat on land and we could come back and holiday here or return and have it moved by land to the Gulf of Mexico so we could sail in the Caribbean, the ‘dream’. We had even planned to sail back up to the Maritimes but that would have been stage 3, thus having circumnavigated Canada and the US. We had rethought the world circumnavigation because it turned out that it was harder to get work offshore. The dream had been to work half the year and sail in the south seas. We were feeling like we’d had enough fun in the sun and ready to return to work. A friend asked me if we could come to the Yukon for locus as he’d had a baby and his mother hadn’t seen the new grandchild because he could never get time off. Like most Northern doctors he had trouble recruiting locums.
I ‘d also want to do a locum in Tennessee. Make money and return for a year of sailing, Work sail. She was so keen on this, it was such a great idea and life style and we met so many offshore couples doing similar lives.
In Guyamos we’d leave the boat on land and she’d play this game that we had no money .Big act. I had a credit card so with my $5000 limit I bought a Toyota sport truck, I loaded up the computers and electronics in the back we’d worried might be stolen and drove north. She was again without drugs and acting very strange. I loved that truck. I loved the ride back to Vancouver. I loved Southern California desert and the Northern California forests.
Back in our house in Shaughnassey the ex policeman was there with a bag of dope and she was happy again.
She said we couldn’t take the job offered in Tennessee or leave VAncouver because we had no money. I reviewed the accounts and we’d not spent more than a thousand or two a month. The cost of the year was less than $50,000. I had more than that in the bank myself even though she’d always used my income and we never saw hers. A cute game. Now we coiuldn’t leave because the money was gone.
My friend in the Yukon ha asked us if we could come north and cover his practice as he’d had a baby and couldn’t get anyone to cover his practice so he could take the 2 year old baby to see the grandparents. I was glad for the task. We’d both cover emergency and I’d do psychiatry. A bundle of money in 4 months. All the while we lived in his spectacular home.
The hospital nurses and staff had worked with her and these superb nurses had seemed to ‘free’ her up so that she actually performed daily, getting into work and following through.There still were some terrible medical mishaps because of her inexperience and attitude. She’d only worked in the city university hospitals and simply refused to listen to those in the north who said there just wasn’t the same resources. A man died. It was an unnecessary death. He’d have eventually died 6 months later but her aggressiveness in his care, appropriate for a teaching hospital in the south was advised against by all in the north who knew there wasnt’ the means to handle complications. Sure enough he had complications. My friend returning immediately asked ‘why isn’t my patient alive, he had another 6 month in him”. He was being kind but like a northern doctor he had a sense of prognosis and knew that something had hastened the death. I knew too. I didn’t like her attitude. There was a callousness that I’d see more of and not appreciate. I’d increasingly face the moral dilemma of covering for her , the impaired physician.
Internal medicine has more life and death and detail than general psychiatry . We’d drink and smoked dope in the evening but there was no errors I made. I had done DT’s that took more medication to settle than any of the worst cases I’d treated when I’d run the Winnipeg Detox. Alcoholic DT’s in the Yukon were more common and the nurses and doctor were used to ‘industrial dosages.’ He settled but not before he damaged a room with angry delusional kicking.
We’d save a life. She would do holy Medicine . When she was good she was very very good.It was a beautiful night. A thing to behold. I would write the story of that life saving event and get a variety of writing awards but really ,it was just three amazing clinicians all working at their best with a Christian nurse and a teenage girl being resuscitated. She was dead and she came alive. My wife was at her best. She really could shine in an emergency but she was unreliable and with all the drugs and alcohol simply would not go to work. Except here the nurses got the best out of her and she really did work well.
Based on that I gave her another chance and we opened a clinic together . Having never had a private practice she began countermanding my orders and suggestions and literally screwing up the computer system and the filing system and everything. A private practice is a ‘business’. There’s a successful way to do it. I hired several staff to ‘manage her’ because she simply wasn’t functioning. She didn’t get any of her consults back to the referring doctors so they didn’t send any more patients. The business of private practice is providing the family physicians with timely consults and getting the lab work and such done and making copies for the referring gps. She didn’t do any of that and tried to function like a resident with herself as the only doctor working in a bubble. She didn’t communicate with the patients and very soon she was back in bed not coming to work. I’d arrive and have the office full of my patients and her patients and shed’ gone to have her hair done or to buy new clothes without warning the staff. We had angry staff. I was angry. She was increasingly drugged.
The house was broken into so I had a top notch securty system put in. She kept changing the code and not telling me . All the gaslighting passive aggressive games we’d gone through in the country. My stethesecope would go missing and she’d put it in her room . My patients charts were misfiled. The staff were told I was coming in an hour early so they booked a patient and I wasn’t there. I was up each night charting and she wasn’t doing charting. There was no record keeping. A Ct Scan was necessary for a person who needed this scan to participate in her overseas team. She didn’t forward it and didn’t return calls. I came in one night to get this tearful voice begging me to know the results. It was normal. Add the report which had come in weeks before and sat on her desk. The woman’s could climb Everest. That’s not something you don’t return calls on .It was bedlam.
She was screaming all night doing drugs and drinking and I couldn’t sleep. Twice I went to a motel to get sleep because I had a practice to do. I didn’t do coke. She was up all night. She was furious always. When she wasn’t she was depressed.
I had a full practice and 6 month waitlist and she had no patients. After she botched her initial consults there was no further patients. Her patients were angry and complained to her gps who didn’t send anymore patients. I said we should have a wine and cheese party so that she could expand her referral base. We’d send out an open house statement have wine and lots of cheese and crackers. We had lists of local doctors and who’d be invited. She failed to invite any of the gp’s who would refer to her but instead invited her drunken drug addicted friends. I had invited dozens of my colleagues who arrived and found dozens of bottles of wine and endless cheese and crackers and no one but them and the her low life drug addicted friends I’d said we were not going to invite. It looked like we were a wine garden. Now we had dozens of bottles of wine. I was drinking a bottle of wine a night with her, maybe two together and getting marijuana.
A fellow who dealt cocaine had had a manic or bad drug experience . He was my patient. Shed’ been getting cocaine again from her source and now began to approach my patients for cocaine in the office.That was it for me.
I’d had the alarms on the house go off. I had to work next day . The money I was making hand over fist was going into her accounts and not into the shared accounts. Suddenly $50,000 dollars was missing and our lawyer, who had befriended her said we needed a loan. I took out a personal loan at his suggestion $50,000 to keep the business afloat. She simply took it. There was no cost. Just a standard mortgage and staff. She and no money coming in and was spending on cocaine.
I was seeing a psychiatrist and we were terribly concerned. He did’t think I had a problem I told him I was drinking a bottle of wine a day and smoking a joint but her cocaine use was terrifying because all this money was disappearing as well and she wasn’t showing up for work , was always angry and completely erratic. She kept breaking my things. I broke a vase when she smashed my camera ‘accidentally ‘. I told her I ddin’t believe her fucking ‘covert aggressive’ accident that only hurt me. So I broke a vase and said. “How does that feel’ That’s what you’re doing to me and your patients. Dont’ you feel . Haven’t you any empathy.!”
And she go off and do more drugs.
I asked her to go to San Diego . My consulting psychiatrist had told me to get away from town, away from the drug dealers. There was treament in San Diego . She had family. She agreed to fly out. She did but she didn’t go to a doctor. Her uncle phoned me and asked me to leave the house.
“Did she tell you about her cocaine and drug abuse and the alcoholism and her violence.”
“No’.
“Well, that’s why she’s in San Diego so she can get treatment for cocaine and drug abuse.”
I felt sorry for this old man who knew nothing about cocaine and the lies and splitting. . He was just concerned for his niece.
I found that the carpet in t he basement concealed shake ....the electricity had been altered. I’d never have known there’d been a grow op if they cleaned it up. Now here I was a psychiatrist with addiction patients living in a house with all the evidence of a grow op. It couldn’t get worse.
She’d lit up a joint with a cop car beside her when she was with a friend and he complained me,”It was my car. I would have lost it and everything. She just thought it was funny.”
It was raining the night I left. She was home and in a rage. I didn’t even trust leaving the dog with her. It was raining.
She’d blown the head gasket on my truck and I’d been reduced to taking the bus to work. Without a vehicle for the first time in decades.
“My dad took the bus to work. You don’t need a car.’ She said.
I couldn’t find a place where my dog and I could stay the night. I phoned my biker friends on the island knowing that I could take my dog there. There aren’t a whole lot of options when you have a dog and it’s a rainy night and you are trying to get taxies from hotel to hotel. This was before cell phones.
I took the ferry to the island. My friends met me. They’d been doing a lot of cocaine. Cocaine was suddenly everywhere. The year we’d left sailing it had not been around, just marijuana but starting with the cocaine boat in La Paz cocaine just kept appearing everywhere. My former ‘biker hippy’ friends were now a different sort but they wanted me to stay and I was thankful to be out of the insaniety of that house and that crazy coke lady. We sat around and smoked dope and drank wine and watched tv. We worked on motorcycles. My friend was a motorcycle mechanic. He had some famous clients.
I told her I wasn’t coming back. We separated. She dumped my files of my patients in the back of the truck and some of my personal possessions including my guns and ammo and fishing gear and left it unlocked parked on the street. Friends brought it to the island. I was so disappointed to see the lack of care and concern for peoples lives. I was talking to my psychiatrist and considering options. I didn’t know what to do.
I had $30,000 in RRSP’s and got $15000 back . I wanted to trade my truck for a car but the guy took the money and claimed it was rent and food but instead spent it on coke.
It turned out that for a year they’re been inviting people to come stay and then kicking them out and keeping their stuff. He’d been married to a doctor who kicked him out because of the coke habit. My other doctor friend’s husband got into coke and she kicked him out.
I would have liked coke but it gave me lock jaw, made me horny and all I could think of was sex, but I had ED. I ‘d taken to wearing my Rocky Horror Picture Show black lingerie and wandering around in the fields under the full moon. Things were pretty crazy. Smoking lots of dope and drinking moonshine from their still.
Following the direction of my friend I backed up scratching my truck. He got furious screaming and threatening. I’d bought a wrecked boat and had been working on that. One of his friends sold it to me for $5000. It was worthless. Nothing got done. None of the motorcycles worked. His new girlfriend never left her bedroom. They did coke all night. I remember liking the morning waking and watching tv drinking coffee and smoking a joint.
I remember a moment of clarity, drinking beer with this hippy farmer friend and thinking he looked really old and sad.There were a lot of 20 year old girls about. Beyond him I saw myself in the mirror and didn’t like what I saw. I looked worse.
I got a call from a Christian friend and crew. He asked if I wanted anything. Said he’d felt God telling him to call me. I asked him if he could come pick me up . He arrived with his station wagon. We loaded my valuables in the back. We left some stuff but a friend said my coke addicted friend was furious I’d left because he’d planned to take all my stuff and run me off. I’d jumped the gun and escaped. God is good all of the time.
Later these friends would threaten to kill me and try to extort money. My friends. Cocaine does terrible things to people.
I’d prayed to God. I wanted to be alone in a cabin on a hill and stop all drugs and alcohol. My friend had a trailer . I stayed in that. It was exactly what I prayed for.
I had no money . The money I’d got had been taken and now I was here without any assets. I went with my friend to his church and they gave me food. It was kind of them. Coffee and food. My friend shared his food that first week. I was hungry and would walk Shinto for long walks on the mountain. He’d get me a futon. I had a futon and an empty trailer .
I went to welfare and the woman there screamed at me saying ‘welfare isn’t for doctor’s’. She threw me out.
I remember crying a lot.
My friend had asked me if I’d wanted to go home and I said I couldn’t go home because she was doing drugs and alcohol and I needed to get straight. I needed all my wits about me.
The ‘insurance’ I’d paid for for decades with the Doctors of BC had a proviso which said it was based on your previous year’s income. As I’d been sailing and not working for a year I never got any money from the BCMA.
I had all my working life starting in Manitoba paid into a private Great West Life disability insurance fund. It paid out a thousand a month . I was able to get that going.
I’d gone to see Dr. Willi Gutowski. He was a Christian psychiatrist. I was going to go back to Manitoba where I had family and friends. He suggested I stay and get clean and sober and go to church. We prayed together. I found I only trusted Christians at this time and next I’d trust sober people. I was detoxing from nicotine and marijuana mostly. I’d stopped drinking too. I finally met with Dr. Graham a recovered doctor from Physician Help. He was a good man.
Dr. Graham recommended I see Bernie. Dr. Bernie came to the trailer. I had a bible and a shot gun , a knife and an axe. I was beating a tambourine to keep the evil spirits out. I also was watching out for my biker ex friend who said he was coming to kill me to get the papers for the truck. I wasn’t giving him the papers as I’d never got the car in trade and I’d given them $15000 which I learned he’d put up his nose. I think I had less than10 lines drinking to stay awake at these drunken biker parties only to confirm that. I’d get Lock jaw erectile failure and be horny as hell.
I joke and say I gave up drinking to give up smoking I was smoking 2 packs of cigarettes having gone from a pack a day a month before. I had a great green bag of marijuana shake from the grow operation and rolling drum tobacco and shake. I had industrial dosages of that on board. All the hiking was clearing my head and lungs. Shinto loved walking his dad.
Dr. Bernie came over in a new truck. The neighbours weren’t talking to me. I’d taken the axe and my tanto knife and cut and a made a great chair to sit on the deck. I was sitting on the deck like a hill billy. Dr. Bernie was a mensch.
I told him my story minimizing my drug and alcohol use the last month focussing on my previous use. Coming to the church going downstairs, he said .”Hearing your story I’d guess you’re the highest bottom ever to go to AA”. I didn't’ know about his wit and candour and capacity for irony. I thought he was referring to my ass. I figured then and there that this whole church basement was full of homosexuals and AA was a group fuck and I was about to be group fucked up the ass. I had no where else to go.
No one fucked me that night. I actually lectured them because I thought they wanted me to teach them about wine and marijuana so I gave an impromptu lecture. Then I sat back and listened. They talked about God and that was good because I’d stopped trusting people almost completely . I trusted God and knew that people who trusted God were maybe okay. They talked a lot about a spiritual solution. I liked that too because drugs and alcohol hadn’t helped and made things worse. I was ready for abstinence and not too long later applied for a monastery. I had had it with the world. I had had had it with psychiatry. ‘
They said that it was a ‘one day at a time’ program and I’d not had drugs or alcohol or nicotine for weeks but I was keen on the present. I was back to praying and meditating and reading the Bible.
They seemed like nice people. They told me to ‘keep coming back’. No one else was saying that.
Orphaned from above
(I had said fuck it and out of spite showed her that I could open a practice. That’s what I did. I could open a practice and have a full practice in months. I’d done it from a ‘cold start’ in Parksville and in Vancouver . I could do it again.. I work and I have a high success rate with doctors wanting to refer, and patients wanting to come back. I’ve routinely had 2 year waitlists only paring them down to 3 months by selecting patients according to my interests, trauma and borderline personality disorder. No one wanted to see borderline personality disorder, mysubspecialty and PTSD wasn’t very popular either. I didn’t have a lot of competition. The smart money doctors we’re seeing depressed middle or upper class housewives..
She on the other hand had never had a practice. She’d totally failed to work in our Parksville clinic getting no clients and making no contact with colleagues. She liked to socialize with rich people and drug addicts and alcoholics. I expressed deep concern about her coming into a private practice with me because not only had she failed to attend the clinic in Parksville when she’d worked several months in mental health she never left her office didn’t see patient and had a terrible clinicalreputation. We opened a practice again and she crashed. I could never forget the story of the horse about to swim to safety across a stream, asked by a scorpion but a ride.
“You’ll sting me. “
“No I won’t, we’d both drown”
The horse swims with the scorpion on his head and the scorpion stings him in the middle of the river.
“Why did you do that,” the horse asked “we’ll now both drown »
« It’s my nature, » answered the scorpion.)
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