“Let me see what you got, old man.” A young guy surveys my laptop. Each one in turn looks, then looks away, focusing on the flirtatious dance at hand. It gains urgency and volume with each repetition. “Does anyone want a new laptop?” I repeat my plea over and over. “Does anyone want to buy a brand-new laptop?” I hold it out to the people in line. I swallow hard and shuffle along the line. This laptop is my life: notes, writings, programs, spreadsheets, databases, proposals, pictures, training materials for my workshops, business plans-everything I would want and need to start some semblance of a new life as a therapist in Vancouver. My hands caress its leather case, given to me by my sons on my fifty-fourth birthday. I scan the lineup, unzip my duffle bag and pull out the one last thing of value in my life: my laptop. A vibrating queue of young people snakes halfway down the block. I need it to stop these shakes, these tremors, these leaps of vomit up the back of my throat. The craving for alcohol courses through my veins. “Do you have any spare change?” I look down to the shaking hand. I look down at my feet, put my hand out and mumble to the kind of people I used to be. My one remaining bank account-joint-Rhonda has justifiably frozen.Ī rush of blood heat races up the sides of my neck, and my face flushes a fiery red shame. “No money” used to mean, just pull out a credit card. I have no money, a concept I can’t quite get my head around. When I first arrived in Vancouver some thirty years ago, I probably patronized this place myself. More seasoned entrepreneurial drunks and addicts offer to hold the diners’ places in line, save their parking spots, watch their cars.Īs I round a familiar corner, loud, thumping music drifts from a club. My cloak of invisibility finally seems to be working. They glance in my direction but my presence barely registers. Well-heeled diners sidestep massive puddles and run the gauntlet of shopping carts to line up in front of the latest hot restaurant. Gentrification has crept into Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Reviewsįrom Chapter Six: Come Down Here, Mr. Maureen Palmer is a critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker and former radio and television producer at CBC. He earned a degree in psychiatric nursing from the University of Victoria and a Masters in Social Work from the University of British Columbia. Michael Pond has a private therapy practice in Vancouver, where he specializes in addiction treatment. Not one to give up easily, he, along with his partner, Maureen Palmer, embarked on a quest for evidence-based treatments-science-backed therapies that don’t always demand abstinence-a search chronicled in the book’s new second half. In the first part of his gripping memoir, he recounts how he lost his practice, his home, and his family as a result of his out-of-control drinking and how abstinence-based treatment regimes failed to help him. Psychotherapist Mike Pond built a life helping others struggling with addiction, but he could not help himself. Marc Lewis, neuroscientist and author of Memoirs of an Addicted Brain A masterful job of describing the indescribable”-Dr. And then reveals a singular truth about how people quit. “With tactile intimacy and surgical wit, Pond invites us to share the tragedy of his addiction with a sad smile. A harrowing, wry, and riveting account of a therapist's struggle with alcohol and his quest to find a better way of treating addiction
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