The Mindful Addict. Tom Catton
book. Together they added much of their hearts and helped bring the book to its victory lap.
I’d like to thank my publisher, Central Recovery Press. Without their commitment and belief in this book, it would still be inside my computer, and just a dream. Thanks for making it a reality.
And finally, a very special thanks to all my friends on Facebook. As I finished the writing, I would find myself periodically posting excerpts from the book. Your loving responses and encouragement kept me at the keyboard in those long last hours. Namaste.
3:45 a.m., February 10, 1968, Kaneohe, Hawaii. A tall, thin woman looking much older than her fifty-two years sits up in bed, meditating. A cup of coffee rests on her nightstand, and a cigarette glows in the dark. She listens in silence to the small voice within, her shadow standing guard as she sits in the stillness, becoming one with the calm. Flobird meditates for several hours every morning, a habit she picked up in 1960 while getting into twelve-step recovery.
She lives each day by the spiritual guidance she receives during meditation and diligently records the messages in her journal. Writing becomes automatic, a prayer in ink, and the spirit guiding her pen to identify her next assignment. At times her dialogue with God is intense, and at times she questions the assignment; but she always steps into the unknown and does exactly as her spirit guides her.
On this particular morning, Flobird’s meditation leads her to the North Shore of Oahu, about forty miles from Kaneohe. She hops into “Redbird,” her Fiat, and drives to the Sunset Beach area. There she finds a four-bedroom, completely furnished, wood-framed home nestled under the trees right on the oceanfront. Guided by an inner direction, she reaches above the doorjamb, locates the key, unlocks the door, and enters. Coincidentally, I live next door.
During the winter months, the waves on the North Shore are huge. This is the only time they break with massive force, and they must be at least twenty feet high before they are considered surfable by the locals. The energy from just one such large wave as it comes crashing down is breathtaking, and the salt spray can be seen in the air for miles.
At night, the roaring waves sound like thunder or a gigantic gong echoing across the oceans from some unknown temple. Often they become so enormous that they wash over the highway. Sometimes these monster waves can even level houses in their path.
The North Shore community is relatively small, and everyone knows one another. Today, Haleiwa, the main village, is a bustling town sought out by tourists from all over the world who come to watch or surf the killer waves; but back in the 1960s, it had only two grocery stores and a bank.
This time and place was magical for those of us fortunate enough to live there. The community was dominated by surfers from around the world who competed at the world’s most famous surf spots, which dotted the five-mile stretch of coastline. There were also so-called hippies searching for enlightenment through the use of drugs, including LSD and hashish, which were believed to lead to spiritual illumination. Some of these drug-using hippies were in both categories: They surfed and took a lot of drugs, but they were ultimately looking for something greater. That was me.
In the early morning hours of this day, I was startled awake by the sound of a car on our lane. With a clarity entirely unfamiliar to me in the breaking dawn, I gazed out the window and saw a tiny red Fiat pull up to the vacant house next door. I watched curiously as a strange woman got out and walked calmly up to the house as if she indisputably belonged, as if placed there by mystical entitlement. I had no idea this event would change my life forever.
As I held the match under the spoon, heating up the water to help the white powder dissolve, the anticipation of shooting pure methedrine into my veins caused a feeling of electricity to race through my sleepless and deprived body. I had been awake for three days, and every time I fixed, I told myself I would never do it again. My wife was asleep. It was 2 a.m., and the world was quiet. But this quietness did not exist inside my head. Anxiety, fear, and separation plagued me like demons. I had moved beyond any human level of desperation. I would have settled for hell.
Sitting in the bathroom with a soft light on, I tied a belt around my arm and pumped up my veins. Gently, almost sexually, I tapped the top of the syringe until I saw blood back up—the sign the needle is in the vein. I had become so intimate with my loneliness through the process of fixing dope. How did I get here? I squeezed the syringe, and the rush overtook me as my hair stood on end. My using had become a madman’s paradox: The more I used to get further out of myself, the deeper I found myself locked within. I created a new prison with every hit.
At the time we lived on the Venice Canals in Venice, California. It was the summer of 1967, the time of love-ins, Tim Leary, LSD, and free love. We were hippies, extending a childhood dream of blissful states, resonating love, and dancing in the streets. So why was I in this bathroom alone? Where was the love? I was not free. My flowers had turned brown. The garden was in decay. What had happened since the first time I picked up a drink and then continued on to drugs? Drugs and alcohol had initially given me relief from the separateness I felt. Even though I had come from a loving middle-class family, I never felt I fit in. Drugs helped ease my feelings of disconnection, so I continued to use them, seeking relief from those feelings that had haunted me my entire life. The dope brought a softness I had mistaken as peace. The drugs had simply silenced me.
As I removed the needle from my arm and felt the drug rush through my body, touching every cell within, I sat there with the syringe in my hand, blood dripping on the floor, waiting for relief that did not seem to come. How many times had I repeated this scene? Again I found myself high and trembling on uneasy knees. Again I found myself praying and in pain. I had always believed in a God, so I prayed to be released, not even sure from what or to where. My hands shook as I folded them to pray, the way I had been taught. Yet now, kneeling on the cold tile of the bathroom floor, my devotion seemed destroyed. Fear and despair were all I knew.
I sat there and reflected back almost twenty years earlier, on the memory of my first day of school, when the feelings of isolation and separation began. I was four-and-a-half years old. We lived in a small rented house on about an acre of land in Mar Vista, California, which was only a few miles from the house in Venice. Mom packed my lunchbox and loaded my sister in the baby carriage, and we walked about ten minutes up our alley to the school.
Our dog, Dane, followed closely behind. I looked around at the familiar surroundings, but everything appeared strange. It seemed like my life was changing, and I didn’t know how to express what I was feeling. I wanted to say, “No, Mom, I can’t do this. I can’t leave you, Cindy, and Dane. Mom, I’m too little to do this.” But my mouth didn’t form these words. On the short walk, I seemingly slipped through a portal into a world that may have looked the same, but where I did not belong.
As we walked into the schoolyard, kids were running around having fun, and they all seemed to know each other. I knew immediately I was different and hid behind Mom’s floral skirt as we walked into the classroom. I looked down and studied the checkered tile floor. Desks were lined up in perfect order, and a blackboard took up most of one wall. All kinds of paper decorations and colored objects hung on the other walls. As kids rushed in and happily sat at their desks, I felt overwhelmed by feelings of sheer terror I had never experienced. All I could do was beg my mom not to leave.
Of course, she had to go, and I was left alone in this perplexing new