A family tragedy ultimately saved my life

Five years ago, a dangerous man sent my father to the curb outside a family Christmas party. Blood streamed down his forehead as I screamed into the winter night, and soon I would suffer the same fate. This violence – inflicted by a stranger – will become my unexpected salvation.

In December 2019, I went home for vacation. Before leaving, I called my parents and told them I wanted a quiet stay. I was at my lowest point, suffering from severe depression while switching from Cipralex to Wellbutrin. Rock Bottom had a basement full of empty beer cans, and I slept on the cold, hard floor.

I wanted to keep drug use to a minimum. I was hanging on by a thread, desperate for quiet, healthy, relaxing time with my loved ones. I didn’t want to spend any of my Christmas celebrations, as I had often done before, drinking too much and taking drugs.

Substance abuse is a love language for wounded families. It was the way I communicated, shared space, and made memories. Trauma often masquerades as imitation. There were rituals associated with my immersion in the material. It helped me bridge the gap between the loud silence of what wasn’t said. Many mornings, as a child, I would wade through passed out bodies and empty cans to use the bathroom or grab a snack after a night of family parties. But I’m not shocked. I remember those times with warmth.

When I was a teenager, things were different. She began experimenting with drugs and alcohol to deal with childhood trauma caused by sexual violence. My struggle with these substances was not because I needed them all the time, but because I couldn’t stop once I started consuming them. I have no impulse control. If I was offered something, for most of my life, it was almost impossible for me to say no.

This Christmas, I wanted drugs to be out of sight and out of mind. It’s okay if you drink, but just a little. I wanted to laugh and remember a warm home-cooked meal. I wanted to celebrate with A Lord of the Rings Marathon or Mario Party game. I wanted a fun and carefree event. But unfortunately, for me, when it comes to drug use, everything is fine until suddenly it’s not.

I know the story so well it has been played over and over in my adult life. She tried to escape drugs, only to trade them for alcohol. On countless weekend mornings, 4,000 kilometers away from Vancouver, I would wake up after a night out feeling “ashamed” — the paralyzing dread that I had said or done something embarrassing, or worse, something not Forgivable. Often times I had.

In 2018, I joined a 10-week harm reduction program for LGBTQ+ youth and tried desperately to control my alcohol intake. While accidents are becoming less frequent, they still happen. I would wake up after passing out with no memory of the previous night’s events, only to discover that I had said or done something embarrassing. People were angry or frustrated with me. I’ll pity myself and start drinking again.

On Christmas Eve 2019, we were invited to a relative’s house. Things were eerily normal, and quiet. It was the calm before the storm. I poured myself a deep glass of red wine and dove headfirst into the nonsense. I made the rounds, saying hello to all my cousins, aunts, uncles, friends and partners in the game of musical small talk. The Blue Moon event started off well with the odd hug and “How’s the Big Smoke in the East?”

I was surprised to see some of the attendees drinking water from wine glasses and found that I was enjoying myself too. My father suggested leaving early, but I insisted on staying. He instinctively knows when it’s time to leave, but my eagerness to indulge has won him over. He was right. We should have left.

At that moment in the night, I realized that there were people I didn’t know around me. One in particular was known for trouble. Things escalated quickly as the night fell. As people became louder and louder, tensions rose, and suddenly a quarrel broke out.

I was mid-conversation when everything took a sudden turn. I heard screaming and yelling outside. I hurried toward the front door, and my heart sank when I saw my father sitting on the stairs. Blood was streaming down his face from an open wound on his forehead.

He tried to intervene in the confrontation, but fell face-first to the pavement.

The sight of my seriously injured father made me hysterical, as I was last year in Toronto when he had a heart attack and nearly died.

The chaos spread to the front yard. The dangerous man and his entourage were at the end of the corridor. People tried to stop me as I screamed and rushed towards them. Before I could get any closer, the man extended his massive arm and, with one fell swoop, drove me face-first into the concrete.

It’s hard to say what happened next. Before the police arrived, people had fled. I remember screaming at the cops to do something, and then being taken to my parents’ house in the back of a ship with no shoes on. My brother was also injured in the fight. That night marked my lowest point and the beginning of my recovery.

I haven’t had a drink since.

It’s a strange feeling when someone else’s painful influence sparks in you the desire to do better. The next morning, when I woke up, a disturbing thought crossed my mind. I knew for sure that if I didn’t stop drinking, I would die, either in a tragic accident or at my own hands. I had to love myself enough to change.