one thing money can't buy: poverty
hey all, interesting thread (awesome forum). i'm also surprised there aren't more posts for this topic... anyway, here's my bit:
during my 12-year alcoholic bender, i spent ~6 years on the streets, longest period ~14 months. i remember much of that time in painful detail, but i'll try to keep this brief (hmm). food/water wasn't an issue here (perth, australia) with three daily soup vans in the city and at least one daily in suburban hubs (freo, midland). even the cops were generally fine so long as i wasn't pissing in public, shouting at people, or passed out in a high-thoroughfare area.
money wasn't a problem for me due to my drug of choice. there are ways of getting free alcohol without stealing, e.g. the streets around nightclubs, pubs/bars/restaurants, and backpacker hostels often accumulate forests of half-empty alcoholic vessels, after midnight especially. street cleaners only remove them after 05:00. i had a couple of large plastic bottles which i filled and hid in the coolest/darkest nooks i could find, then poured this into smaller bottles for surreptitious consumption during the day. tobacco was also common litter.
when i stole, it wasn't from liquor stores but delis and supermarkets -- much laxer security, though the alcohol wasn't top shelf: mostly mouthwash or hand-sanitiser. rarely, i'd wake up after a blackout early in the morning, tremulous and desperate. the cleaners had taken all the half-empties, and no shops were open. worst-case scenario was metho (96% ethanol, tastes like ALIEN ARSE no matter how much you dilute it) stolen from a 24-hour service station.
shelter was initially a huge issue. i spent many early nights under the bottom staircase of parking lots which locked up overnight. i was kicked out a couple of times by nightwatchmen, but rotated and kept a low profile. then i became nocturnal, mastering the dismal art of orphaned-alcohol collection, and sleeping in open spaces which were peripherally monitored during the day. that ended with the discovery of isolated restaurants which had reverse-cycle air conditioning from the fridge/freezer (?), giving a stream of warmth running 24/7, usually out the back. a couple i found had their vents under and at the back of a ramped loading bay: paradise.
i spent most of the day in libraries reading, topping up in their toilets, careful not to black out and harass people for deep-and-meaningfuls. i also did a lot of walking and a lot of people-watching, taking mental notes with a deranged flaneur-bukowski philosophy. although i was 'committed' every 9-12 months for a few weeks, after either becoming too sick to drink (mostly pancreatitis) or slashing myself up, i tried not to exhaust hospitals, mental health services, drug agencies etc. by presenting without the intent to abstain, at least for a while. most of them gave up eventually, with good cause.
there is one free and open shelter here, but i never stayed for more than 8-12 hours -- having a temporary bed was no match for staving off DTs. in addition to a limit of one admission per week, 'regulars' were often rerouted to the east perth watch-house and charged with drunk and disorderly. if this happened on a friday, it meant all of saturday/sunday and most of monday in withdrawals waiting for court. this happened to me twice, and it was comprehensively inhumane; even a minimal stay (~20 hours) was bad enough, and caused a couple of wd-related seizures.
the biggest problem was aggressive and violent people. i learnt to keep to myself, keep quiet, avoid certain places at certain times, and scan everything for potential danger. i didn't trust other desperate people, and 'good samaritans' least of all. having said that, help in my city was and (afaik) still is available if you really want it. many cities/countries aren't so lucky!
my homelessness was a choice, born of hopelessness and suicidal ideation that predated my drinking. it was carried by the inertia of physical addiction and ever-greater heights of depravity. i never got to know anyone else's situation intimately, but the other alkies i often met seemed to be in the same boat. it was generally depression and/or trauma, but every competing dysfunction or root cause was rapidly and fully eclipsed by alcoholism itself. i didn't get to know the non-alcoholic homeless. we alkies stuck together, some druggies seemed to stick together, but long-term non-addicts (almost all seemed to have near-catatonic depression and/or schizophrenia) stayed fully isolated, either silent and omniscient or impossibly happy and omnipresent. there were probably temporarily homeless people, neither mentally ill nor addicted, looking for any way out -- any such people would have given me a very wide berth.
(yeah: i know 'alky' and 'druggy' are inadequate and undermining ways to categorise individuals of unique/complex histories and character, but for the sake of simplicity...)
it's a terrible way to exist, even in my country/city where things are uncommonly easy. it's not even a reasonable way to self-destruct. there are too many shameful and traumatic incidents to count, many of which haunt me today, the scars are deep. everyone thought only death, jail, or religion/spirituality could stop the cycle. it was none of these things, but that's another discussion. better late, eh!
