I’ve seen it in myself and I have seen it in others.

Ray Rachford was the first to point it out. Ray said to me, “You’re addicted to chaos.”

I didn’t know what he meant.

He continued, “Anyone who grew up in a chaotic home can’t deal with calm and quiet.”

I really sat down and looked at that.

He was right.

I had zero self awareness.

Step 1 in anything is awareness.

Now I knew.

If things were going to change I had to change me. I knew nothing and I was 42.

Sobering.

Shame is according to people who have educated me, is the lowest of all the human emotions.

For those wishing to keep a scorecard, guilt is the second lowest and apathy is third from the bottom, just above grief.

Shame is that shit that society makes you feel for being yourself. Guilt is what you feel about doing something wrong.

That shit turned around in one afternoon with an A.A. sponsor named George. George is a crusty old bastard on the outside and one of the funniest men I’ve ever met once you get to know him.

George asked me. “Have you killed, raped or molested anyone.”

“No I have not.”

“Then maybe you are not as bad as you think you are.”

In closing that afternoon, George said…

“Remember, if we treated others with the same judgment we treat ourselves then we would have no friends. “

I thought about that quite a bit and came to this conclusion.

By putting ourselves at a higher standard than others is really the individual saying they are better than others. Which is ego. Let that shit go. Come down off the high horse!

I was successful in this and highly recommend this as an approach.

I quit drinking.

It lasted 4 years from 1990-1994

One week in I realized that I didn’t know anyone outside of bars.

That’s when I began to paint.

Never once did I think of myself as an alcoholic because I could quit whenever I wanted for months and years.

I would work for 8 hours a day paint for 8, and sleep for 8.

4 years of no drinking and celibacy. It couldn’t last.

When I finally reached the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous in the early 2000’s I found out I was a binge drinker.

I could stop. But once I started, I wouldn’t stop until everything was gone.

I also learned I wasn’t good at relationships mainly because I’d never seen a successful one.

My education began here…

So much to learn.

Still time to learn.

I sometimes think about who I left behind; however not for long and it is getting less often.

My last night at the booze can…

There are 3 rooms downstairs. The first one is tiny and it’s where you get served. The second was a large room just off the server room and generally that’s where most people sat or stood and drank.

The smaller room by the exit is where I sat. Back in a corner, full view of the exit. I arrived early about 10p.m. and a young man was passed out on the floor of the smaller room. You can tell quite a bit about someone you don’t know who’s passed out.

First of all he was way too well dressed to be passed out here without consequences. Wrong place wrong time wrong. I just knew he was carrying money; and probably lots of it; which is why this was the wrong place.

He was wearing a reddish brown leather jacket and designer jeans. He was also wearing high top basketball shoes.

For reasons I can’t fully articulate the thought occurred to me that he might be gay. I couldn’t really see his face as it was sandwiched between his arm and the floor.

The Jackels arrived: 5 in total.

Their leader surveyed the room glanced over me and proceeded to go through the pockets front and back which netted him loose change. He was pissed at his small haul, and unceremoniously took off the fallen man’s leather jacket. As the last arm was released from his jacket… his head raised and fell hard to the floor. THUD!

He raised up just for a second and then passed out again minus loose change and a jacket. The lead Jackel seemed satisfied with his take. It fit him perfectly. He modeled for the others who nodded their collective approval before he left for the big room.

I speculated where he was keeping his money however I couldn’t prove it just yet.

The rest of the Jackels circled the body and finally the Bold up and Comer Jackel removed the shoes. He tried them on and smiled at the fit.

And there it was… exactly where I thought it would be: at the bottom between his heel and toes in his socks. The edge of the bills was there as clear as day. But no one else saw it. I couldn’t fucking believe it! The master criminals couldn’t see what they worked so hard to expose.

I waited my chance, more out of curiosity than Greed; which took about 20 minutes. Everyone had their backs turned. I put my beer down, took 2 steps, removed the socks ,2 steps and out the door running.

I ran about 300 yards when I realized that the Jackels might be laughing about my desperation for socks which made me smile. I took the bills out from each sock and counted it.

It was hundreds.

I was right.

It appeared out of the mist on Dupont in the mid 90’s.

I wasn’t drinking so there was extra money.

I wasn’t used to extra money; it was a foreign entity. I thought,

‘What the hell!’

She was friendly from some Eastern European Slavic nation I determined from her accent. She was late twenties, blonde, blue eyed and wore a flowered print dress.

It had been so long since I had actually touched or been with another person, that I flinched when I first felt her touch.

I eventually recovered and relaxed.

By the time I left I realized I may have found a way to stay sober and avoid relationships.

There were 2 Booze-Cans on the west side of George Street opposite Seaton House. Seaton House is a homeless shelter that can house up to 500 men.

To say these booze cans were rough would not be an understatement. Women weren’t allowed because of the fights that would be caused by the Neanderthals scrapping over them and if you did fight; you would get barred. I found it a rather convenient place to drink. Great service, no waiting, and I didn’t have to talk to anyone.

People generally left me alone. I was 30, about 6’2″, 225 pounds, and in good shape. The line I heard too much was,

“It’s the quiet ones that are to be feared.”

I found great safety in this myth.

I only passed out once and woke up with my wallet gone.

“Never fucking again!”

I was about to leave this alternate universe in the land of memory.

Tom and I drank a lot!

Separately and together.

I don’t remember anything he said except once he made a response to something I threw out…

“I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t in a relationship, trying to be in a relationship or ending a relationship. “

Tom said, “Maybe it’s time to stop and find out who you are when you’re not in a relationship.”

“Tommy my boy! That may be the most profound statement you have ever uttered. “

That had never occurred to me and was a wee bit transformative.

I consciously went about life without trying to woo women…

“We will know a new freedom and a new happiness before we are halfway through.”

I met her through a work friend who’s name I can’t remember…

I spent 3 years with her during which time I quit drinking.

After a year I noticed that every time we had an argument she said, “It’s your fault.”

I had tried to leave her 4 times and each time she said, “Oh you’re good at that! Leaving.”

The 5th and final time I left her began with me suggesting that if everything were my fault then we should go to counseling to fix me. She agreed.

During the 5th session with Dexter the therapist I lost the little patience I had and suggested to Dexter that he spell out what was wrong with me, so I could fix this relationship.

Dexter told me that I was one of the most intimidating men he had ever met however that this was not what the problem was with our relationship. He looked at her and said, “The problem is you young lady. You have what we refer to in the therapy business as, stinking thinking.

I almost fell out of my chair.

I felt such joy!

It wasn’t my fault !

I ended the relationship that night. I offered to pay for her therapy to get the help she needed because I knew she would not do it herself.

I picked her up each Wednesday evening and drove her to Dexter for a month.

On the last night I saw her she looked at me as I drove her and smiled.

“The only reason I’m doing this is to waste your money. “

Dexter was right. Stinking Thinking.

The education continued…

I was renting a Bachelor Apartment on Broadview and had been sober for a year and working.

My first furniture purchase was a large cedar trunk and in this trunk I kept a baseball and hockey card collection as well as a Camera.

These were the things taken in the break in. I found a key that the Thief had left behind with a tag that had my address and apartment number written on.

I confronted the owner of this building and his body language suggested to me that he either did or knew who did. I was having trouble letting go of that rage.

I moved again.

I couldn’t let go of the fact that all my work was for nothing. That anything I worked for could be just stolen by someone else. That I hadn’t even thought about getting insurance. I felt vulnerable and stupid. I couldn’t get that look off my face. It was about this time that someone told me that this might be how most people felt most of the time and maybe I should get over it. I began looking at the break in as a gift to my education.

I let that shit go and moved on.

Somewhere west.

Al lost confidence in himself after contracting gum disease when all his teeth fell out over the period of a month. The once great barrel chested strongman had lost his MOJO when he was about 50  in 1990.

When I met him he was toothless and sad with just enough of fresh memories to boast of the time when he was a self proclaimed “Ladies Man.”

He would get drunk most nights and give long delusional speeches about his many great conquests over women and weak men. He had a particular axe to grind with his only son Mark whom he rented a flat from.

Al would scream at Mark who lived in the flat above him,

“I brought you into this world and I will take you out! I will rip your throat out with my bare teeth!”

Of his wife who divorced him and hit him over the head with a cast iron frying pan after catching him fucking the babysitter. “She was the only woman I couldn’t tame!”

The problem Al ran into with me was he didn’t understand the difference between Fear and Danger.

He mistook my kindness and quietness for weakness. He didn’t fear me and therefore didn’t know the real danger he was in…

I lived with Al for 2 days after answering a newspaper ad and before I had enough of his drunken speeches to his son.

Let me set the scene… Al’s son Mark owned a 3 story, 3 unit building and Mark lived on the upper floor. Mark rented out a 2 bedroom apartment on the 2nd floor to his father Al; where I stayed for 2 days until I left and rented out the flat on the first floor directly below Al; without Al knowing I was there.

I was working shift work which is hard on your sleep at the best of times… and about 3 weeks after moving in I heard Al screaming about 4a.m. to Mark on the 3rd floor…

“I BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS WORLD AND I WILL TAKE YOU OUT!!! I WILL RIP YOUR THROAT OUT WITH MY BARE TEETH…”

Over and over.

Finally I got up and put my pants on; walked to the hallway and up one flight of stairs and kicked Al’s door open.

Al was standing in the kitchen in his underwear holding a bottle of rum and staring at the ceiling… where just beyond he imagined Mark was sitting and listening. His eyes fell on me at the kicked in door.

“Al… if you don’t shut the fuck up. I am going to rip your throat out with my bare teeth!”

For just a second Al’s face turned to joy and his voice sounded lonely.

“Dennis!,Where ya been?”

That was my first rental in Toronto and I left after 60 days. This was about the time I began to develop the theory that either everyone was crazy or else I was attracting crazy.