The Mindful Addict. Tom Catton

or no notice.

      I soon began getting letters from Tom. I couldn’t believe it. Even in his letters, the miracle in his life was apparent. There had obviously been a colossal change, because he was no longer the same confused person I last saw in California. He had come fully alive. His spirit was awakening. It could be felt on the pages of the letter.

      But there I was, still using. It seemed to me that all the addicts who ran into Flobird were getting clean and staying that way. What was going on with me? Why was I immune to this magic? Had I somehow left the room during the big initiation? Since the day I met Flobird, had gone to my first meeting, and found out I had this disease, I wanted to stop. But I was caught in the insanity, the compulsion to use, and nothing seemed to relieve this for any real length of time. As I look back, I can see it was not time for me to answer my invitation to walk through the door of grace. I was not done—not ready within.

      Our son, Joshua Bird, was born on September 4, 1969, and we headed back to the Sunset Beach area of Hawaii right after Christmas. We stayed with friends until we found a house across the street from a beach called Sharks Cove. I began going to meetings once again and staying clean for short periods. When Flobird was in town, we had meetings at my house, but after everyone left, I got loaded. It seemed like my resolve was strong when I was safely encircled with other clean addicts, but that determination would leave with them when we said our good-byes. I truly didn’t want to use, but I was powerless over the obsession to use drugs. During 1970 I actually stayed clean twice, for more than three months each time.

      Flobird and a bunch of her followers lived in tents across the street in the grassy park overlooking Sharks Cove. By now there were several people who had met Flobird, started going to meetings, and weren’t using drugs or alcohol anymore. They were a bunch of spiritual nomads, helping one another stay clean as they tried to help others who were ready to surrender. She was like a shepherd with a willing flock of misfits, all of them miracles, all of them clean. Then one morning she awoke at an early hour and was given this message: “Go to Egypt by boat.” After she announced this to us, preparations began for the adventure. Since I was married and had two kids, I certainly wasn’t going to join them, and neither was the other Tom. Flobird and her group left for their new journey.

      One evening toward the end of the year, I smoked a joint and drank two beers in a friend’s tent. At the time, I had over three months clean. I went into convulsions on the tent floor, and after coming out of it, I said, “Wow, I’m allergic to this stuff.” I didn’t get loaded for a few days, but even after drugs and alcohol had demonstrated monstrous effects on me physically, I still began using again. We flew to California for Christmas in 1970, and once again, I began using more heavily.

      I had heard in meetings how the disease can progress even when we aren’t using. Now I was experiencing it in my life, and I was quickly spiraling to my bottom. When we returned to Hawaii, the needles came out and I became strung out again. For the next ten months, I shot dope constantly. It almost killed me.

      I was shooting coke and heroin every day. My arms became tattooed with bruises, track marks, and lesions. It got to the point that when I went to score drugs, the dealers didn’t want me to use there. “Just get the drugs and leave,” they said. I had become so hopeless that other addicts didn’t want me around. They ran me off, fearing I might contaminate their scene. I wandered around the North Shore in my swim trunks, carrying a syringe in an envelope in my shorts. I used garden hoses from private homes to get water to dissolve the dope, and shot up in the bushes. I would be missing for days at a time and then wander into my house. Naturally, my wife was fed up with this behavior.

      When I couldn’t score dope, I shot caffeine or wine into my veins, causing an instant hangover. I was once more guided by desperation, traveling again in terror. I frequently woke up on the beach under a palm tree with my face planted in the sand. There was no difference between me and a homeless person on skid row. I had arrived at that place where skid row was within, and it didn’t matter if I was sleeping in a dumpster, in some dark alley, or on a beautiful beach. Skid row was the constant feelings of hopelessness and despair in my heart. Skid row is in the mind of the hopeless. These feelings were, perhaps, magnified because I had been introduced to a different way of life by Flobird, but I still couldn’t get it. What she taught seemed just out of my grasp, so like a good dope fiend, I reached for the painfully familiar. I had resigned myself to a downhill ride.

      Laura finally had an “enlightened experience” and decided to leave me. As I look back, I wonder why it took her so long. Then, something unexplainable happened. We talked about her leaving, and I begged her to leave Josh, now nearly two years old, with me. She would take Celeste back to California with her. Seeing my grief and desperation, with compassion as her guide she agreed to leave Josh in my care, and somehow knew on a deep level he would be cared for. In hindsight, I see that it was all part of a divine plan. I really believe Josh was what kept me alive. I now can identify with the single mom burdened with addiction.

      I’m not proud about what happened over the next couple of months. Even now, it’s difficult to write about this period without crying. I never had a clean and sober moment from the time Laura left in early August. I stayed stoned all that time, hitchhiking around the area with Josh to score dope. I went to parties on the beach, left him in someone’s parked car, and proceeded to get stoned.