I’m now in Asheville, North Carolina. It’s a beautiful city nestled in the southern Appalachian Mountains. I’ve been here since November. I was here for a while the year before last but headed south to Sarasota when it started getting real cold. Spent about nine months in Sarasota. Back now in “Beer City.” There are more breweries here per capita than in any other city in the US. I’m sober now and have been for 86 days. The beer scene doesn’t trigger any thoughts of drinking, not anymore. I’ve been to a lot of different cities, but Asheville is the only one I’d like to someday settle in. If I ever settle anywhere.

I only have two people that I can say are true friends in Asheville. They listen to understand, not only to reply. Two wonderful people who I probably bug a little too often. Janet has a family and dogs (Kiwi & Huck) and Doug works downtown. They’re not related. So I get to go and bother Doug and Cory (his dog) anytime of the work week. I seldom get to have face time with Janet except on Facebook where I message her at least once a day to keep her up to date with my doings. If Doug’s not at work and Janet is busy at home, I basically have no one to confide in. That’s when journaling morphs into therapy.

Make a gratitude list when you’re feeling sad or depressed. Your whole outlook on life will improve. Don’t take my word for it; try it just once, and you’ll see for yourself.

Before you read about a week of my life, I need to preface it by telling you about the day I decided to quit drinking.

As I said, today marks 86 days sober. I’ve had absolutely no urges or cravings to drink. I’ve even gone to three bars while hanging out with friends. I did so because one of my friends said they thought they may have a drinking problem and said they wanted to talk to me about how I quit. The thought to drink never enters my mind. The thought of alcohol itself enters my mind on occasion. Alcohol is not the same substance I once considered it to be. It used to numb me to the world. I used it for escape and to anesthetize life. I thought of it as my best friend. It was always there to pick me up and take me away–only to slam me down later.

That’s where I was 87 days ago, slammed down harder than I’d ever been. I was walking around town about 5am on a cold, rainy, and dreary Sunday morning. I was jonesing for nicotine and walking the sidewalks to try and find a cigarette. I was starting to go through alcohol withdrawals, and I expected them to get much worse. While I was walking around starting to shake, chilling, sweating, nauseated, with a headache, and those damn racing thoughts, I notice a little black object sticking out from the bottom of a raised lamppost. I reached down and picked it up. It was a nice lock-blade knife. I was close to the courthouse, so there’s a 100 percent chance that someone going to court stashed it there so it wouldn’t be confiscated at the courthouse metal detector. They forgot to get it when the got out of court or maybe went directly to jail.

I picked it up and just stared at it. Stared at it way too long. When my eyes did leave the knife they shifted to my left wrist. My eyes then went from my wrist, to the knife, to my wrist to the knife… I realized I was going to have to make a decision. I had to decide to live or die. I couldn’t decide. I was in that much mental pain. The racing thoughts were just too much. I walked around for about an hour focusing on the pros and cons of life and death. Someone once said that suicide is not a choice, that it happens when the pain becomes greater than the resources to deal with it. I believe it wholeheartedly.

I eventually decided to reach out and get help. I’m so grateful now that I did. I went to the hospital and told them exactly what I was going through. They sent me to a detox/crisis center. I was there for a week. I was able to get an injection of Vivitrol before I was discharged. It’s an opioid blocker that has the side effects of stopping any elation (buzz) I would get by drinking and also decreases the craving for alcohol. So I had somewhat of a parachute when I left there. Each Vivitrol shot lasts 28 days. I thought that I should be able to build up a better support network in that time because I couldn’t keep getting the shot. Didn’t want to. That one shot was over $1,300. It was covered under some type of grant, so I wasn’t obligated for the cost.

I didn’t really expand my support network, I just strengthened the one I had. Something else I did was that I came to see alcohol in a whole new light. When that knife was in my hand, I wasn’t seeing the knife. I was looking Death in the eye. The full impact of alcohol usage had hit me head on.

Day One

I’m still sleeping rough (residentially challenged), so starting my day around 3 or 4 in the morning is the norm. I found some clean, dry cardboard and slept behind a church last night. The weather wasn’t too bad, cool but at least it was dry. I walked about a mile to the Harris Teeter grocery store (HT) for my coffee run. They have a small café area with microwave, coffee machine, little tables, and wi-fi. I buy Folgers instant single packs of coffee. I get seven for a dollar. I finally applied for and received my EBT card, so I have a little money to eat with – about $6 a day. Did you know a chicken salad sandwich is $5.99? Just one sandwich and I spend all I allot myself for the day. So I end up eating lots of oodles of noodles and canned beans.

I didn’t apply for a card right after my last one lapsed. You know why? Going to sign up at DSS would have cut into my drinking time. I swear that’s the truth. So I set up my little office at HT every morning. Coffee, computer, legal pad, earbuds, and wifi. I’m good to go.

After coffee this morning, I was walking toward town and noticed a guy asleep in the Parks and Recreation flower garden with traffic whizzing by on two sides of him. Maybe he wasn’t asleep. I know how this guy feels. I hope he is getting sleep. Total exhaustion will cause you to lay down anywhere, anytime. Better that than falling down. I get so little sleep. One time in Wilmington, I went without sleep for so long that I started hallucinating. Sleep deprivation cause can cause irritability, anxiety, depression, as well as higher cognitive thinking such as planning and judgment. It has even been known to cause death.

Just a bit further up the sidewalk I see this. This is what happens when you try to hide some of the things you just can’t carry all the time. People will be looking for a spot to hide their own clothes, run across yours, rifle through all your stuff, take what they want, and fling the rest to the dirt. Hell, probably the only thing they got was something like a tube of toothpaste and a stick of gum.

I saw two other similar piles of clothes strewn about like this on the same day. All three were women’s clothes. Not having a safe convenient place to store things makes a difficult situation even worse. In a few cities I’ve been to, occasionally a non-profit will have some storage for the homeless. There’s usually a waiting list to get something like a plastic clothes bin. If you are fortunate enough to get one, you will only have access to it at certain times on certain days, usually being able to access it once a day at the most. I would say that someone could get rich by opening a storage facility with only small lockers since there is such a great need for them in every city. It’ll never happen. Most homeless people don’t have money for the essentials of life, much less for anything else.

It’s about 5pm, and I’m sitting in the Edible Park. It has a boardwalk with fruit and nut trees and will have a vegetable and butterfly garden when it warms up. Anyone is welcome to help themselves to the foods growing here; you’re only asked not to take more than your share. I came here because it’s so peaceful and relaxing. I find the need to get away from people on a regular basis, the need to think without interruption. The stairwell in the Edible Park reminds me of my journey, uphill and steep with few places to pause. Whatever is at the top has yet to be seen.

Day Two

Slept behind a church downtown last night. I never know where I’ll end up sleeping. Walked to HT for my usual routine of coffee and tried to make some kind of plan for the night. The weather is supposed to be right around 32 degrees tonight. Thirty-two degrees and below and the Veteran’s Restoration Quarters may declare the weather code “Purple” at which point they allow veteran and civilian homeless people to come inside, have dinner, and sleep on the floor in an area between the dining hall and the stage. The VRQ was once a motel on Tunnel Road that was purchased by Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry to help and house our veterans. There are some great people living and working there. All they ask for is respect. The veterans deserve respect and much more for putting their lives on the line for this country and our freedoms.

Walking around and wondering what I’m going to do to weather the cold tonight. I have no stand-by place that’s warm where I can go. I’ll call VRQ and see if it’s going to be code purple. I called around 3pm, and the person who answered the phone said they had not received any word yet about the code determination. More anxiety about the coming night. I’m already cold, and the sun hasn’t even set yet.

It’s about 5 now, and instead of calling, I emailed the VRQ hoping for two things: 1) that someone is in the office, 2) that they say code purple is on. I explained in the email that I had called earlier and was told a determination had not been made. I also explained that the temperatures were supposed to hover around 32 degrees around 5am and sincerely told him that I was not equipped to handle temps in the lower 30’s. I got a reply in 17 minutes. They told me to come on out, and that VRQ would have a bed for me. I’m so grateful that people care. I wish better for the ones that don’t. Whew! What a load off my mind. I would get something to eat, sleep, and shower. All three were overdue. It turns out that they did NOT call code purple. It turned out they had a bed for an overnighter.

Day Three

After having a hot breakfast of eggs, bacon, and grits, I decided to make a call to Swain Recovery in Black Mountain. They have a 42-day residential program that will allow me to focus on my addiction and mental health issues without incurring all the stressors that come with life—especially with life on the streets. I need help merging with the sober world and society as a whole. It has been a long time since I’ve done so. I feel like I don’t fit. I don’t even know if fit is a good word. It’s like I want to make plans for the future, but how can I do that when I don’t even know where I’ll sleep each night? Swain may give me the time and guidance I need to take the first steps into LIFE.

I called and got a phone tree that wanted my name and number so they could call me back. I was calling from the VRQ house phone, so it was not possible to leave a number. I don’t have a phone and haven’t had one for a long time. I’ll try calling from somewhere else.

Went to an AA meeting this night. My first one since I quit. I didn’t go because I was thinking about drinking. I went to try and find out what other drunks did if they had found themselves in my predicament. The meeting was small, about nine people. Finding an AA homegroup takes a while. You have to shop around. Not all are going to be a good fit. The same goes with getting a sponsor. I found out that it’s easy to take the first sponsor that offers to be one for you. That’s also a mistake. You have to get to know people first. There’s a lot I could say about my choosing a sponsor, but I’ll save that one for later.

Day Four

This day started as usual. Coffee and breakfast burrito at HT. I was there from 3 to 4 this morning. They close at 4 am so they can do the housekeeping thing. They reopen the café again at 6am.

I finished reading ‘Buddhism for Busy People’ a few weeks ago, and through the day I practice some of what I call mindful practices. When I do this, I relax a bit. My mind clears. I urge you to take a look at it. The book, not my mind. My mind would be clear, so you couldn’t see anything anyway.

Went out to C3 to get out of the cold. I’m getting to know a couple of the peer support specialists there. I try and observe their actions. In only six months, I will start the process of getting certified as a Peer Support Specialist myself. I have to send in the application for the training. It may take three months to be approved and get in the hours of training required by the State. So nine months from now, I could be employed in a job that really won’t be a job at all. I enjoy helping people. If I can help anyone, especially a young person, avoid the hell I went through for 30+ years, it will more fulfilling than any paycheck. But that paycheck will enable me to break this cycle of sleeping rough.

Day Five

Slept behind a retail store off Biltmore Ave. It was a pretty good spot–out of the wind and on clean, dry cardboard. There was some foot traffic through the nigh, but it was on the sidewalk about 100’ away. Went to HT for coffee then back to town.

At Harris Teeter saw an older gentleman was having difficulty getting up on a tall stool to sit at the half counter. I looked around and all the tables were full. I went over and asked him if he’d like to sit down at a table. He smiled big and said he would. I moved some of my “office” to the side and we sat and began a real chat.

I found out he’s 88 years young and used to do alcohol research in the 1960’s in New York. He asked about me, and I told him everything.

He told me of a story about a practice they used to do to drunks that shook me up…a lot. He said at one time the cops used to pick up drunks and take them to some sort of hospital/jail/asylum where they would be put in straight jackets and sometimes even had their tongues PINNED to the straight jacket. Supposedly to keep them from swallowing their tongues. He said he didn’t believe it, until he saw their tongues. We talked non-stop about alcohol addiction.

We’d been talking for awhile when I was residentially challenged. He asked me if he gave me a little something. I never told him I needed a thing or asked him for money. I told him I wouldn’t take money for asking him if he’d like to sit. He smiled and said he just wanted to help. He said, “It’s only twenty; I wish I had more to give you.”

We talked more and I got to meet his wife later.

What a beautiful morning and beautiful conversation between two complete strangers.

It started pouring rain, but luckily I had a small umbrella in my pack. I hate any extra weight in that appendage, but when it starts raining, an umbrella can be worth it’s weight in gold.

Went back out to C3 to talk to the peers. On my way down Biltmore, I got a picture of a shortcut path to the liquor store. Maybe some of the grass will start growing back on it, since I don’t use it anymore. The picture is very symbolic to me. In more ways than one, it’s a steep downhill path. A slippery slope even if it’s not muddy. And it seems like Mother Nature wanted to make it even more slippery by adding gumballs to the mix. That slippery slope can lead you to the bottom faster than you could imagine.

Day Six

I slept behind the author Thomas Wolfe’s childhood home last night under the portico. It usually is pretty quiet here. It’s one of my favorite places just to go and sit and write. After I got up, I went nearby to stash some belongings where I thought they might stay dry for a while. Rainy, windy, muddy, and I was wearing shoes with absolutely no tread on them. Of course I fell and busted my butt on a slight grade. Less than five minutes into the day, I’m cold, wet, muddy, and hurting. I can’t wait to see the technicolor bruises I’ll have shortly. Limped a mile up to HT for coffee and a breakfast burrito.

I checked the weather, and cold temps with high winds around 30 mph are predicted. That should mean the VRQ will declare code purple and allow us to come in for dinner and a warm place to sleep. Code Purple is not a statute or city code that can be enforced. Each individual shelter decides. I thank God they do open their doors.

Day Seven

Slept fitfully. My back and neck have been bothering me quite a bit. I think it’s a combination of osteoarthritis and the fact that I have this appendage on my back over 12 hours a day. When I do get some kind of housing that lasts more than one night at a time, my biggest gratitude will be that I can stop wearing that damn backpack all day. Some days, I have to eat a lot of Ibuprofen to keep the tears out of my eyes from the pain.

My friend Janet helped me by furnishing me with a phone. I would have gotten an ‘Obama’ phone, but I have no address for them to mail it to. When I tried to use the address of a local day shelter that the homeless can use to receive mail, they told me that the government phones can’t be shipped there. I asked why, and they said the government will only ship a certain number of phones to any one street address. I thought the phone program was for people who can’t afford them. Who is a better example of someone who can’t afford a phone than someone who doesn’t even have their own mailing address, much less an address? I asked if the phone could be sent General Delivery, Asheville, NC 28801. They said yes, but also said they weren’t sure. I asked how I would find out if it could be shipped general delivery. You already know how they replied, “You’ll have to call our Customer Service number.” I just shook my head and still do every time I think about that.

Tomorrow

There’s always a tomorrow. I don’t know what mine will hold. Uncertainty is always a pain, but looking at it from another perspective, it leaves all kinds of doors available. Some will open, and some will remain closed and locked. One day in the future, I’d like to become some sort of liaison between the homeless and others who may be able and want to help. A lot of people, businesses, and organizations either don’t know how to help, or even if they can. I’d like to clear that up for those who want to help but don’t know how apply their resources for best efficiency. Now that I’m sober, I don’t feel that I’ll be homeless much longer. Living homeless for so long has left indelible memories of changes that can be made. Changes that can help all people, not just the homeless. I will give back. I will never forget who I am and what I came from.

I am mindful. And Vince.

Vince Shumate