The Addict with a Thousand Faces: A Memoir and Workbook for Reflection and Group Discussion

By Jacob O'Cain

• Language: English
• Publisher: Old Man Publishing
• Release date: Aug 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734873627

Jacob O'Cain

Jacob O'Cain is the author of The Addict with a Thousand Faces: A Memoir and Workbook for Reflection and Group Discussion. He is the creator of the Recovery Mosaic Poster-a mosaic poster of one-thousand people in recovery dedicated to offering hope to those in active addiction by showing that recovery from drugs and alcohol is possible. He believes creativity has the power to heal and he strives to exemplify that. Jacob is from the U.S.A. and has lived in Peru and China. He holds the conviction that the Hero's Journey exists in everyone, including addicts, so long as they listen to the call.

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Copyright 2020 @ Jacob O’Cain

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-7348736-0-3

ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-7348736-1-0

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-7348736-2-7

Cover photo by Madara

Mosaic rendered by Jacob O’Cain

Book and cover design by Madison Lux

Permissions to use the photos on the front and back covers have been obtained from each individual. See The Recovery Mosaic Project for more information.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This is a memoir. It is based on the author’s recollection of events and conversations. Some dialogue has been recreated. Some events have been compressed and some names and characteristics have been changed to maintain anonymity.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The title of Chapter 13 (Divine Moments of Truth) was inspired by Shpongle’s song of the same title.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact [e-mail]

Visit the author’s website at www.jacob-ocain.com

Follow him on Instagram @jacob_ocain

Dedicated to those who have taken the step and to those who are contemplating it

Contents

Introduction

Echoes of the Future

The Building Blocks of Time

The Birth of Something

The Evolution of That Next Thing!

Locked and Loaded

The Dawn of Something Spiritual

A Personal Savior

A New Beginning

Pathway to Discovery

A Revolving Door

Looking at the Hungry Ghost

Rising to the Hero’s Journey

Divine Moments of Truth

Cusco, Life and Death

Reaching for the Stars

Aloha

The Knell of the Bell

Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

The Master Piece of the Puzzle

Saturn Returns

Acknowledgements

The Recovery Mosaic Project

Questions for Reflection and Group Discussion

Someone once said that one must lose his mind before he can find it, that he must go crazy before he can go sane.

Introduction

Upon initial observation, it seems a person in active addiction has nothing to offer the world. The Addict lies, cheats, and steals to get what he or she wants. Virtue is out of sight. It’s easy for both the Addict and the observer to mistake this surface representation for all there is. This misjudgment can be dangerous—seeing addiction only as a meaningless affliction that causes a person to wreak havoc on their self and the people around them can act as a roadblock to the treasure in the distance. It’s necessary to put addiction in a different context so we can see the role it plays in our growth.

In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell compares myths from around the world and relates them to the human condition. He analyzes their heroes—Moses, Buddha, Odysseus, Prometheus, and many more. While they have different faces, the blueprint of their journeys is the same and can be divided into three main events.

Departure: The future hero receives a call to adventure (a call to change, to evolve). He often refuses this call (because of doubt, fear, or insecurity) but is then guided by a mentor (or spiritual guide) to cross the threshold into an unknown world.

Initiation: The hero faces trials (temptations, delusions, addictions, mental anguishes, etc.) that test his strength and faith to the journey. Sometimes he fails, but he keeps on. In a pivotal victory, he is transformed into a new being and is given a boon (a skill, an art, wisdom of his true essence/connection with his soul) as a result of his efforts.

Return: Having been transformed, he returns to the place he came from and shares the boon with the community. Everyone benefits from the hero’s return.

The mythic journey of the hero is symbolic of a spiritual process within us—the process of (re)claiming our destiny. Whether we realize it or not, we are all on our Hero’s Journey, and Destiny can either be a welcoming force or a kick in the head depending on our awareness of what the heart desires and our willingness to walk that path. For the Addict, it’s of paramount importance to know he (or she) is on this journey—that the trials are Destiny’s way of realigning him with the path of the heart.

The Addict with a Thousand Faces is a documentation of my (unique) journey, but it’s only one of countless many that share a similar blueprint. If you look at the cover of this book, you’ll notice it is composed of hundreds of people. They are people in recovery from drugs or alcohol or both. Every one of them has a unique story to tell, but you will be able to find common threads in all of them. They each had different experiences of hell, but they each had experiences of hell nonetheless. They are people on the Hero’s Journey and have been transformed—they are people who have risen above the stigma of the Addict and are reaping the treasures of fearlessness.

With this in mind—that our unique stories have common threads—I hope to show how the monster of addiction, when stared at fearlessly, can become an ally, and that the Addict, however he may stray from the path of the hero, possesses an immanence that will be his saving grace should he open his heart to it.

CHAPTER 1

Echoes of the Future

Flounder fish—a type of flatfish—burrow themselves in the sand in the shallow waters at night so they can feed on baitfish. There’s a type of fishing called gigging that aims to catch flounder. Gigging is done with a spear and a lantern. The gigger must walk around at night with the lantern shining down and stick the fish with a spear.

My dad was a fisherman at heart. His dad—Grandpa O’Cain—took him and his younger brother, John, on their first fishing trip when they were six and three years old. They caught a bunch of brim and brought them home and put them in the bathtub to mess with Grandma Todd.

What are them damn things doin’ swimmin’ in my tub! That was when she and Grandpa O’Cain were still an item.

Grandma Todd loved drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. And she loved me and my brothers. When she’d visit, she’d usually bring a damn fine homemade cheesecake with her. We’d devour it like hungry vultures and then lick the pan. Me and my brothers, that is. My mom and dad did no pan licking that I can remember. They had better manners than that.

My dad—not much of a student of psychology—says Grandma Todd took a lot of pills for her mental health. Any signs of mental dis-ease went unnoticed by me and my brothers. We just knew her as our own personal hero. Sometimes she’d drive us to school in her old blue smoky sedan. And she’d drive slow. Really. Truly. Slow. She never got in a wreck though, and we always ended up where we needed to go.

One day, I asked her, Grandma, why is everybody rushin’?

Baby, I don’t know any Russians.

No, Grandma! Everyone is goin’ fast. They’re rushin!

Oh, honey, I don’t know why they are. There was always affection in her raspy voice, more than any measure could measure. A powerful force of love flowed through her.

Okay, Grandma…but why do you drive so slow?

Oh, baby, she said as if I ought not worry, because it ain’t nothin’ but a doody poop. You just remember that, okay?

Okay, Grandma.

Gigging had taken over the third coast by the time I was eight years old. My dad and his friends were gung-ho about it. So was my brother, Jeffrey. He was six years older than me. My brother James—eight years older than me—hadn’t been imbued with the flatfish craze. He only cared about one thing: school. Through his tunnel vision he saw only dentistry—he’d made up his mind at an early age to clean teeth for a living.

My dad had a pontoon boat and was always searching for new spots to fish and gig. It would take a meeting with the calm-water gods to get my mom out on the boat. Her mom—Grandma Kelley—was deathly afraid of large bodies of water: oceans, bays, gulfs. She never once took my mom and her sisters, Louise and Cynthia, to the beach when they were kids, even though the Galveston Coast was only one hour from the Houston—Pasadena—Reed Park area. Consequentially, my mom and Louise and Cynthia all inherited Grandma Kelley’s aquaphobia.

Every time my dad took Jeffrey and me gigging, we’d come back with an ice chest full of fish. We’d have a fish-fry and invite friends and family over, and when the feast was finished, we’d send them on their way with a few bags of frozen fillets. Sometimes, if we were lucky, Grandpa and Grandma O’Cain (Grandpa’s second wife/my dad’s stepmom/my other grandma) would make the two-hour drive from Beaumont to share in the tasty joy of the catch. We never saw Uncle John much though. He was always in between jobs, trying to stay sober and trying to stay out of jail. When we did see him, it was always a treat because he was that cool uncle many of us have (to us kids, his unmanageability wasn’t apparent. We only saw his goodness.)

If we were extra lucky, Grandma Todd would stop by.

There was only one time we came home from gigging with no feast to fry. It was as if the powerful force flowing through the universe was preparing us for the years to come…

When summer ends and winter is approaching, the cooling coastal waters trigger a flounder migration, prime time for gigging. For this reason, it is my dad’s favorite time of year.

At around ten o’clock on an August night, my dad, Jeffrey, and William—one of Jeffrey’s friends from our neighborhood in Reed Park—and I take the boat out to a sandbar at San Luis Pass just off Galveston Island, where the Gulf of Mexico meets Galveston Bay. We’ve walked it many times in the past and often limited out.

Gonna stick a lot of fish tonight, my dad says.

We all believe it too. Why wouldn’t we? History repeats itself, right?

We spend hours walking through the darkness, casting our lanterns to the ankle-deep water, looking for the outline of the flounder in the sand. But nothing. Only empty beds. Pits.

Jeffrey and William decide to split off and scour the other side of the sandbar. We’re gonna go check it out. Gotta good feelin’ ’bout it over there.

My dad and I continue our hunt. Still, nothing. Then a lightbulb goes off in my dad’s head. I know where we can go, son. A place up yonder, he says and extends his lantern to signify the direction he’s talking about. Right over there. We’re gonna need to make a little walk though. You up for that?

Yeah, if you think we can catch some fish over there. You caught ’em there before, right?

Stuck a lot, he says, and we walk…

…and walk. China is far into its solar exchange with the earth at this time, leaving only the dim light of the moon. The air is silent, only caressed by the sound of gentle plopping ripples.

…and wade…

But we only get deeper as time passes Hey, Dad…you think maybe we should turn around? The water is up to my waist.

Just one second, son. We’re almost there. It’s just up ahead.

But something isn’t right.

Plop.

Plop.

Plop.

Okay, Dad, but it’s gettin’ kinda deep here. The water is now above my waist, forcing me to hold my lantern higher.

Okay, I think you’re right, my dad says feebly. Maybe we should turn around.

Okay, Dad. Because it’s gettin’ kinda deep here, I say again.

There is an eeriness surrounding us, and my dad tries to reassure me. We’re gonna get to some shallow ground soon.

But something still isn’t right. Can you touch the bottom, Dad?

It’s gettin’ pretty deep, son, my dad says, not providing a simple yes or no. At that moment, we’re forced to let our lanterns go, and I know we’ve been swept out by the current into the unforgiving depths of The Bay.

Dad, I can’t touch. I can’t touch, Dad, I scream.

My dad shouts back, Grab on to my shoulders! But my doing so only pushes his head under the water and we both start sinking. Jake, I can’t touch either. We’re gonna have to tread. Stay calm! Don’t panic!

D-D-Dad! I scream. Dad, are we gonna drown? DAD. HELP.

JAKE! DON’T PANIC! Just try and stay afloat! There is a tremble in his voice.

Dad, I’m going under! Dad, I’m going under! I yell as The Bay begins to swallow me up.

My dad’s voice turns paternally primal. IF YOU GO DOWN, I’M NOT COMING UP WITHOUT YOU! YOU HEAR ME! I’M NOT COMING UP WITHOUT YOU!

HELP. I CAN’T TOUCH, I scream again as I resurface.

HELP! My dad’s scream echoes in my head. He tries to regain his composure. Stay calm, son. Kick your shoes off.

HELP! Maybe, just maybe, someone will hear us. HELP!

Out of the night sky, I see a light in the distance. There’s Jeffrey! Look at the light. He hears us. Jeffrey! We swim through the plops.

HEY! HEY! HEY! His voice is like a beacon guiding our sinking ships to shore. HEY! OVER HERE! HEY!

Grains of sand. More welcoming than ever before. Has The Bay spat us back out?

At the moment we touch, a fisherman who’d heard our cries through the blackness pulls up to us in his boat. Yah guys okay ova’ here? he asks. I heard y’all screamin’ and hollerin’. Thought w’hell, I better check n’see if everyone’s a’right. Here hop in. I can give ya a lift.

We get in the boat and purge the saltwater we swallowed.

I love you, son, my dad says unexpectedly, something I never heard him say during the eight years I’ve been alive, and he gives me a hug.

I love you too, Dad, I say, relieved.

We drift closer to Jeffrey and William so they can hop in. Jeffrey is still carrying the chaos of the screams with him.

DUDE, WHAT THE HECK! ARE Y’ALL A’RIGHT? WHAT HAPPENED?

William is speechless.

Yeah. Yeah. We’re fine, my dad says. We’ll tell you all about it later.

The fisherman drops us off at our boat. Thank you for your help. Thank you, my dad and I say in unison, still shaking.

Hey, any time. I’m jus’ glad y’all are a’right, he says and floats away just as quick as he came.

We lost everything of material worth in that fifteen minutes in the night waters. And we came close to losing our lives. But it wasn’t supposed to happen like that, so it didn’t. That was the first time I’d truly known fear for my life. It was a type of fear capable of churning the stomach and inducing sickness—not the kind of fear that merely pops up when the head is on the pillow in the midst of a nightmare. It was utterly crude. It was a type of fear that said, Learn to tread, or die.

CHAPTER 2

The Building Blocks of Time

My mom worked at the post office when I was younger. She wore a white Styrofoam hat that had tiny chunks taken out of it, as if someone had dug their fingernails in it during fits of nervousness. I was always struck with sadness when she’d leave for work, and I’d tell her how much I loved her as if it were the last time I’d ever see her. Bye, Mom, love you, have a good day, love you, be careful, bye, Mom, love you.

I love you too. You make sure you have a good day today, okay?

"Okay, Mom. But can I watch He-Man and the Masters of the Universe?" It was my favorite show on earth.

When He-Man would unsheathe his magic sword and say, "By the power of Grey Skull…I HAVE THE POWER!" that powerful force would transmit through the screen and bestow upon me the strength of He-Man himself.

You can watch it for one hour. No more. Okay?

My dad often worked long hours at the chemical plant. On his off days, if I was persistent enough, he’d take me to the playground so I could act out my inner primate beyond the walls of domestication. "Dad, can we go? Can we go? Please please please?"

A’right son. Let’s go to the playground,

On the way there, we’d play a game called Guess Who Sings This Song. That was the first time I heard A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall…

So…Who sings this?

Hmmm. I don’t know, Dad. Who?

That right there is Bob Dylan singin’ this song.

Bob who?

Bob Dylan.

I loved going to the playground with my dad when I was a kid.

Together, my parents were a good team and made sure our family sphere maintained its tangible form.

Buffy was the sixth member of our immediate family. She was a white, fluffy toy poodle. She was my best canine friend. I taught her how to sit, lay down, and roll over. I even taught her how to hunt squirrels. Get that squirrel! Get that squirrel! I’d say with enthusiasm. She’d spin in circles at the word and bark like a crazy dog. There ya go! Good girl! I’d say and bombard her with caresses. I loved her so much. And she loved me.

Our house in Reed Park, Texas, was in a quiet neighborhood, safe and sheltered from the rest of the world. It had a big backyard with green grass, yielding pecan trees, and large shady oaks. Behind the backyard was a wooded area that made me curious as to what could be found deep in the forest, deep in the forest, deep in the forest. I’d explore with wide eyes, and I’d marvel at the things I’d find. Bugs. Snakes. Pathways to new places. And even frogs. Rib it, they’d say. Rib it. Rib it. Ribbit.

Sometimes I’d meet up with the neighborhood kids and we’d jump ramps on our bikes and pop wheelies. Or we’d play hide-and-seek. Or Chinese freeze tag. But no matter how far I roamed, I was always called home by my dad’s dinnertime whistle.

My mom would cook things like chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes, spaghetti and garlic bread, meatloaf and green beans, and beef tips and rice, all of which I loved. Sometimes, though, God forbid, she’d prepare a salad, which I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot tongue. Before we’d sit down, she or my dad would say, How about gettin’ that table set? Jeffrey, James, and I would take turns putting the ice in the glasses and getting the napkins, plates, and silverware out. And before we’d eat, without fail, we’d say the prayer—God is good. God is great. Let us thank him for our food. Amen.

But I didn’t know what that really meant. I always thought of it as, Lettuce, thank him for our food. Lettuce, yes, you. I’m talkin’ to you, Lettuce. You thank him for our food.

As we sat there, Buffy would lie at the threshold between the kitchen and the living room—half of her on the tile and the other half on the carpet—and thump her tail at the thought of getting her paws on some human food. When we’d finish eating, we’d all pitch in and help clean the kitchen. Buffy would clean the floor.

My dad wasn’t outwardly religious. Neither was Grandpa O’Cain—he wasn’t the type of man who had time for abstract thinking. But he was the epitome of hard working. When he was sixteen years old, he lied about his age and enlisted in the Navy where he went on to fight in the Korean War. He even brought back a bayonet he retrieved from an enemy soldier he’d discovered dead in a cave. After he was successfully discharged from the Navy, he went on to join the U.S. Marine Corps.

After his military years, he and Grandma O’Cain moved to Saudi Arabia so he could help build chemical plants. The two of them traveled to several Middle Eastern countries as well as to Russia, Germany, England, Spain, Kenya, Italy, and even Japan. Little did they know I’d be trailing right behind them as another world-traveling O’Cain.

Despite all of his seasoned expeditions, Grandpa O’Cain was careful never to show too much emotion (he and my dad were alike in this aspect). He was never