The Alley: A Vancouver Addiction Recovery Story

The West Wing — The sun comes up above a  graffiti-covered alley in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, running parallel to the historic West Hotel.

The Alley by Norman Fox - One more Vancouver Addiction Recovery Story

In another alley, this one just off Hastings Street, in Vancouver Downtown Eastside, and on a very chilly night, I sat trapped behind a dumpster. I was three days into a run—lost in addiction, though I didn’t know that at the time. All I did know was I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed. Terrified. And deeply, deeply sad.

I’d been stuck there for hours—probably since the early evening. My feet were soaked in a puddle of rainwater—dumpster runoff, probably worse. But I couldn’t feel disgust anymore. That part of me was long gone. What I did feel was fear. And a crushing sense of disappointment in myself.

The alley split that part of the city in two. On the west end, a side street had been under construction for some time, and the alley entrance at the end was shut off by a tall wire fence. It meant there was one way in, and one way out.

On one side: an old brick building full of SROs—single-room occupancies often used by people with nowhere else to go. The people living there were holding on however they could. On the other side: condos. Not luxury, but well-lit. Warm. Through the fog, I could see fairy lights in what looked like a shared garden. It was beautiful. That side of the alley held everything I once imagined my life would be—safe, full of laughter, community. Friends.

The SRO side was a different story. Rainwater spilled from broken gutters. The downspouts didn’t reach the ground, so the water hit pavement hard, splashing whatever effluent it met well into the walking areas.

Dark alcoves—like bat caves—reeked of piss and bodies. People still used them to stay out of the rain, to stay hidden in the shadows, to survive. You learned to stay clear of the walls, especially below the windows. Some nights, things came down from above—bottles, garbage, worse.

This was a dangerous place. But for most people there, that dead-end alley was the only place that was left.

My nose had been bleeding for hours, the effect of dehydration. I was wearing a white T-shirt, now streaked with blood from wiping my face.

And then—from somewhere above—I heard a voice.

“I saw the best minds of my generation…”

I waited. I needed to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

“…destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked…”

It was Allen Ginsberg. Someone, halfway up the SRO building, had placed a tape deck on their windowsill and was playing a recording of Howl—the original live reading in San Francisco, 1955.

I’d heard the poem before. But not like that. Not from the ground, not while crouching behind a dumpster, caught again between two versions of a life that was spiraling downward like the runoff rainwater from the alley rooftops.

That night didn’t change everything. I didn’t get sober the next day.But it gave me something—a reminder that I was still human. That somewhere above me, someone was willing to play poetry into the night when others nearby were throwing garbage—and worse—onto us.

I made it home eventually. I had a place a few blocks away, off the train tracks near the Hastings Viaduct. I showered. Found some food. Slept for two days.

And on the third day, I got up. I convinced myself again that things were different. That I had it under control. By that night, I was back in the alley. Chasing something unreachable. And slowly, slowly killing myself trying.

That wasn’t the night I got sober. But like so many final moments in addiction recovery, it became a very significant part of the story.

Five months later, I did. And I’m still sober today.

I think about that night sometimes—the blood, the garbage, the echo of a poet’s voice reaching me from somewhere above. Not to save me. Just to remind me I was still human.

If you’re in it right now—if you’re scrolling through your feed looking for something real—maybe this is your version of that voice.

And maybe you deserve to hear something that reminds you you’re still human too.