Clean and Sober - Living Guilt Free

Even though we live hundreds of miles apart—and the times that I've seen her in her short 13 years of life have been precious and few—I want my daughter to know that I love her unconditionally and instinctively.


I cannot regain any of the lost moments and special occasions that I've squandered, nor can I buy my way back into any of my children's lives through money, lawyers and family court decisions.


That would be an exercise in futility at this point.


And I also think it would do more harm than good.


However, thanks to Facebook I can maintain some second-hand contact and honestly tell them that I'm truly sorry.


AA taught me that 'Making Amends' is about being truly sober and having an honest willingness that includes ridding myself of the past—and being free of guilt.


I have lots of guilt.


The two boys are in their twenties now. And the one female is in her early teen years. So there's nearly 30 years of guilt built up.


To all three mothers, I owe you all an apology and a gesture of love and gratitude. And some also to my own mother.


I have been drug and alcohol free, clean and sober since June of 2017. My brain is taking a long time to thoroughly heal.


The pills did a real number on my mental health also..but at least my typing and writing skills have returned. (Smiles)


I still have my dream of one day writing and publishing a real book. Not just internet blogging, but something I can actually touch and feel. A hard copy. No idea yet what it will be about.


I will have Seventeen months of non-stop clean-living on Dec. 8.


At first, it was hell...sick and tired..withdrawal, guilt, remorse, self hatred...and wanting to commit suicide.


Now though, I've stopped poisoning myself with government controlled chemicals. And time does heal all things.


Sometimes I think, this feels too good to last. Usually, I've relapsed by now—but sobriety is starting to feel so good I want to stay this way.


Thanks to everyone on Facebook from Dartmouth, my former hometown, who is still following my progress on here.


I left AA, and today I am sober by finding an inner power; through mother nature, silence, looking within,and simply breathing in and out.


I will keep breathing.


Love you all.


Thanks for my life.


Garth William Macintosh.


November 27/2018 - 9:55 PM

Ramblings of an Alcoholic

I am an artist of self-destruction, suicidal sometimes, yet I am also a lover of life.

A student of  my life.

One who has learned from 50 + years of experiences, that, in the end, as in the beginning, win or lose, we are all cut from the same perishable cloth, and likewise, all destined to have the same meager possessions when we leave this world.

We all get a shiny slab of polished granite carefully placed above a manicured six foot hole in the ground. 

This is the extent of what I know for certain, the rest is like an unread novel. One that I will read once and then pass along.

So, that being said, why do so many of us focus our entire day on goals and financial gain?

As the greatest writer who ever lived, William Shakespeare, once stated so eloquently, and I will paraphrase, what comes between the date of our birth and the hour of our demise is known to no-one. At least not until it has been played out upon the stage of life. 

We think we have hope, but hope is a mistake, an illusion. Too smart for our own good, we go on kidding ourselves that we are living the good life, when in fact, we spend most days dreaming of an unattainable future.

I am a skeptic and a pessimist who dreams of one day writing pages and pages of terrific tales of war and peace, like Tolstoy, just not that famous.

In truth, I am an alcoholic and drug addict of the lowest form.

I have hurt hundreds of people with my words and my actions, and if I could indeed kill myself, I would do it in an instant. 

Unfortunately however, at age 56, I am alive and well, and sentenced to live out the rest of my life on a tiny peninsula located on the Southern tip of an eastern Canadian province. A final breath of fresh-salt-air in what has been nothing more than a life of depression and despair . 

I'm hoping that when the end does finally come, it will be swift and painless. Perhaps, in his famous ballad called 'The Gambler' the folk singer Kenny Rogers was right. The best that we can hope for is to die in our sleep.

Thanks for reading my weekly dark thoughts, My writing skills that were apparent to some, ten years ago, seem to be returning quickly. I may have once again found a voice and a desire to be real—and if my uneventful life is all I can muster to jot down at this moment, then so be it.

My drug and alcohol soaked brain is seeming to be finally repairing itself day by day. 

I will write more soon. The choice to read this depressing garbage is entirely yours.

~ Garth MacIntosh

Grand Canyon Prison Blues

In the late fall of the year 2000, while Autumn leaves were falling, I was separated from my wife.

Also, I was constantly drunk, popping Hillbilly Heroin or (Oxycodone) and hanging-out in the filthiest places, namely, Country Music Bars called "Whisky's" and " Little Nashville."

Late one chilly-night, drunk out of my skull, I got picked up staggering along in the middle of a street called Wyse Road in Dartmouth. Locked away for being intoxicated in a public place.

I guess I put up quite a fight before being battered and beaten by the city cops and thrown in the Drunk Tank. 

The next morning I woke up in a freezing-cold Halifax Jail cell and was told that I was not going anywhere except to the local court house.

I was charged with assaulting two police officers, and resisting arrest to which I pleaded guilty and was subsequently sentenced to one year at the old (torn down now) Sackville Correctional Center, located, or "tucked away" I should say, behind a forested area in the suburbs called Cobequid Road. 

I was friends with a beautiful young lady at the time, and when I called her from the Jail to tell her what had happened, and to ask if she would be there for me when I got out, she started singing a song that I'd never heard before, called "There is no Arizona."

And then she Laughs hysterically, and informs me to turn on the country music station, listen to the words of the song and I would have the answer to all my questions. 

Needless to say, but I will say it anyway, my beautiful mystery lady wouldn't accept anymore phone calls from me while I was locked-up.

And when I was released, she had moved. 

I haven't seen her since. 

Maybe she lives in Arizona. However, that place does not exist for me. I will never go there. 

No Painted Desert, no Sedona, no Grand Canyon, and certainly no Arizona.

Thanks for reading.

~ Outlaw Mann

Jamie O'neal- There is no Arizona. This song is for you know who you ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_vJcr3al48

My Opioid Overdose Diary

"He who is not busy being born is busy Dying" ~ Bob Dylan.



Last June, nearly a year ago, at age 55, I was given up for dead.

I  was at the Dartmouth General—tubes down my throat, intravenous, interstitial, etc. etc...my heart had stopped and subsequently had been jump-started again by the staff physicians.  My family were called.

And now, 11 months later, I feel reborn, clean and sober and willing to tell everyone who will listen, what works and what doesn't work.

The heart beat that nearly stopped for ever, goes on and on once more. I have also once again found my voice.

You see, it seems I had once again purposely overdosed by swallowing a handful of Opioids. The brand name doesn't matter, the content is all the same. Pain Killers, the illegal kind, in pill form. If that wasn't enough, I had quickly washed them down with 2 large bottles of Listerine Gold.

I then proceeded to calmly walk out of my apartment at 203, 3, Farthington Place.

I remember taking a long cool breath of crisp Dartmouth air before turning left onto Brule Street, and suddenly everything went Dark. Someone from a nearby Transition House saw me collapse and quickly called the Ambulance who were followed by Police.

I woke up in the most uncomfortable position, flat on my back, strapped to a rock-hard hospital bed. My father, Charles Sr., was sitting in a chair to my left. The 78 year old guy told me there and then that I was finished and he was finished. The bell had sounded. The 12th round was over and the self-hatred fight within me was now over for good. He politely said that 27 years of beating myself to a pulp in the twin Cities of Halifax and Dartmouth was long enough. I was going back to the place of my birth, located on the southern tip of the province of Nova Scotia,Canada.

This old man, my father, who had once contributed to some of my long ago pain, was now my savior. He gathered up what was left of me, placed me in the passenger seat of his Dodge Pick-up, and brought me back here—back to the tiny fishing Village of Lockeport.

I was busy dying back then, now I'm busy Living. It's early in my awakening—that I do realize. But my eyes are fully open. And even though I am not in that moment, there doesn't seem to be any mountains to climb in this one. So I will stay in this rather than that. I hope you understand my meaning here. It's important not to allow my thoughts to roam into a future that hasn't yet arrived.

I'm Grateful for what I've learned from the 27 years of creating my own private "Heaven and Hell." One which included Jails, Institutions, and AA meetings. Yet, I no longer want any part of that life..because even the life of being an AA member has its drawbacks, if one allows it.

For example, Love and Tolerance, although it is always preached in the rooms of AA, is seldom practiced. They also preached, but seldom practiced, that if one should trudge along on some invisible but omnipotent and powerful path, and listen closely to the token "Guru of the Month" who just happens to have years of questionable sobriety, and even more questionable credibility, you may, just may, stay sober.

In my case, I was too old and too tired and damaged to listen to anyone. Especially a load of Bill Wilson disciples (although they won't admit that) whose literature hadn't been updated in 80 years.

I knew that I somehow had to find "Me"..and then, and only then, I would find the illusive so-called "god of my understanding." I found out later, that the search was from the inside outward, not the other way around, as they had tried but failed to instill in me.

I already had all the built in tools for finding out who I was and what made me tick, I didn't need their 12 step programming. I had been programmed my entire life. I needed to be deprogrammed.

All I needed was 12 months of fresh air and meditation..soul searching in the solitude of nature.

I went walking along the local beach—strolling along on the smooth white sand—while the roar of the rugged North Atlantic played a natural symphony for me and my shaky footsteps in the background.

Then, in late Autumn, I went Deer hunting with bow and arrow. With no plans to hunt, only to find a quiet place to sit and reflect on the how and why of it all. To make a new friend to this so called "Self." This material body and psychological mind.

I meditated inwardly about the totality of brain and brawn. The Alcohol and foreign chemicals that I had poisoned myself with for years, were suddenly were no match my new and healthy thoughts and freshly oxygenated brain. And the human philosophy that makes us want to name-tag everything disappeared. Nothing had a man-given or god given name-tag. It simply"Was." And I was part of it. A being not a doing.

The name given to me by my mother at birth no longer held any significance. 

The Ego that was continuously whispering for me to get drunk or high was no-longer there. 

Garth and MacIntosh were just two words assigned to me without my choosing. 

In hindsight I could have been called "Outlaw" and it would have been much more fitting.

I'm suppose to refer to myself as an alcoholic and an addict. But is that who or what I really am? 

Does that truly define me?  We are those humans who hated ourselves at one time, and had no voice, and no one who would truly listen without prejudice. We are now ready to shout to the rafters about the importance of staying chemical free. Of free thinking, and freedom of thought, which, in my opinion, is true freedom.

" I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect." - Jimmu Krishnamurti