Woody's Beginning
Where to begin? From my first drink, I knew damn well I had a problem. I loved it too much. Both my father and brother had royally screwed up their lives with drink and, in my brother's case, drugs. No fucking way I was going to do that. My awareness is what has always enabled me to land on my feet, time and time again. That’s not to say it didn’t, fucking right, it did, but my baseline of success is what you’ve done with your life. My pride is in my back pocket.
I was born a drunk (my preference over alcoholic). I classify myself as an addict, should you be so inclined to label me. The first-, second and third drink, I blacked out till realizing it wasn’t for me but to be revisited when I was twenty years old. Instead, I became a hash head. I made my first bundle of money by selling hash into three high schools in Ottawa. I counteracted the lethargy of the drug by taking street-speed pink hearts until I had a seizure and thought better of taking any more. This led to my first “getting clean.” I packed the speed and hash in and took the forty thousand I made selling hash and discovered my new addiction—money. I invested everything I had in the stock market, leaving my dope-smoking Led Zeppelin-loving friends behind. I had a knack for picking winners.
Then—my first drink as a man. Twenty years old. I lived on 180 Lees Avenue with my brother and father, and every Sunday night, they would go to Hull and pick up beers and would ask me to join them. Finally giving in, I had my first sip. The effect it had on my brain—“Baby, where have you been all my life?" A week later, I wrote off my brand-new Datsun Pulsar drunk behind the wheel, beating the first of three DUIs. They didn’t find me behind the wheel; instead, I was puking my guts out on the curb. I was charged with drunkenness, which I pled guilty to, the charges were dropped. I was off to the races with drink.
At the time, the best part-time paying job in Ontario was working at the LCBO. Of course, I wanted in, but you needed to know an MP to get a job. My father wrote a letter name-dropping my uncle’s close friend and MP. A week later, I landed a job at their Montreal Road store. The same Uncle owned the Janeville Inn, a hotel two blocks away from the store. I was going to Carleton University at the time. I was fucking loaded with money. My stock portfolio was now up 20K, and my net worth is now 60K.
NEXT BLOG—Carleton University and being hired as a stockbroker. The beginning of a life of degradation and Woody’s white-collar life of crime.
