After almost taking a fatal plunge into Halifax Harbour, Rick MacDonald found help for his addiction at The Salvation Army. “From the edge of the bridge, I stared at the rocks below,” says Rick MacDonald. “Desperate to end my life, it was crucial I land on the boulders that supported the beams. That way, I was sure I wouldn’t survive.”

Look at me, it’s another night;
The bottle’s empty, and the money’s almost gone.
My hair’s a mess, and my breath tastes bad;
Weeks have past and I still have the same clothes on.
All hope is gone,
I think it’s over.
—It’s Never Too Late, Rick MacDonald

A Life of Hopelessness
Born in New Glasgow, N.S., in 1958, Rick’s family moved to Toronto when he was four. “Life was good,” recalls Rick, “but as I grew older I was an unfashionable, insecure teen who was shunned by my peers.”

In an attempt to feel accepted, Rick had his first beer at 15 when he and some buddies found a few bottles in a snow bank. “I liked it,” he says. “The booze made me feel I could do and be anything.” Before long, he was a regular at weekend parties, adding acid and other hard-core drugs to his drinking sprees. He skipped so much school to feed his unhealthy habits that he dropped out at 16 to work in a factory.

The alcohol abuse escalated and by his early 20s, Rick was drinking daily. “If I had money in my pocket, I would drink until the bars closed,” says Rick. “Many times, I awoke in parks and ditches because I was too drunk to reach home.”

Rick struggles to remember his 30s. He worked in a contracting business and continued misusing alcohol. “Now I had no morals and no personality. I only knew myself as a drunk.” While he married and had a son, the marriage was over within a year due to his cocaine and alcohol abuse.

By his 40s, Rick was constantly drunk. He worked the night shift in a warehouse and drank before, during and after work. He stole money, lied and drove the warehouse truck, without permission and inebriated, to the liquor store. “I didn’t care what I had to do to get a drink.”

In 2000, Rick was transferred with his job from Toronto to Dartmouth, N.S. Soon after he began work, he was fired for stealing money. His rent was in arrears and early one morning, before his roommate kicked him out, he left the apartment with only a jacket, a knapsack and the clothes on his back.
With nowhere else to go, he found a new “home” in the bushes near the Dartmouth ferry terminal. It was a six-foot piece of cold ground in the bush. For six weeks, Rick slept curled up in a ball, without sleeping bag or blanket. He’d rock back and forth shivering, hoping he would quickly pass out from his all-day binges at the local bar. He reeked from wearing the same clothes day in and day out and cleaned himself with hand soap from the bar washrooms. His hunger was sometimes overwhelming.

“I wanted to die in the bush,” he says now. “I’d lost everything, my job, my family, my friends and myself.”

Dribble of Hope
When the money he made from defrauding a local bank in 2004 ran out, Rick tried to commit suicide with sleeping pills. “I combined a whole whack of pills with beer and woke up stoned.”

Soon afterwards, he attempted to jump into Halifax Harbour. “I practised blowing my breath out, knowing I would have to breathe in once I was under the water. I just couldn’t do it,” he remembers.

That October, Rick’s fear of heights held him back from taking his final step to the 104-metre drop from the busy Halifax-Dartmouth MacDonald Bridge. “I decided to bury my fear in the last bottle of vodka I had hidden under the bridge,” he says. He made his way back to the nearly full bottle and sat by the water drinking, wanting to complete the job. But when the bottle was finished, out of nowhere a broken, cold and helpless Rick cried out, “God, I don’t want to die.”

States Rick, “I didn’t even know who God was,” but the urgent cry saved him from jumping.

The next day, he called detox. It was full. Hearing that Rick was suicidal they gave him a bed and food, but after eight days had no idea where to go. He was an emotional wreck and visions of his home in the bush continued to haunt him.

At detox he was given rehab information, but in call after call he got the same message: “We have no room.” Panic set in, but a desperate Rick continued his calls until he made contact with Terrance, a counsellor at The Salvation Army Booth Centre. “We’re full,” Terrance told him, “but come and see me anyway.” Rick had his first dribble of hope.

No Longer Alone
Rick slept in The Salvation Army Booth Centre chapel for several nights until a bed became available. “Rather than running, I admitted my addiction and faced responsibility,” he says. “It felt good! I got involved in the programs that were offered and began to volunteer at the centre.”
Over time, the God that saved Rick’s life became part of his heart, and he maintains a personal relationship with Him. Rick never wants to sink in the storm of life again. He now works full-time in the food warehouse and assists in the 12-step program at the Booth Centre.
“Rick is a gentleman,” says Major Wayne Loveless, the Executive Director. “He is a deep thinker with a strong desire to help people out of the pits they have dug themselves into.”

Rick remarried last year and recently became a member of his local Salvation Army church. He volunteers with the Army feeding the homeless, teaches guitar at a Salvation Army community centre and speaks at detox centres. “I want the hopeless to know where the help is, because I didn’t.”

Listen to me, it’s never too late.
Though your future’s dark and your heart has turned to stone,
Just pray for the grace that God has given to me;
Open your heart, let Him in and let His love be known.
You’re no longer alone.
—It’s Never Too Late

by Linda Leigh

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