That was then….

or, “What a Difference a Day Makes”

I could be in jail tomorrow. Or the next day. Which wouldn’t be so bad. Considering.
I woke up just before dawn this morning. Shook the earwigs off of me and ran my fingers through hair that hadn’t been washed in….I don’t know how long. A few new spider bites, but all in all – no worse for the wear.
My current home is a pvc-coated canvas barbeque cover that I wrap myself in. Concealed in the bushes off of Island Park Drive. Less than 250 metres from a street lined with $500,000 - $1,000,000 homes. Wouldn’t the owners be pissed if they knew I was here. And who I am.

Who I am. Not quite sure what that means anymore.

I am a booster. A professional thief. A con man.

Small time hoodlum. Big time crack addict.

 Somewhere between $500 and $1000 a day big time crack addict. Which in turn, of course, means I am a pretty good booster. On a good day I am able to shop-lift as much as a couple of grand worth of merchandise. Some of which I can return to the very store I stole it from for cash. Or at the very least, a gift card. Which I can easily sell. Some of it I can turn directly into crack. My dealers all love a choice cut of beef, pork tenderloins, shrimp and lobster. I, and many others, keep their freezers stocked. And they keep us loaded with crack.
                                                                                                                                                           Other items I can sell to a select few retailers who could care less where their merchandise came from. One of my ‘clients’ has a store full of DVD’s and Blu-Rays for sale to you – the average joe – that were stolen by me – the below average Joe.
It isn’t exactly a living. But I get by. Sort of.

……and This Is Now


Everything that you just read WAS true. For many years, I was that man, doing exactly those things. And once in a while, getting caught, and going to jail. Taking a break from the life, really. Jail is not as bad as you think it is. Nor is it as bad as I would tell you it was.

It sure as hell isn’t as bad as the streets.

I woke up on the morning of July 18, 2006, in jail. Again. And felt two things. One that I was used to. And one that I wasn’t. The first was fatigue. I was tired. Really, really tired. I had felt that before. I even had a cure. Crack.
The second was fear. That was something I was not used to. I had not felt fear in a very long time. I did not like the way it felt. What the hell was I afraid of? Certainly not the goons inside with me. I know them. I know what makes them tick. And talk. No, this was something different. It took me a little while to realize what it was. I was afraid of me. Of who, and what, I had become and was still becoming. I was afraid that the Joe I once was, many years ago, was about to be gone forever.

So I did something I had not done in a great many years. I asked for help. I reached out, through my lawyer, to the newly established Ottawa Drug Treatment Court. And said that I need help with my drug addiction.
At the time I was not aware of it. But I needed help with so much more. Turns out my drug addiction wasn’t my biggest problem. Nor was my criminal lifestyle. My biggest problem was me. And my lack of understanding of me. Or maybe, put more simply – my lack of me.

That is what the Ottawa Drug Treatment Court gave me. The opportunity to get to know and understand me. To take out the trash. And put in some value. To become me. Again. Someone I had not been since I was about 9 or 10.

I am continuing daily, almost 6 years later, to learn about me. And to become the me that I will be today. And today, I can honestly say that I like that just fine.
Thank you, DTCO, and all of the wonderful people at Rideauwood Addiction and Family Services.

http://www.canadahelps.org/GivingPages/GivingPage.aspx?gpID=17870

http://rideauwood.org/website2/

Joe, DTCO graduate August 11, 2007