Last Wednesday, one of the three guys that attacked us almost four years ago had a court appearance because he had been charged with aggravated assault from an incident in August 2011. He allegedly assaulted a complete stranger who was attempting to enjoy an evening downtown with his girlfriend. The attack put the victim in the hospital, leaving him with a fractured cheekbone, a split upper lip and a black eye. A trial for January 4, 2012 had been scheduled for him. His co-accused, a female companion, had her day in court the first week of December of last year.

The couple that had been attacked had been trying to get support from the community at large by asking for people to come out on these scheduled court dates in an attempt to try to fill the courtrooms for both of their trials. They were hoping to send a message to the judge  that people do care and do really want to see these people off the street. I couldn’t agree more, plus I thought this was a brilliant idea, never mind the myriad of questions I have regarding why this animal is still allowed out to continue to commit these violent offenses repeatedly with no sort of deterrent.

At the last minute though, I got scared. I hadn’t been in a court room since two of our attackers received their respective sentences from the judge for what they had done to us. Before we heard this though, I had to read my Victim Impact Statement aloud to the court and then had to listen to each of their attorneys give their final statements about their clients to the judge in a last chance grab for some leniency I guess. This particular day was a bit of a blur because I was so overwhelmed with everything that was happening, and suddenly, after impatiently waiting almost two years for this day in court, now everything just seemed to be moving so bloody fast! Even though I was paying very close attention to everything that was being said by anyone that had a chance to speak, it ended up just being too much information all at once – too much new info and new info I didn’t realize at the time was quite significant.

For years, because of our addiction, both Jim and I existed on the fringes of the law. Even though we knew we were breaking the law every time we fed this addiction and had to purchase drugs, we still somehow managed to remain under its radar for all intent and purpose the entire time we were using. Other than purchasing this illegal substance on a very regular basis, we conducted ourselves appropriately the rest of the time. We both went to work every day, we maintained our family home where we raised two daughters – one ours, the other our foster daughter.  We paid our bills and did our groceries and volunteered at the girls’ school and participated in life pretty much like everyone else for the most part. Yes, there were times when our finances were definitely on the shaky side, as was our behavior I’ve no doubt, but we didn’t have to support our habit by participating in any additional illegal activity.

So, even after years of being on the peripheral, we really knew next to nothing about our criminal court system until our attack. I know that had we been better informed nearly two years ago, the Sentencing Hearing of two of our attackers would have been very different for me. It is really only now that there are things that were brought up that day that are now impacting me, and had I not seen that small news article about our third attacker there are things I would never even ended  up considering.

First and foremost, I don’t understand why these obviously violent individuals repeatedly keep getting second and third and fourth chances. It is only now that the significance of these three individual’s prior record is significant. On the day of the sentencing of the first two who attacked us, it was introduced that between both of them they had a total of 28 assault convictions as adult offenders – one had 15 while the other had 13.  Now they were 25 and 24 years old on the day of their sentencing and had been in custody since the day of the attack almost two years earlier meaning they were then approx 23 and 22 which further means they had managed to accumulate this total in less than five years. WTF? I don’t even understand why either one of them was still walking around as free men on the day of our attack. These assault convictions aren’t the end of their adult record either. The sum total of all their convictions since turning 18 was actually 86 – one had accumulated 42 adult convictions while the other 44. Again I have to say WTF? Two years ago, this significance alluded me but now it doesn’t.

In fact, ever since seeing that story in our local newspaper a month ago about our third attacker, I can’t stop thinking about the whole subject of rampant violence in our society and what we need to do about correcting this problem. Right now my thoughts are all over the place as I haven’t had a chance to assimilate all of the new info my mind has seemingly had to process since then and am even now having trouble putting coherent thought down here.

TO BE CONTINUED…

• A Mom’s Serious Blunder
• A Mother’s Heart
• A mother’s heart…broken by heroin
• Addiction Stink’s Blog
• An Addict In Our Son’s Bedroom
• Awakening Through Love
• Dawn’s Early Light
• Enabling Love
• Heart Speak
• Heather’s Mom
• Helplessly Hoping
• Her Big Sad
• Her Mother’s Blog
• Leaving Addiction Behind
• letgohangon
• Living Life with an Addict
• Mom trying to Detach With Love
• Mom vs Heroin
• Mom’s Painful Awakening
• Mother of a Beautiful Addict boy
• mother of a drug addict
• My Daughter’s Addiction
• My Life, His Addiction
• My son is an addict
• One Mom Talking
• OXY & OPIATE ADDICTION
• Parent 2 Parent
• Parental Hades
• Patiently Waiting
• Stay Close
• The Addict In My House
• The Delicate BALANCE
• THERE IS NO HERO IN HEROIN
• Thoughts From A Boiled Egg
• Works Aside
• Writing From the Inside Out

Surprisingly, my Mother had become a very different person in the interim. Just prior to our reconciling, I had decided that being estranged from my Mother was not how I wanted to remember our relationship should anything end up happening to either one of us – heaven forbid. I didn’t want to have regrets over something that could realistically be easily avoided not to mention repaired with not too much effort. I decided that there would be no point continuing to get annoyed with some of my Mother’s traits never mind the fact that there was little hope of her changing her spots this late in her life. In my mind though there were a couple of things that I would not compromise on when it came to her treatment of me but I also was prepared to be honest with her and let her know exactly what I meant – no more passive aggressive behaviour on my part!

It seems that my Mom had missed me while we were estranged and must have made a decision herself to try to change her own behaviour. Just the fact that she would even attempt to do this for me was enough for me to now do everything in my power to ensure that our relationship would never derail again. Except for the rarest of rare bumps in the road, we have been rock steady ever since. I was also so glad that we ended up reconciling prior to the attack on Jim and I in May 2008 rather than after it. If we had been estranged at the time of our attack I suspect we both would have always wondered if this had been our only reason for reconciliation even if it wasn’t at all. Now, though, we’ll never be plagued with this question. Never mind the fact that since our attack my Mom has been a tremendous source of comfort, support and strength and everything else that goes with this whole ordeal.

Couldn’t or wouldn’t ask for anything more now cause I don’t need to. I’ve got it all.

peace, love and happiness…

Seems like you can’t get some good news without having to receive the opposite. One day last week while riding the bus, I picked up a copy of one of our local newspapers that had been left behind and as I browsed through it, I happened upon a story about a couple that had been attacked one night last summer while they were ordering some food from a street vendor. I remembered the original story from last August as I’ve become interested in others who are also innocent victims of violent crimes which this couple were. Completely unprovoked, a male and a female, both complete strangers to the victims, attacked them badly enough that the male suffered a broken jaw as well as other facial injuries and required hospitalization. The female was before the court last week where she plead guilty, while the male accused of this attack goes before the judge on January 4, 2012. Imagine my shock when I read his name. He was one of the three who had attacked us! The other two are still serving their sentences in a federal jail somewhere in Ontario. The third had sat twenty five months in our local jail and as he had been arrested prior to new legislation that removed the two for one credit that prisoners used to be able to claim, he ended up being released in May 2010 having “served” a sentence equal to 50 months. He had been under fairly strict probation conditions, plus he was to be under these conditions until May 2012, but I guess this is all relative. I plan on following up with his probation officer to see if I can get more detailed info about all of this. Right now, I am hoping to attend his trial next year but this will all depend how strong I feel emotionally. Will just have to wait and see. You can read about their attack and what they are trying to do to regain some form of peace via the link below.

FINDING A WAY TO FIGHT BACK

Six months after my Mom and I stopped talking, I had started tentative steps towards MMT - Methadone Maintenance Treatment - but these were still early days in deed. For most of 2006, I concentrated on getting better. Even though I had no communication whatsoever with my Mom during this time, I did nothing at all to interfere with the extremely close relationship my daughter Sara had always had with her Granny. They talked regularly on the phone and got together for coffees and lunches. Their relationship continued on without interuption. I did my best to keep my distance so Sara could continue to enjoy this relationship without any feelings of guilt or betrayal. She responded in kind by mentioning any time she was meeting up with her Granny, but this was done under the spirit of our household rules – that is the girls always had to run anything by us before they were allowed to proceed – rather than making a big production waving it in my face!

Christmas 2006 was a bit strange even though it was really no different than the prior one except that I had been on MMT for eleven months and my head was no longer as cloudy as it had once been. Still, it was kind of nice to enjoy a quiet one with just the four of us. By this time, our bank balance was also considerably healthier after eleven months of saving money that used to be spent on our addiction so I had a Christmas to end all Christmases! Everyone was terribly spoilt for the first time in a very long time, plus I put up all new – matching – decorations all over which was something I had only really half heartedly done the prior five or six years.

It wasn’t long before 2006 turned into 2007, and before I had a chance to even blink, it seemed like we were midway through 2007 already. Around the summer of that year, Sara started dropping hints that Granny wouldn’t mind getting together with me although initially I pretended not to hear or understand. That fall my brother started doing the same although not quite as subtlety. He was much more direct with me when he asked me to make an effort and perhaps come over to have Thanksgiving Day with the family. Sara followed her Uncle’s lead and started mentioning this more and more frequently. By now, any of my malice or bitterness or anger had pretty much subsided especially as I had been doing exceptionally well with my recovery. I hadn’t used in eighteen months and it was apparent. We were both working full time – Jim and I – and had managed to get ourselves completely out of debt, plus had even managed to put some away into a savings account. We were the pictures of health and everything else that goes with that so I agreed we would come for dinner. I initially agreed for the sake of my daughter as I realized how very important it was to her and how much this had started to upset her. The longer the separation between my Mom and I continued the harder it was for Sara. I started to realize just how unfair I was being to her.

So, in the late fall of 2007 the healing started to begin.

TO BE CONTINUED… 

And it was for the first couple of months…sweet, that is, but like anything else, this didn’t last. One of my friends ended up becoming our dealer after we ended up having a falling out with our original one. My friend was, and as far as I know, still prescribed massive amounts of narcotic analgesics.  On the first Wednesday of each month he receives/ed 720 8mg brand name dilaudids prescribed by his family doctor.  I had filled this prescription many times in the past for him, and as he was/is not on any sort of drug plan, it cost him about $320CAD every month.

He received these due to some injuries he had sustained during a work accident. As far as I know, him and two other workers somehow ended up being literally buried alive for a large part of one of their work days. When they rescued them all, he had broken both of his legs, some ribs, his right hand and one of the fingers on his left hand. I know that he also sustained some nerve damage in one of his hands. As far as I remember, he ended up being in hospital close to six months. Anyway, initially he never actually used any of his pain meds as he quickly learned that they were much more valuable to him if he sold them outright. Before greed overshadowed everything, he sold his pills at 10 for $100,  though this didn’t last very long, or 2 for $25 or $15 each. Do the math. He made a shocking amount of money from this endeavor and as he didn’t even use the pills at that time himself, it was all gravy.

Kind of ironic, but as long as there were pills easily and readily available, life continued on, and with it, the feeling one didn’t have so much as a care in the world. Not surprisingly, this illusion could disappear in an instant and with no warning. The first time you woke up only to discover that the well had gone dry wasn’t so bad. You hadn’t yet trained your junky mind and body to go into automatic and painful withdrawal at this mere suggestion. Not yet, but very soon. By the end of this first day without the ready availability of pills, you actually managed to finally hookup. The moment you fixed, you felt returned to normal. Two weeks later when the same situation presents itself, your mind and body are less forgiving and understanding. Start to feel anxious and nervous the longer the day stretches with no sight of relief. Well into the evening, you impatiently wait but you’re really incapable of doing anything much else as the waiting taxes every fibre in your body, and now it had started to become more and more frequent and difficult to find opiates on a daily basis.

After a short time, our bodies started to go into withdrawal when no opiates could be located, and this wasn’t pleasant. This had started to bother me as obviously having to endure ever increasing periods of withdrawal was by no stretch enjoyable and I started thinking more and more frequently that there had to be something more than this. Also, our main connect had started to lose track of the picture, and had begun treating us with disrespect, and had begun to take us for granted. For the most part, Jim and I tried to buy these pills in bulk. There rarely were no more than maybe a half a dozen smaller purchases throughout the month. Now, one would thing that if one of his customers was buying 260 units monthly that perhaps he would be able to cut them a bit of a break, but sadly no. He charged us groups of ten – sometimes on the very rare occasion groups of twelve – which translated into 26 groups of ten units each, charged at $100 per group, which adds up to $2600 each and every month!

When I say that we were regulars, I truly mean that we were indeed that. I am in no way attempting to inflate our use, and in fact, am extremely ashamed and embarrassed even sharing this info, as it paints a pretty distasteful picture of what we allowed our addiction to become before we were finally able to put the breaks on it. Now for just over 24 months dealing with him, we never deviated far from this number. We almost always paid in advance, and always paid cash – no bartering or asking for them up front, etc. If we did have to request a front, it was rarely for more than a few days. Now, I get why he didn’t want to cut us too sweet a deal as he had begun to rely on our money each and every month. Who wouldn’t want to receive this amount, especially considering there was no work needed at all whatsoever in getting it? No hustling, no nickel and dime sales, less traffic coming and going to his house because he didn’t need a dozen or so more customers minimum to replace the two of us.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Filed under: ADDICTION, DEALER, DEPRESSION, DOPESICK, DRUGS, METHADONE, MONEY TROUBLES, PAST, PILLS, STRESS, WORK ]]> http://whydoanything.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/its-no-good/feed/ 0 easytiger2007 http://whydoanything.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/barrel-of-a-gun/ http://whydoanything.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/barrel-of-a-gun/#comments Mon, 31 Oct 2011 10:03:46 +0000 easytiger2007 http://whydoanything.wordpress.com/?p=860 ]]> The summer that my Mom and I ended up having our falling out certainly turned out to be a quite a bit more than a mere convenience for me as it turned out. While there had never been any question that we both had been heading down this path ever since my Dad passed away, I most definitely made the most of the opportunity when it presented itself to me and did nothing much to prevent its derailment. Even though we’d been at odds in the past over issues more serious than the one that I finally used as my excuse to sever our current relationship, by this point it didn’t matter. Definitely the proverbial straw for me, as there were a number of very legitimate reasons why we could not, nor should not, continue on with our current relationship as it stood.

At the same time, I knew that I was also motivated by the fact that there would now be one less potential distraction interfering with my current usage. By this time, I was having a difficult time balancing my active addiction with my work and social responsibilities, my family obligations, as well as dealing with the general day to day mundane stuff one tends to encounter as we drift through our lives . So with that stress gone for the time being, I was able to refocus more of my energies on what was becoming increasingly more and more important, and I don’t mean work. Ironically, about a month or so after my blowup with my Mom, I ended up receiving a temporary layoff  notice from my employer stating that I would be required, immediately, to take a leave from work of between 12 and up to a maximum of 16 weeks. At that time, I had been working for my employer, a software company, for a number of years. By the time I received this notice, our office had been reduced to a staff of just over twenty from a high of near a hundred and fifty employees less than a year prior. Even though I knew I was still a valued employee, I also recognized the financial duress the company was currently experiencing.

Plus, talk about timing. Bloody pathetic on my part, but reality none the less. One less distraction yet again. The writing was so on my wall and yet…

TO BE CONTINUED…

It would be a full two and a bit years after my Dad’s death before my Mom and I would actually have our falling out. Our relationship just seemed to get progressively worse over time. My Mother had always been a bit harsh although often I barely noticed as I had gotten used to her treatment over the years. Usually, it was only after someone else took the time to comment to me about it that I would give any serious thought to what I should do, at least that had been the pattern in the past. Once my Dad passed, I seemed to have become more sensitive to any of her criticisms, and increasingly found it near impossible to stand.

Over the years, my Mother and I have had, at best, a somewhat strained relationship, although for the past few years, we somehow were both able to put this to rest and have enjoyed what has very much felt like a normal and healthy one. To say this has been like a breath of fresh air does not even begin to do it any sort of justice. As this was something I had dreamt my entire adult life of having, I was careful to ensure I did nothing to jeopardize it, although I wouldn’t have just accepted it without question had I felt that there might be possible negative consequences. In fact, in order to reach the previously unattainable, I had had to completely severe absolutely all ties with my Mom for near two years. Drastic action begets dramatic results it would seem.

For the first time since I had been told that he had cancer back the previous June, I started to really feel stressed and overwhelmed. I often found it quite challenging trying to juggle a successful return to work while meeting my own immediate family’s needs – Sara was only twelve when all of this started and had yet to lose anyone close to her from death so…

For the first summer in many, many years, we’ve been finding ourselves rather busy, which, after a number of years drifting through each season on nothing more than auto pilot, its been a smidgen challenging adjusting to our newly hectic pace! Adjusting we’ve been doing and doing amazingly well might I say – translation means we’re still on MMT – Methadone Maintenance Treatment – doing exactly what is expected of us! Also, making progress as we are now both down to a daily dose of 12mg each. How’s that for success?

Jim’s only sister, Steph, who is a decade younger than us and has lived in Toronto for just as long got married this summer, and it was this wedding that the entire family had been tirelessly working towards for the past year and a half. OK, maybe this is a slight exaggeration but, to be sure, it has been the only thing that has managed to interest my Mother-In-Law in any way these past eighteen months. Before I give you any additional info, Jim’s Mother is from the Philippines who has lived in Canada just shy of forty years plus, her only daughter just had her 37th birthday and until three weeks ago had never been married – never mind the subject of children or grand children cause so farm, still no sign of them!

Now in all her 35 years, Steph had never once said that her only dream left to fulfill was to have the most amazingly extravagant dream wedding with all of the requisite trimmings and then the same once again and then again. She’d always led us to believe she was more than satisfied being committed and part of a long term relationship without having to put too much stock in the institution of marriage itself. Seemed to be working out pretty damn fine from where we were sitting so we just assumed, if it ain’t broke…

Obviously something fundamental had shifted for her so we left good enough alone and celebrated enthusiastically with her and her then fiance, Chad. Never mind that it has always been the female’s prerogative to change her mind, n’est pas? Perhaps, she wanted to give her Mother her last dream before it was too late – Norma is now close to 79 years. To say that the simple bit of hope she held tightly onto that one day her only daughter would be wed in a fairy tale wedding to end all would be a massive understatement at best. I can not possibly convey adequately what I really mean when I attempt to share this story with you all as it was simply that massive.

Ironically , when Steph’s big day did finally arrive, it turned out to be almost anticlimactic in the end. Still loads and loads of fun! It also didn’t hurt that their parents are vulgarly wealthy so whatever a lavish fairy tale wedding would normally set you back was nary an issue. For real, expense was really no object! I’m sure if either Jim or I managed to get our hands on the final tally, we’d near have heart failure.

The wedding actually turned out to be quite a magnificent affair, and considering how much work was actually involved in putting the whole thing together, it went off without a hitch! Quite a feat considering it was a three day event by the time all was said and done. The venue chosen for this affair was certainly like nothing Jim nor I had ever seen. The entire wedding weekend from the Wedding Rehearsal and dinner on the Friday evening up to and including the day after Sunday brunch was all looked after by The JW Marriott Rosseau Resort and Spa which is located on Lake Rousseau just outside of a tiny, tiny town called Minett, which is just a little north of Gravenhurst right in the middle of the Muskokas.

We lived large for those few days that’s for sure! His Mom and Dad had the penthouse suite which included a couple of bedrooms plus three full sized bathrooms! There was a massive kitchen and dining room and living room as well. We all met for breakfast each day  – about thirty in total each morning – staggering in anywhere from 9am til about 11am. Room Service seemed to be non-stop as a lovely plate of Eggs Benedict seemed to magically appear each time someone new walked in their door! You can’t imagine how utterly massive their suite was – I think one of the caterers said it was just over 1700 sq feet! Hello! Our original room was a one bedroom suite with a separate living room, dining area and kitchen as we were originally supposed to share with Sara and Andre but as they didn’t end up coming up for the weekend cause of her broken collarbone, we switched with Jim’s aunt and two cousins as their room was smaller than ours and we didn’t need all that extra space for just the two of us. Otherwise his Aunt would have had to sleep on the sofa bed while the other two slept in the King sized bed. The room we got in exchange was more than just fine.

I’ve got more photos but I thought for now that I would start with these few as they show the Resort and Spa beautifully…

TO BE CONTINUED…

After the first officer arrived on the scene, the paramedics and other support personnel were quick to follow. Everyone was wonderful to both Jim and myself. I would think that all of twenty-five minutes passed in total from the time that we knocked on the tenant’s door to the time that the ambulance pulled out of the parking lot. Once things started happening, they started moving rather quickly. I know that it was just before 6pm when the ambulance left with Jim. I had wanted to be on it with him so very badly, but the police managed to convince me that I would be better served remaining behind for the time being as it was important that I give my statement while everything was fresh in my mind. In the end. they were probably correct. Jim was taken into surgery immediately, and even if I had gone directly to the hospital, I still wouldn’t have been able to see him until he was out of surgery which turned out to be close to 1:30am Tuesday morning, or almost seven and a half hours after he left the apartment building in the ambulance. At least while I was giving my statement to the police, I didn’t have time to dwell on anything else!

It took almost two hours for the officer to take my statement, but then, I was able to remember quite clearly almost everything that had just happened. I’ve always had a pretty great memory and it certainly didn’t disappoint me this time. I don’t know how great my recollection would have been had they waited to take my statement, and now, in hindsight, I am glad that I didn’t have to test it. The officer was utterly fantastic, which was quite surprising considering how old, or young as it would be, he was. He couldn’t have been much more than twenty six, and by the initial look on his face when he had first arrived on the scene, hadn’t been exposed to too many gruesome sights as yet. I am a smoker, and he allowed me to smoke while I gave my statement – I had to sit in the back of his police car so I imagine that allowing anyone to smoke in there was fairly rare. He was patient as he took down all of the details. Midway through, I could hear quite a bit of excited chatter coming through his police radio. Suddenly, he stopped to pick up his radio and rapidly jumped out of the car, calling back to me that it looked like they had managed to get one of the three attackers. Even though he had rolled the window down for me earlier, there was no way for me to leave the car on my own as the back doors automatically lock. I could do nothing but wait for him to return.

About fifteen minutes after he had bounded away from the car, he returned all excited. Apparently, they had managed to capture one of the three not too far from our building. He had been hiding across the street behind another apartment building’s large green generator. The officer said that while he had somehow managed to change his clothing, he had forgotten to change his socks which were completely covered with Jim’s blood. I guess he resisted somewhat as the officer said that in the end he had to be hogtied! Imagine that. Once back, we picked up where we had left off. I managed to finish my statement just prior to 8pm. Even though the police had offered me a ride to the hospital, by then one of my friends had managed to show up so her boyfriend was able to give me a lift. In the meantime, Sara and Katie had gotten to the hospital and were waiting for me to get there. When I arrived, they told me that Jim was in surgery, his second one since he got there!

Initially, they had taken him into repair the two and a half inch gash on the right side of his throat as that had been the most obvious injury. It wasn’t until he was out of that surgery and upstairs getting an MRI – I believe this is what was done next – that they noticed he had an immense amount of internal bleeding. It was discovered that both his liver and spleen had been lacerated badly, plus one of his lungs had been punctured and since collapsed. It was this second surgery that ended up lasting the longest, and from reading his medical report which we had to request for our lawyer, I finally discovered just how very serious and how very touch and go, this had all been.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Although I had originally watched this eight part BBC2 series last year when TVO first presented it, I didn’t fully appreciate how wonderful it actually was until very recently when I happened to have another chance to watch it again. Diverse, classy and clever, Party Animals is an incredibly gripping drama series which follows several young political researchers and advisers in Westminster as they struggle to balance their burgeoning careers with their ever increasing turbulent personal lives.

 It certainly doesn’t hurt that it also just happens to star two of my absolutely favourite actors, Andrew Buchan(Scott Foster) and Matt Smith(Danny Foster), both of whom are starring in one of their first feature roles! They are utterly mesmerizing as is the main female lead, Shelly Conn(Ashika Chandiramani). Through each of them, we are given an intimate view of the political landscape through very different lenses. Danny is the determined researcher for Home Office Junior Minister Jo Porter and is about to make an enormous mistake which could possibly undermine his integrity not to mention his beloved job.

 His brother is the complete opposite. Scott is a confident, in fact near arrogant, lobbyist who finds his world literally is turned upside down when he meets the beautiful Ashika Chandiramani. She turns out to be like no female he has ever met. For the first time, he finds himself in uncharted territory becoming increasingly uncomfortable with his own person and embarrassed by the reputation he had acquired. Ashika is the chief adviser to Shadow Minister James Northcote  with who she is having an affair.

When she meets Scott, she has just started to question this relationship with a married man and finds the attention from Scott flattering and somewhat bemusing at the same time. She too finds herself in unknown waters yet is intrigued by the excitement she feels whenever she encounters Scott.

As the series progresses, the lives of these characters intertwine in monumental ways with some truly devastating and heartbreaking results. It is easy to see how their personal lives end up being so bloody messy when combined with their character’s naked ambition, desire for power, mixture of sex and friendship and love never-mind the daily stress of having a career in politics! It’s enough to leave the viewer dizzy and breathless and not a little frustrated.

If you are anything like me you will soon discover that the more Party Animals you watch, the more you’ll want to watch. As it is also a challenge to find, anyone having difficulties locating a copy is more than welcome to contact me as I’d be happy to help you out!

Andrew Buchan and Matt Smith as brothers Scott and Danny

Life of a Recovering Addict

peace, love and happiness…

I knocked fairly loudly on the unit’s door while announcing myself clearly at the same time. After a brief hesitation, the door opened to reveal a young, black male in his early twenties. When I asked to speak to the tenant, he advised me that she wasn’t home at the moment. I asked him if he knew why I might be here, and he answered that he did. He also told me that they were all getting ready to leave as they had just called to request a taxi to collect them. I thanked him for his time, and reminded him that it was the actions of himself and his friends that would reflect positively or negatively on the tenant as she was responsible for any of her guest’s behaviour, whether she was there herself or not. He apologized to me, promising that this would be the end of it. While I was talking to him, I took the time to survey as best I could the state of the unit. I noticed that a book shelf had been overturned, as well as the sofa and coffee table. This would explain the loud thumps I had previously heard to be sure. While I was only able to see two others while I was standing at their front door, I could not help but notice that both were most definitely under the influence of something. Regardless, there wasn’t much more that I could do so I thanked the young man that had answered the door and returned to my own apartment which was located on the main floor at the time of the attack.

By the time I got back to our apartment, it was close to twenty past five which meant for all intents and purposes we were finished work for the day. Jim and I were getting our jackets on when our phone rang. It was John from the sixth floor and all he said as way of introduction was “They’re at it again.” I asked him if he would call the police as they could only receive a complaint of this nature i.e. a noise complaint from another tenant and not the property’s owner or representative. He responded that he “couldn’t be bothered” but he still expected Jim or myself to do something about the situation, and to do this immediately! If it had been any other tenant, I most likely would have ignored the complaint but because it was from this particular tenant, I knew that if neither one of us responded that he would most definitely submit a complaint to our Regional Office regarding us. I also knew that he would be peeking through his own door waiting for one of us to return to the unit in question. With all of this in mind, I grabbed Jim to come upstairs with me figuring that as soon as we’d dealt with the complaint, we could be on our merry way to do some shopping at the mall!

If only we had managed to get that far. We both could hear a bit of noise as we stepped off of the elevator but nothing like I had heard earlier. This time Jim placed himself directly in front of the tenant’s door while I stood slightly off to his left. He knocked a few times with authority, but didn’t have a chance to announce who it was. We both heard the deadbolt and lock just prior to the door opening up. Literally the second that the door opened and without any sort of warning, a fairly large fellow jumped across the door’s threshold and pushed Jim extremely hard across the hall and against the door to the opposite unit. Our building has proper fire doors which are by nature extremely sturdy. When the back of his head hit that door, I could literally hear his skull cracking. It not only seemed like such a loud sound but the only sound. Jim was immediately knocked out and didn’t end up regaining consciuousness until the beating was near its end. In short order, two other pretty big fellows came running out of the apartment.

At one point, one of the three assailants took a moment to push me off to the side, otherwise all three of them were intent on savagely attacking Jim. It was utterly incomprehensible in so many ways. They all seemed to be following the lead of the first fellow to attack, and were mimicing everything that he was doing.  If he was pummeling Jim with his fists then so were the others. If he was jumping in the air and kicking Jim with his heavy boots, then so were the other two. It was deeply upsetting as I felt complete helpless and useless. I didn’t know what to do after my intial attempt at jumping on one of the attacker’s backsides, in the vain hope of distracting him, had been quickly and effortlessly stopped! From a great distance, I could hear my own voice screaming at them to stop, that they were killing my husband and that I didn’t understand why they were even doing this to us. My brain couldn’t seem to remember how to dial for emergency services although my fingers somehow managed to dial 911 all on their own. It wasn’t until I managed to barely hear a distant voice offering assistance that I even realized what I had done. The kept repeating that I needed to tell them where I was in order for them to send any assistance. Eventually I managed to get my cell phone to my mouth, and was coherent enough to obviously offer our address to them.

Probably the entire attack lasted all of two minutes, perhaps a bit longer though I honestly can’t say. Near the end of the attack a fourth fellow came out of the unit and actually attempted to help me and Jim. He tried to pull the others off of my husband in an attempt to get them to stop. When the attack first started, I was absolutely convinced that they were not going to stop until Jim was dead. That’s what it looked like to me. I had never witnessed anything so utterly savage and out of control as these three lads appeared to be to me. Then as suddenly as it all started, it seemed to end. I don’t know at what point the four of them made the decision to stop or even why they made this decision. All of a sudden they seemed to have taken flight, and just as quickly, were gone from my sight. I couldn’t even begin to tell you which direction they took or how they even managed to get off of the sixth floor. The moment that they were gone, the only thing that I could see was Jim, and the state that they had left him in. I couldn’t get over how much blood there was. It seemed to be everywhere. It was soaking through the carpet rapidly and there was so much of it, you could actually see where everyone had stood as footprints had been left behind. There seemed to be an equal amount of blood all over the door and wall behind Jim as well as all over both of us. We were covered.

At that point neither one of us was aware that a weapon had been used. I never say the knife and Jim said that he never felt it. It wasn’t until the first police officer had arrived on the scene that a weapon was even mentioned. He noticed something peculiar about Jim’s jacket and t-shirt – if you can believe it, Jim was actually wearing a red jacket and similarly colored t-shirt at the time of his attack !!! By this time Jim had regained consciousness but was having an extremely difficult time talking and breathing. We would later learn that this was a result of one of his lungs being punctured and subsequently collapsing at the scene of the attack. After closer examination, it looked like he had approx seven decent stab wounds on his left upper arm, five on his upper back, four throughout his head, six on various parts of his chest and one dangerous looking wound near his throat on his right side. They had managed to literally split his forhead in half. There was a constant stream of blood flowing from this wound. All in all, he did not look in very good shape.

TO BE CONTINUED!!!

At the time of the attack, Jim and I were Building Managers for one of the larger high rises in the city. The building we were responsible for looking after had always been a pretty quiet and peaceful one. In the half year that we had been there, there had been no unusual or significant events that stood out as particularly unusual. Pretty much a gravy job all in all. Jim and I shared a single position so to speak, and we divided our duties accordingly. For the most part, I did all of the administrative work related to this position such as rent collection, maintaining building’s rental ledger and ensuring all vacant units were in “rentable condition” et al while Jim looked after all of the physical aspects i.e. cleaning and maintaining all common areas of the building, garbage and snow removal and any unit repairs as required.

Obviously, being a Building Manager of a reasonably large apartment building – 96 units over eight stories – you can absolutely be assured that there will certainly be some very special moments, not to mention a stereotypically odd assortment of characters residing within these eight floors. Some days were definitely easier than others, as were some tenants, but all in all, we knew we had it pretty easy. The majority of the tenants were easy to get along with and undemanding at best. Everyone seemed to respect each other’s space so intervening in tenant disputes of any kind were practically non-existent. For the most part, I rarely found any of our tenants irritating or annoying, but like everything else in life, there will always be an exception to the rule!

The exception of our building just happened to be one of our sixth floor tenants who had lived in the building with his wife and two young sons about five years at the time of our attack. Where all of the other tenants were a joy to interact with, he was the complete opposite and then some. You could count on hearing from him on a daily basis, even on weekends and after hours which were normally supposed to be free of any work related issues, not to mention your time off and away from work! John, as he will be referred to from now on, would literally be waiting on the main floor for one of us to unlock our office bright and early every morning without fail. There was always some important nugget of information that he felt compelled to share with us without delay. It took every bit of self control not to over react and lose it on him. I don’t think I’ve counted to ten as often as I had during those six months. Jim and I eventually learned how to effectively deal with him so that we were able to minimize any interaction with him while leaving the impression that we were taking everything he said seriously and then acting appropriately. It took a bit of time and finesse but in the end we became extremely adept at handling this particularly loathsome tenant!

Now, to compound issues somewhat, the Regional Office of the company that we worked for just happened to be located in one of the empty units on the first floor of the building that Jim and I both lived in and were responsible for maintaining. As well as annoying us on a daily basis, he also paid a visit to the girls working in the Regional Office every day. You have no idea what an utter treat this one tenant could be, never mind how much crap we were expected to suffer because of him, but suffer we did. At the end of the day, he was nothing more than a bit player in the bigger, more important picture – or so I thought. Work is work is work, and most of the time, it didn’t come home with me – so to speak. Obviously, when you work where you live and live where you work, it tends to be a little bit more difficult to keep the two separate, but this is certainly not impossible. I always ensured that there were very specific boundaries created with the tenants, and then, made sure that they were all very much aware of what these boundaries were. John would prove a bit challenging to these boundaries, and ultimately, because of him, Jim and I would find ourselves in a most untenable work situation!

TO BE CONTINUED!!!

There is a bit more that I wanted to say, but I just noticed the time and I have to dash. Shall be back later on today!

peace, love and happiness…

Five years – half a decade – is a pretty significant amount of time so I suppose I should really take a moment. I remember that first day so very vividly especially seeing how it just happened to coincide with my first day in my new position at work! Not only was I returning, literally, to the land of the living after having spent near three years in semi seclusion working in the office from 7pm until 2am, but I was going to have to leave less than an hour after having arrived to make it to my first doctor’s appointment. At least I had more than enough time to prepare my superiors of this as I had been put on a wait list for MMT, and this wait was going to be just over five weeks!

Actually, was a damn near miracle that I even ended up showing considering the lengthy wait to start treatment. Its a wonder any addicts manage to start treatment at all sometimes. The way that this particular aspect of addiction treatment  is handled has always been one of my complaints with the system. I find that as it has been my experience that once an addict decides to seek any form of treatment, having to turn them away to start at a later date generally ensures nothing but failure. Normally by their start date, something else has usually distracted the addict and they are nowhere to be found.

Ironically, when I had gone to my initial appointment, I wasn’t really planning on starting any sort of treatment. A friend wanted me to accompany her to her appointment and while I was there with her, the attending nurse convinced me to have my blood work  and physical done just in case. Obviously in hindsight, I am glad that I did go through the motions. Starting MMT was exactly what I desperately needed in the end and through a series of related plus unrelated events over this five week wait, I did manage to show up that Monday morning at the clinic bright and early, hoping and praying for change.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Filed under: CREATIVE, DAUGHTER, SARA ]]> http://whydoanything.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/sara/feed/ 1 easytiger2007 sara.001 sara.005 sara_creativeshoot_03a sara_creativeshoot_01_02 sara_creativeshoot_02g sara_creativeshoot_03ee sara_creativeshoot_03l http://whydoanything.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/im-pretty-sure-my-cats-reading-my-diary/ http://whydoanything.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/im-pretty-sure-my-cats-reading-my-diary/#comments Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:37:58 +0000 easytiger2007 https://whydoanything.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/im-pretty-sure-my-cats-reading-my-diary/ ]]> “I thought [adultery] meant being stupid. Like being a dolt.”

“If we lose, we should throw possums.”

”I was pretty sure Dr. Pepper was a dentist.”

“So, Hairography. It works best when you pretend like you’re getting tasered. It’s like cool epilepsy. “

“Did you know that dolphins are just gay sharks?”

“People think I went on vacation, but actually I spent all summer lost in the sewers.”

“Mr. Schue taught me the second half of the alphabet. I stopped after M and N. I thought they sounded too similar and got frustrated.”

“Finn can fly?”

“I did a book report on heart attacks if you want to give it to the doctor. I got knocked down an entire letter grade because it was written in crayon.”

“Is God an evil dwarf?”

AND MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE BRITTANY QUOTE SO FAR:

“Just like I know that the cricket that reads to me at night is totally stealing my jewelery.”

Although, I am somewhat reluctant to call ourselves victors, we did receive word about two weeks ago that our employer had decided to settle this matter now rather than take the next step which would have been a proper hearing initially scheduled for June 2011. Thank goodness we didn’t have to wait another eight months to have our day and say in court, although we were fully prepared to go the distance if that’s what it ended up taking. Whew.

We had been hoping that they’d end up settling after what had happened during our initial meeting with the Judge from Small Claims, although we half expected them to dig in their heels even though they were so in the wrong in this case. Have to admit, though, that our initial mediation hearing almost ended up disastrously for us. Their Statement of Defense was riddled throughout with outright lies although they didn’t remotely seem to care – in the end the burden of proof would have ultimately been up to us and until this mediation they had been very cavalier about the whole thing arrogantly thinking we had nothing – they were so wrong.

We ended up being very lucky with the Judge we happened to draw for that initial mediation as the courts only allocated a half an hour of time to hear both of the sides. Our employer initially took the lead as the first words out of the Judge’s mouth to us were how frivolous our claim appeared to be with no apparent merit. Jim and I looked at each other in near panic and despair. WTF?

Thank heavens we had legal representation not to mention that Jim managed to quickly pick up on the fact that their lawyer had been presenting this matter as some sort of landlord tenant issue when in fact it was nothing of the sort. When it dawned on Jim what they were doing he instinctively blurted out his disgust and after we all recovered from our initial shock, you could actually see the Judge’s whole demeanour completely change. By the end of those thirty minutes, he had been completely won over to our side – mostly because we had a very legitimate and valid complaint against our employer. Whew!

Even after their legal representative was duly chastised by the Judge for his and the company’s appalling behaviour in light of the seriousness of our injuries while performing our normal job duties, he was incapable of making a counter offer to us that day. We had been prepared to settle for half of our original claim if we could wrap it up then and there. The Judge gave 30 days for their response to our offer and strongly suggested that the matter should really be settled then and there as if we proceeded to court, he felt they didn’t have a hope of winning even if we failed to come up with an ounce of proof of our claim. He said we’d win on the sympathy vote alone! Of course, they managed to wait the full thirty days before they responded to our offer.

We still haven’t received payment yet although we signed the paperwork 12 days ago – I guess they have 14 days to issue the cheque from that date. We never imagined we were going to get it any earlier than this anyway – certainly not based on their previous treatment! Still, it will be nice to have that bit of extra money as we enter the Christmas season that’s for sure, so regardless of when it arrives, I’ll certainly be happy!

peace, love and happiness…

P.S. I am now down to a daily dose of 22mg methadone. How cool is that? No ill effects either!

Seems like an eternity since we went on any sort of vacation, and it most likely has been that long! So many things conspiring against us in years past, but now, it would seem, we’ve got none! Feels bloody fantastic also. We’re actually only going on a few days getaway, but right now, even that sounds like a slice of paradise.

Jim really wanted to go to the local boat show last year and the year before that, and for whatever reason, we missed both of them and never ended up getting to go. Not this year. In fact, we’ve decided that we’d rather go to the upcoming Toronto International Boat Show which is being held from January 8 to 16, 2011 at the Direct Energy Center. Its been over a decade since we last went so we’re pretty excited. When we were first talking about going to it, we’d thought we’d go up one of the Saturdays or Sundays and come home the same day.

While I was looking up the event information, I noticed that they had a two day pass available which would only cost an additional $8 more than the normal admission price of $17. I then remembered how crazy crowded these weekends tended to be for this event – crushed in like sardines and then some! I wasn’t all that keen on these crowds way back then when I was a whole lot younger, so I imagine I wouldn’t be any fonder of them now!  Plus, after all that has happened to us these past couple of years, there was a great potential that this overcrowding could turn into an issue for either one of us, or even both. Conundrum!!

I thought that the best thing for us would be to avoid the weekends entirely, and consider attending the event midweek. Certainly the crowds would still be there, but if we spread the event out over a couple of days, we’d be able to leisurely stroll through the site rather than try to cram it all into a much smaller amount of time. Plus, during the week, the event closed 2hrs later than it did on Sundays and one hour later than Saturdays. Brilliant. 

Now, that was the easy part. We’ve decided to go to Toronto from Tuesday, January 11 to Thursday, January 13, and will be taking the train there and back. I think I’ve also managed to finally settle on where we’ll be staying.This was by far, the hardest part as there are so many hotels in the downtown area of Toronto alone, never mind within a 15km radius of the event’s location! After spending hours and hours at hotels.ca and expedia.ca and Travelocity, I know where we’ll be staying.

It’s kind of funny but the hotel I ended up going with is one that I used to stay at years ago whenever I was in Toronto for business – the company I worked for  had a corporate account with them so that is where they sent their employees whenever one was in TO. Even after I left this company, I used to be able to get their corporate rate whenever I stayed there when I was in Toronto, but this perk has long since disappeared now – the hotel is no longer owned by their original owners either. No worries.

The Toronto hotel is now owned by Metropolitan Hotels which is a collection of independent luxury Canadian hotels. I can’t wait cause I decided to go all out so we are getting one of their one bedroom suites which has a King size bed in the bedroom area, and a double sofa bed in the separate sitting area. There are two full bathrooms as well as in room coffee/tea and high speed internet and wireless access. The suite measures 460 square feet with the total cost for the two nights only $445.00 (taxes et al included).