“Woke up surrounded by paramedics.  I’m not sure if this was the beginning or the ending of the worst/ month miserable years of my life …. or just another day.”  

 I was brought to the hospital (QEH) on February 2 of this year, after my parents, on a chance / random visit, found me unconscious in my bed and were unable to wake me. At the time, I would have preferred that they left me to die. Death seemed, in my twisted thinking, to be the only answer to my problems. But it was not to be.

AI-generated reconstruction based on Reggie’s story; not a photograph of the actual medical event.

A week was spent in Ward 9 where I was taken off the drugs which led to my despair – cocaine, heroin, alcohol, valium, seconal, methadone, morphine, dilaudid, Demerol, codeine, percocet, fiorinal, xanax, secat, halidid, and all the others that don’t come to mind at the moment. Seven miserable days spent there and then I was sent to the detox in Ch’town, where I spent 14 miserable days.

I felt unable to deal with the pain and suffering I was going through and escaped from this place on two occasions, only to be taken back by police or family on both occasions (many stories to tell but remember – condensed version). Following this I was sent to Souris detox for 10 days (miserable, of course), where I was able to retain my sanity only (mostly) with the support and companionship of fellow patients, especially Alice B. who plays a large part in my story (sorry – condensed version).

Souris is my hometown, the place of my birth, where my life was shaped (?). At the time of my story in Souris, my mother and father were in San Francisco visiting my brother Mike (oldest of 3), an engineer (I fill the position of black sheep within the family). 

[Reggie survived the overdose, but getting the drugs out of his system did not resolve the problems that had brought him to this point. What followed was an equally serious struggle with depression, treatment and repeated attempts to remain sober.]