3 minutes, one day at a time = 35 years
September 1986, a year to remember even though the months leading up to it are vague.
In the few months previous, although I seemed to function as ‘semi-normal’ throughout each day, I would eventually come to learn that I had been living in a ‘conscious blackout’ for the better part of the year. You know, getting up and dressed, participating in a day of mundane activities, working, socializing, etc. yet somehow not really able to recall much about who I had seen or what had taken place in the previous few days.
I was a functioning alcoholic/addict who was bottoming out.
I don’t remember much about the days leading up to my birthday, Sept. 7, but I do know I missed the planned party a few friends had arranged about a week before. The reason I know I missed it is because one of the guys, Louie, who I had danced with at the pub ended up sitting across from me at the Kamloops Detox Center a week after I had arrived and said to me, “We were all wondering what happened to you, good to see you’re alive.”
I would refer to the last few days as journeying through ‘the dark night of my soul.’ The psychosis had a grip on me, and taken over any semblance of reality I may have grasped. I existed in swirls of darkness and chaos, delusion, illusion, and allusions pointing indirectly to some path of truth to which I desperately clung. I felt like a drop of water being tossed from one wave to another in a dark, angry ocean. I recall my last moments of consciousness, sitting on my bed in a darkened room. I hear my voice call out, ‘God Help Me!’, and I collapse backward onto my pillow and into nothingness.
It was daylight. I felt mindless. I looked down to see the toes of my runners peeking out from the bottom of my blue jeans, stepping one foot in front of the other, down Main Street. After walking a couple of blocks, I stopped and looked up to see a huge wooden sign at the corner of a building. PATHWAYS. Though I didn’t remember seeing it before, I allowed myself to walk to the entrance of a large door. I knocked.
The door opened, and a nice looking man with kind eyes smiled down at me. “Can I help you?,” he asked, knowingly.
I wanted to turn away, but my feet, and my heart and his eyes held me steadfast. I remember consciously taking a breath.
“I think I’ve gone crazy”, I heard myself answer matter-of-factly.
He smiled, and said reassuringly, “No you haven’t. Come In.”
His name was Rob…. and in those three timeless minutes of interaction, he held my Life in his hands.
That step forward I took with Rob would be the first step that began the first day of the end of a 25 year chapter of addiction in my 42nd year of life.
Today, as I am nearing my 77th “belly button” birthday’ and my 35th anniversary of what I like to call my “rebirthday.”
I wish to express my gratitude to Rob, who in those three minutes, helped me to decide to save my life, and to the powers to be who influenced, and acted upon the decision to allow the amazing team at Pathways to help others to choose to save their lives.
Kathrine Lucier Penticton