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Posts Tagged ‘addiction’

Day 6 – Nick

Posted in Something for others, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 6, 2011| 4 Comments »

Melinda met Nick while he panhandled at an exit ramp. (photo: Melinda T.)

Today I met a man named Nick.  Nick was standing near the exit ramp.  I felt drawn to give the $10 to him so I parked nearby and walked across the way.

Nick has been on and off the streets for a year now.  Nick was extremely skeptical to speak with me at first because he thought I was with the police and quickly pulled out his panhandlers permit to show it to me.  Perhaps I was just as skeptical as this was the first time I had ever approached a person standing on the streets panhandling.  I assured him I wasn’t with the police and he accepted that and then shared his life with me.

At the beginning of the video you see a quick shot of an ID.  This is Nicks ID showing that he is homeless, I never knew there was such an ID available.  He shared with me the views of inside the homeless shelter where he has spent a few nights and said the conditions there are awful and not a place for anyone to be but it keeps him out of the elements.  He invited me to take a visit with him to the homeless shelter however I declined that offer.

Nick said today was his first day out on the streets and he was there trying to collect money so he could purchase Christmas gifts for his children.  He was addicted to pain pills at one point and his life had went downhill since then.  He’s currently not addicted to anything and is trying to get his life back on track by getting a job so he can pay for a place to live and not have to sleep at the homeless shelter or jump from home to home sleeping on people’s couches.

I would have liked to speak with Nick a bit longer but the temperatures today were extremely cold and the wind we were encountering didn’t help.

-Melinda T. from Xenia, OH

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Day 293 – Dan D.

Posted in Donation, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on October 19, 2010| 3 Comments »

U.S. Cellular Field

I recently had to travel to Chicago for some work related meetings.  I got some emails this morning from readers who read my post that today’s blog post was from Chicago and they thought Oprah had me on her show.  Nope, not the case.  I was there for some work related meetings.  My original plan was to arrive Sunday evening and return home Tuesday late afternoon.  You know how ticket prices can be and it turned out to be a lot cheaper to fly in Sunday morning.  Since I had all day to spend there I decided to find something to do.  As you might be able to tell from some of my posts I am a bit of a baseball fan and love seeing a game at the ball park.  I checked to see if either the Cubs or the White Sox where in town and sure enough the White Sox were playing their last game of the season.   

The White Sox would go on to beat Cleveland 6-3. (photo: Reed)

I got into O’Hare, took the subway downtown, dropped my luggage off at the hotel and headed over to U.S. Cellular Field.  I got there and followed the crowd over to the stadium.  A scalper approached me with some tickets for $40.  I told him that I only wanted to spend like $10 on tickets and he explained that the tickets he was selling were lower level good seats between third base and left field and he couldn’t sell them for that.  In the end he sold me the ticket for $15.  I spent another $5 on a White Sox cap (I buy a hat at every stadium I visit, I have 10 different ones now) and headed inside. 

The ball park is beautiful.  It was built in 1991 to replace the legendary Comiskey Park which dated back to 1910.  Comiskey was the oldest baseball park in use up until 1991; a title now owned by the Red Sox’s Fenway Park which I have also visited. 

Dan has been a White Sox fan for as long as he can remember. (photo: Reed)

I grabbed a bratwurst and a beer and went to find my seat.  Although decent, I was more impressed with the seat location and the stadium than the brat.  As I sat down the guy next to me asked if I had bought my ticket from a scalper outside.  I told him I had and we had fun comparing notes from our negotiating experience.  I think Dan paid $20 or $25, I can’t remember.  Two other guys showed up later who had paid $40 for the last two remaining tickets the guy was selling.

Dan and I posed for a photo on top of the White Sox dugout after the game.

Dan was very sociable at the park.  He’s the kind of guy that by the end of the game knows the people in front of him, in back of him and on both sides…and maybe even a vendor or an usher.  He shared a lot of information with me about the White Sox and the stadium.  It was nice to have my own personal guide!

I offered Dan my $10 and he accepted it.  This was the farthest west in the US that I have given away my $10 so far.  Dan works on the trading floor at the Chicago Exchange.  He is a big White Sox fan and comes to about 25-30 games a year.  He says he hasn’t been to a Cubs game since the Reagan administration.  “This here is for real baseball fans,” he says gazing around the stadium, “and the 2005 season was amazing!”  I noticed he was wearing a 2005 White Sox World Champion hat.  He missed most of the series though due to a trip down to the Caribbean island of Saba.  He also recalls the tie-breaker game in 2008 (also called the “Black Out” game on September 30th between the White Sox and the Minnesota Twins.)  “I was sitting high up over there behind home plate,” he says cocking his neck around and pointing to the top of the upper deck.  “This place went crazy when Jim Thome hit a homer in the 9th inning to win the game!”  It was Thome’s 541st home run and if you want to get an idea of how crazy things were at the ball park that evening, check out this link.  You can see how crowded it was and they show the home run and crowd reaction.  Simply beautiful.

Final scoreboard message (Photo: Reed)

I went to grab another beer and offered to get Dan one.  He told me that he didn’t drink.  “I stopped drinking on December 24, 1998 – It’ll be 12 years this December.”  I congratulated him on his sobriety and told him a little bit about some of the other people I had met through my year-long journey who are now sober (Bob and Michelle).  Dan continues to go to AA meetings and said that he was going to donate his $10 to his meeting group so that they can buy coffee, etc. for the meetings.

I asked him about family.  He is single now although he does have children he doesn’t have a relationship with them.  “That’s all part of why I went to AA,” he said.  Although he didn’t think there was a chance to rebuild that relationship I hope that some day he is able to be involved in their lives in some capacity.  

Photo: Reed

After the game Dan and I went down near the dugout to see if any players were coming out.  I took some more photos down there and then we decided to leave.  We walked back all the way to the subway together.  We were both going the same direction, however I was getting off before him.  He was a really nice guy and I hope to stay in touch with him.  We traded emails and said our goodbyes.  He told me to go to Al’s Beef on Taylor Street for the best sandwich in town or if I wanted pizza to check out Malnati’s.  I unfortunately didn’t make it to either one.  Next time.

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Day 251 – Bob G.

Posted in Rent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2010| 7 Comments »

I invited Bob to a coffee at a nearby coffee shop so Bob could sit down and rest his back. (photo: Reed)

I originally walked right by Bob who was holding himself up by leaning against a telephone pole and supporting the rest of his weight with a walker at the corner of Connecticut Avenue and R Street. I crossed the street but couldn’t stop thinking about what his story was. I turned around and went back and placed ten dollars in his hand.

“I’ve got a bad lower back which is inoperable,” Bob shared. “I fell down a flight of stairs in 1977…each year it gets worse.” There was something special about Bob, although at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. When I first walked by him I assumed that he was panhandling to get some money to buy booze. But I would soon find out that that couldn’t be further from the truth as he’s been sober for nearly 25 years.

Part of me doesn’t want to write anymore and just tell you to watch the video I shot of him. It’s one of the most moving videos I have filmed of all of the people that I have met. Bob opens up to me about being adopted, an upbringing void of love, 30 years of addiction to alcohol and a slew of drugs, family hardships, and 20 nervous breakdowns. His vulnerability and genuine candor will move you. I have watched this video probably a dozen times and forced my dad to watch it this weekend. He too was in awe.

Bob tells me that he has good days and bad days. Sometimes he spends weeks at a time in a depressed state. I definitely caught Bob on a good day. No less than six people stopped by, I kid you not, and said hello to Bob while we chatted. Two or three of them made a specific comment about how happy he looked. I’d like to think I was a part of that, but he might just have been having a good day. If you were curious how many people stopped to say hello to the guy who gives away $10 every day…that number would be zero!

Ruth is Bob’s birth mother. Ann was the mother who raised him. Bob would like to know what happened to his birth mother Ruth Lucas (photo: Reed)He goes into a lot of detail about drug induced binges he embarked on in the 60s and 70s.  “I just wanted to drink, shoot dope and have a little sex occasionally,” he told one psychologist in the early days of his recovery attempts.  After dozens of failed attempts at sobriety he finally succeeded with the help of others and will be celebrating 24 years of sobriety on October 16th of this year.  I asked him if I could see him on that day and he said that that would probably be OK.  “So what’s the secret to finally beating the addiction,” I asked.  Bob looked down for a second and then looked up and said, “Well, you just have to do two simple things: stop drinking and change your whole fucking life!”  He managed a smile and laughed softly despite him realizing the bitter and all too familiar truth of what he had just said.

At one point a stunningly beautiful young woman stopped by and said hello to Bob. “Are you going to play piano tonight?” she asked referring to an open mic session at an outreach ministry-based coffee-house.  She had hoped that maybe he would play some music that she was going to bring but Bob said he didn’t feel comfortable doing that. “I just know a few notes,” he humbly offered.  “I was hoping to play a song tonight that I wrote. It’s a love song I wrote to my daughter. I love her so much.” He went on to tell me more about his daughter and it was so clear how much he loves and cares for her. He lives in the basement of her house but their relationship is clearly strained. He says that she has an alcohol addiction. “There is always hope, look at me.  It took me 30 years though.”

I spent almost two hours with Bob. I learned so much and every topic we spoke about he had something interesting to contribute. I am so impressed with his overall attitude toward life. “Desire nothing and you will have everything,” he says referencing the teachings of St. John of the Cross. “Buddha said something similar, ‘Human desires are the cause of all human sufferings.’”

I caught a rare smile. Bob will use my $10 to help pay his rent. (photo: Reed)

I hope that you take the time to watch the video above. It’s worth it and if you know anyone who is struggling with an addiction or even well into recovery, I think they will find it very insightful. One thing he says about recovery at the end of the video that I think is priceless is, “It takes time and a lot of alcoholics don’t want to wait. It takes time, it’s a process, recovery is a process. They want what they want when they want it. They want it right now. They want 15 years of recovery in a month. It doesn’t work that way.  You got to be patient.”

As we said goodbye he left me with a single thought. “Tell someone today that you love them.”  Invaluable advice.

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Day 175 – Michael G.

Posted in Donation, Refusals, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2010| 1 Comment »

On my first day back in the US after my trip to Colombia I wandered around my neighborhood looking for a recipient.  I ran into Leonel from Day 56.  He was at Books-A-Million.  He said he was doing well and we agreed to try to meet up that Saturday to watch Team USA play in the World Cup.

I walked over to the Starbucks at Dupont Circle and found a few people sitting outside enjoying the nice weather.  The first man I approached refused to participate and even refused to receive my card.  I walked to another man outside and he shook his head and said no.  He was from Cuba and spoke to me for a minute or two but said he wasn’t interested in participating.  He kept my card.

Feeling a bit rejected, I headed inside to see if my luck would change.  It was there that I found Michael sitting on a stool.  He seemed interested in what I was doing.  After a few minutes, a man came out of the restroom and Michael said, “Hey listen to what this guy is doing.”  I explained the Year of Giving again and his friend said that this sounded interesting.  They agreed that Michael would receive the $10.

“I have been crying all day today,” Michael shared with me.  I imagined the worse and suggested that we not do the interview.  “It’s ok, they were tears of joy!”  It turns out that Michael was celebrating 80 days of sobriety after a two-year roller coaster addiction to crystal meth.  On top of that his friend that was with him was celebrating one year free of the drug.  

Michael is in active recovery and attends daily meetings and has a sponsor.  “I am in a very good place today,” he says.  It’s a day-to-day process though he admits.  “I am focusing on how to stay clean.”  As we begin to talk, Michael’s friend chooses to go outside as it becomes difficult to hear the painful story.

Crystal Meth user (photo: crystalmethaddiction.org)

His addiction started by trying it for the first time with a former lover.  “Meth is a huge problem for the gay community,” he tells me.  I can’t help but listen to Michael’s story without thinking back to Rob’s story from day 117 .  “I lost my job, my partner, my house, my dignity, my self-respect, and my self-esteem.”  A former 20 year alcoholic, Michael is familiar with addiction.  “Addicts are liars.  When I was using my immediate reaction was to lie about everything, even to myself.”  The situation got so bad that I decided to kill myself.  It took an intervention by an ex-partner and a family member that resulted in him going to a treatment center to save his life.

Given the sensitivity of his story, Michael preferred to stay anonymous and not have his picture taken.  He also didn’t want to offer his email address telling me “I will send you an email.”  Unfortunately I haven’t heard from him yet.

“I know exactly what I am going to do with this $10,” he says.  “I am going to donate it to Crystal Meth Anonymous”  According to the website, CMA is a free organization that brings together men and women who share their experience, strength and hope in order to help one another free themselves from their addictions to crystal meth.  Michael spoke very highly or the organization.

The support he receives has helped him stay sober.  He now has a job and is “starting to live again.”  He told me he used to think that he was the only one in his situation.  With the support of the group he now knows that his situation is not unique.

His friend came back and they shared a moment just smiling at one another.  He turned and looked at me and said, “This is the happiest day of my life and I got to share it with someone I love.”

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Day 162 – Arlen

Posted in Food & Beverage, tagged , , , , , , on June 1, 2010| 11 Comments »

I often get asked if I regret giving my $10 to anyone.  The question has always seemed foreign to me.  Sure, some encounters go better than others, but I don’t regret having met any of the people that I have come in contact with on my journey.  I find that even the people who I don’t feel a strong connection with teach me something.  Well, the person that I met last Tuesday comes the closest to being a regrettable experience. 

Lately I have noticed a woman sitting north of Dupont Circle at 1625 Connecticut Avenue during the day.  It’s very close to the Chipotle there.  Anyway, I have walked by this woman a couple of times now and haven’t had time to stop and speak with her.  But Tuesday I decided to introduce myself to Arlen.

The 29-year-old was dressed in an oversized sweatshirt sitting on some blankets with her legs tucked under her.  She looked like she had not showered in some time.  She had a considerable amount of somewhat long facial hair covering her face.  She sat almost motionless, staring out toward the street.  As I got closer she slowly moved her head to the right and up to look at me.  I crouched down in a baseball catcher’s position and introduced myself.  She took the ten dollars and slowly moved her head back center and looked downward and started to smile.

“Do you have a cigarette,” she responded in a slow hypnotic tone.  I explained that I didn’t smoke and she asked if I would go find her a cigarette.  I decided to try to speak to her a little more before I went on a scavenger hunt, but she seemed obsessed with finding a cigarette and managed to pull herself up and stagger over to some people and try to bum a cigarette off of them.  Although she seemed to be talking to them for a few minutes, she continued to another set of people where I imagine she posed the same question.  A few minutes later she returned with a lit cigarette and sat down.

She was so out of it that I thought I better cut to the chase and ask her what she was going to do with the $10.  She said she was going to buy food with it.  “Are you homeless,” I asked.  He head moved again slowly and her glassy eyes met mine “Now you’re being disrespectful!”

I apologized and explained that I was not trying to be disrespectful in any way but that I just wanted to understand her situation better.  “I make $10 a day and you ask shit like that,” she said.  I apologized again and said that I hoped my $10 would be of great help.  “Whatever, you’re a son of a bitch,” she snapped back. 

Although she seemed to obviously be completely drugged out of her mind, I could not control feeling offended by her behavior.  I responded back, “You say that you only make $10 all day long, I just gave you $10.  A thank you might be more in line than calling me a son of a bitch.”  She sighed and mumbled something under her breath.  We both sat there in silence for about 10 seconds until she got up and walked over to the people who had given her the cigarette.  I waited for her to come back for about five minutes but she didn’t even look back over toward me.  I decided to leave.

I try to focus on taking something positive away from this experience.  It’s hard to know what that is though.  She was not a likeable person although I know she was not in her right state of mind either.

So, do I regret giving Arlen my $10?  Not at all.  Do I wish it had went differently?  Absolutely.

Day 163 is the day I arrived in Manizales…so get ready for the Year of Giving to go international!  I give my first $10 away on an airplane too!

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Day 155 – Tommy B.

Posted in Bills, tagged , , , , , , on May 24, 2010| 5 Comments »

Good morning!  There is nothing I like more than waking up early on a Monday morning and getting a head start on things I need to get done!  A lot of people complain about Monday’s… I love’em!

So I’m considering putting together somewhat of an advisory board for my Year of Giving.  I believe that there are some interesting ways that the project can develop and hope to get some critical perspectives on it.  If anyone knows someone wickedly smart or creative who they think would be an asset to this thought process, please shoot me an email.

Last week I was meeting with Abby Strunk, the executive director at Street Sense.  As you know, I have enjoyed getting to know their vendors.  As it turns out, she was following the Year of Giving journey and reached out to me a few weeks back.  So we decided to meet up for coffee.  She has been with the paper for six months and seems to be driving the organization in the right direction.  I really believe in this organization and offered to help them out if there was anything I could do.  Coincidentally, as we were chatting, she pointed out a Street Sense vendor who was selling the paper just on the other side of the frosted glass of the Caribou Coffee shop we were at.  After our meeting, I walked over and gave my $10 to Tommy.

Photo: Reed

He is vendor # 003.  That’s right…he is the third vendor hired.  Tommy’s been selling Street Sense for about six years.  He credit’s his friend Jose for encouraging him to sell the paper.  At first Tommy didn’t think he would be good at it, but he proved himself wrong.  Having a job turned out to be one of the key elements in Tommy’s sobriety.  After years of drug and alcohol abuse, the 54-year-old father turned his life around seven years ago by getting sober.  He is currently homeless, but stays in a local shelter and is an active voice in housing issues for the homeless.

I found a link on Street Sense’s website that had a small write-up on Tommy.  I have copied a Q&A section that was part of the write-up that I thought you might find interesting.

What is your favorite kind of music?

Jazz, Korean and Jamaican music

What is your favorite food?

Steak with mashed potatoes and gravy

What is your favorite movie?

I like Batman and Spiderman but also like horror movies.

How did you become homeless?

I got myself into trouble doing stuff I wasn’t supposed to.

Were you ever homeless before?

Yes, about 20 years ago.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Tommy sees himself getting his drug counselors license and giving back to the community that helped him. He would also like to find a permanent residence.

Tommy never graduated from high school so now he is working on getting his GED.  He hopes that once he gets his degree that he can go on to be certified as a drug counselor for recovering addicts.  I think this would be a fantastic role for him.

He plans to use the $10 to pay bills.  Selling the Street Sense is a big part of Tommy’s life, but he still lacks the funds to secure private housing.  As he said in the interview excerpt above, he would really like to have his own place.  I asked Tommy how we could help him and he gave me a list of several things that he needed.

Here’s a short video from my chat with him.  You’re gonna like him!

Tommy can be found weekdays at either 11th/G, 13/G, or 14th/G and on Thursdays, Saturday, and Sunday at 29th/M.
 

Update July 7, 2010: Here is a little video from my first delivery of items for Tommy.  Thanks to all who continue to help Tommy out.  Be sure to check the Lend a Hand section for updated items that he needs.

Update June 26, 2011: Congratulations to Tommy who celebrated 8 years sober on May 27th!

Update December 4, 2012: I learned today hat Tommy died on November 18th. He was 56. He was battling some health issues, but I didn’t realize it had gotten that dire. He was a good man that I admired. I will miss him. I hopefully will get some more details tomorrow.

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Day 117 – Rob C.

Posted in Bills, tagged , , , , , , on April 16, 2010| 13 Comments »

Rob has to fold 40 napkins before leaving (Photo: Reed)On Saturday night I was eating at a downtown restaurant here in DC with some friends.  Our waiter was a 29-year-old guy named Rob.

I asked him if he had a few minutes that he could break away from his other tables.  He said he would come back in a little while and sure enough he did.  Rob took a seat at the table and I asked him what he does when he is not waiting tables and the answer I got shocked me quite a bit.

“I’m mostly just concentrating on being sober.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to take this.  Was it a joke, or was Rob serious.  I quickly deduced that he was indeed serious.  He shares with us that he got hooked on crystal meth for about nine months until one day he realized he hadn’t slept in days and was an absolute wreck.  “I wasn’t selling myself.  I wasn’t stealing, but I also knew that that was next…I was about to cross that line.” 

He went on to share something that he recently heard in rehabilitation, “The thing about addiction is that people continue these behaviors in spite of catastrophic consequences.”

Rob’s addiction perplexed him.  Neither of his parents were abusers of any kind of drug or alcohol, but he had a grandparent on each side with addiction issues.  Perhaps he has a genetic predisposition to it.

Rob agreed to talk to me on camera.  He talks about giving, the $10, about his struggle with substance abuse, and the future.

Rob later told me that he has not been sober for five months; rather he has been in treatment for five months and been sober for two months.  I told him that those details were less important in my mind as this is something he needs to work at day by day.  

I sometimes watch Intervention on A&E.  The one interventionist, Jeff VanVonderen, who has been sober for 25 year recently relapsed with his alcohol addiction.  So, it is a lifelong process and commitment.

I received the following note from Rob this week:

I have contemplated the fate of my $10.  Theoretically it will go towards debt, in particular the taxes I will file tomorrow.  But I’ve already spent $60 since I received it.  Did I use for cigarettes?  Paper towels and cookies from CVS? The Chinese food I ordered from O’Tasty? And every time I use my debit card, $1 is automatically transferred into my savings account.  Did any of those dollars come from the ten I got from you?  Then of course there’s June 15.  If I give away $10, might that be the very same $10 I got on day 117 of the Year of Giving?

I asked Rob if he needed anything that I cold list on the Lend a Hand section.  He explained that he really wanted to get back into modern dance and would really like to take some classes.  Financially that will be a challenge so if anyone would like to help Rob, he would love to receive a gift card for a dance studio that is Metro accessible, like Joy of Motion, Dance Place, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, or even Maryland Youth Ballet.  Maybe one of these dance studios would consider donating some classes for Rob as well.

Rob’s manager came over and gave him that look like, “you need to get back to work.”  I hope I didn’t get him in trouble.  We left, but I have thought about our conversation a lot since then and am really pulling for Rob to beat this addiction.

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