The Couch of Willingness

“The tradeoff between recalcitrant humour and boundless tragedy makes this addiction memoir one of a kind.” Marc Lewis, Memoirs of an Addicted Brain After two decades of helping clients battle addiction, Mike Pond, a successful therapist, succumbs to one himself. He loses his practice, his home, and his family to alcoholism, ending up destitute in a down-and-out recovery home. Pond’s harrowing two-year journey to sobriety takes stops in abandoned sheds, dumpsters, ditches, emergency wards, intensive care, and finally, prison. Pond’s riveting account crackles with raw energy and black humour as he plunges readers into a world few will ever have the misfortune to experience. Along the way, he finds himself shamed and stigmatized by the very system in which he used to thrive.

“The tradeoff between recalcitrant humour and boundless tragedy makes this addiction memoir one of a kind.” Marc Lewis, Memoirs of an Addicted Brain After two decades of helping clients battle addiction, Michael Pond, a successful therapist, succumbs to one himself. He loses his practice, his home and his family to alcoholism, ending up destitute in a rundown recovery home populated by a cast of characters straight out of Dickens. The Couch of Willingness is a real couch in that home; a couch where Pond is forced to sleep until he surrenders and admits he’s powerless over alcohol. But just when Pond gains any measure of sobriety, in sashays his other powerful addiction, Dana, a can of Red Bull in hand, 26er of vodka in her purse. Pond’s harrowing two-year journey to sobriety takes stops in abandoned sheds, dumpsters, ditches, emergency wards, intensive care, and finally, prison. His riveting account crackles with raw energy and black humour as he plunges readers into a world few will ever have the misfortune to experience. Along the way, Michael the drunk finds himself shamed and stigmatized by the very system in which Michael the therapist thrived. The dissonance rankles for Pond and, by the end of the story, for the reader too.

Michael Pond is a psychotherapist in Vancouver who specializes in addiction, trauma and Indian Residential Schools abuse healing. He writes the “Professional Advice” column in the Vancouver Sun. Michael wrote the book with his partner, former CBC producer turned documentary filmmaker Maureen Palmer of Bountiful Films, whose directing credits include Sext Up Kids and Angry Kids & Stressed Out Parents.