People Helping People with Mark Elliot on CFRB AM 1010

Mark Elliot
(I Get Knocked Down...But I Get Up Again)

Taking a stroll down memory lane in any alcoholics life is a bittersweet and unpleasant experience...

My own was well documented by the newspapers and pictures tell more than a thousand words...

Sketch

1958

BUT, there are thousands of words in newspaper articles... It's rare that an unbiased opinion about me appeared in print. I realized very early on in my career that if I wanted good things to appear about me in print: Write them myself!
(And always assume that everyone else does the same)

So, a lot of anonymous articles about me appeared that showed me "Happy and Healthy!" I was usually writing the copy: Hunched over a typewriter and "hung over" after a night of partying. It worked too!

Reporters tend to take what you tell them without second guessing or investigating very far to find out the truth.

I was leading a double and triple life trying to appear wholesome to the public, while in private I was falling apart..

1978

CFRA Ottawa

A promotional presentation for CFRA Radio in 1980

1970

From an article in the Toronto Star. One of very few pictures of me as a teenager. It's typical of sexually abused children to hate pictures of ourselves. That's characteristic of the lack of self-worth that comes from the experience. I avoided even the typical school photos and made myself "unavailable" to my family.

1976

"You're listening to the BIG FOURTEEN-SEVENTY... SEE-EFF-ARE-DOUBLE-YOU" (CFRW Winnipeg, 1976)
I must have done something right, because this was the tape that landed me a job in Ottawa

A couple of ads for CFRA Radio. By 1978 I'd become famous as a disc-jockey. But, privately I was described by one co-worker as "the most talented, and the most self-destructive person I know."

Here's a couple of pictures that tell stories:
This is a promotional picture for CFRA Ottawa taken in 1983.
I remember the session well...I'd dried out for a week before I looked well enough for the camera

CFRA 1983

I swore up and down that: "No one noticed my drinking!" My daughter Natalia was 7 when this picture was taken

A split-second later when this frame was shot, Natalia had covered my champagne glass: "Because you can't be seen drinking Daddy!"

I was asked to be a presenter at the 1985 Juno Awards in Toronto (The Canadian "Grammy Awards")
This should have been one of the proudest moments of my life. I was presenting the "Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award" posthumously to a Canadian recording pioneer I'd written about in my newspaper columns. My speech to the audience was reportedly "moving"... I only wish I could remember it!
Here I am onstage, stoned on speed in a tuxedo...

1985 Junos

One month before I entered treatment for my addictions, I had my last photo session. (Naturally, I shaved and got cleaned up...right!)
These pictures were never used. I wonder why? My weight was about 150 lbs. (The suit was great camouflage...I stole the hat from Humphrey Bogart...)
I was stoned.

This was one of the better pics!

Junkie

1987

click to enlarge

In 1991 The Ottawa Citizen did a "Whatever Happened To?" article about me. I thought it would end up on the page with the Horoscopes and ads for psychic readers. Instead it showed up on the front page of the Sunday paper.

In 1994 I expected to be out of work in the wake of a pending format change at CKLW 93.9 FM. Little did I know that I was about to become a talk show host.

They dried me out for six years before taking this one!

(should be 13, but who's perfect?)

August 2000

Writer Joe Warmington "The Night Scrawler" of the Toronto Sun remembers me a little too well... When we met he told me it wasn't the first time: He grew up in Ottawa and knew me because his uncle was in a rock band that I promoted. He even remembers partying with me... Click on the link to read his article: D.J.'s spinning a different tune