Harold Florence, 60, sits on a bar stool in his living room and vividly recollects life before recovery, back when music was his only escape.
The voices in his head tormented him, but the music kept him sane, Florence said. But before too long, even the music couldn’t ease the voices.
Will.Dickey@jacksonville.com Harold Florence grew up in Jacksonville and had problems with drugs and alcohol for many years. He is now clean and sober.
The one-time college music scholarship recipient turned to alcohol and drugs when music wasn’t enough. For decades, he shuffled between homelessness and brief respites when he consistently took the medications prescribed for his mental disorder.
I knew life could be better, Florence said. I don’t know how I ended up in that dark place, but I knew there was light at the end of the tunnel.
Today, he’s found that light. For more than a year, Florence has been free from substance abuse and takes his medications religiously.
Currently, Florence lives on a monthly Social Security disability insurance check of just over $800. After rent, cable and groceries, he has little left for anything else. It’s not much, but according to him, it’s more than enough.
I wake up every morning, and I’m just grateful. I have a key to my own door, and nobody else has one. I even have transportation, he chuckled, pointing to his feet.
At this point, he’s only missing one thing in life — the thing that kept him going all along. He would dearly love the donation of a trumpet or piano to bring music back into his life.
I miss music so much. Florence said. I would love an upright piano. I love its symphonic sounds, being able to hear more than one tone at a time … It’s just beautiful.
He wants to learn how to read piano music, too. Lessons would be amazing, Florence said. To be able to open a book and play a song on my own piano, man, that’d be awesome.
There’s something special about music, he said. The music, Florence said, it takes me where I like to be.
Florence said his mental disorder was there from the beginning, but nobody wanted to believe it.
As a child, if he mentioned depression or confusion, he got a shrugged, You’ll be OK, or a shrill, Not my son!
Playing instruments helped hush the chaos, but the voices never went completely silent, and the depression never disappeared.
Florence started drinking and taking drugs for temporary relief.
Through it all, Florence managed to graduate from high school and land a music scholarship to Bethune-Cookman University. He grew up a self-taught pianist, playing music by ear whenever he got the chance, but in college he played trumpet in the marching band.
We had to perform to perfection, Florence said. It was required. It was demanded. It was awesome.
The drinking and drugs still got worse by the day.
Just before his junior year, Florence dropped out of college to move to Philadelphia and get married, a decision he regrets to this day. Not long after, he and his wife divorced.
At that point, I moved back to Florida on a mad, drunken drinkin’ spree, Florence said. I didn’t do anything, I collected unemployment and I started doing cocaine.
The voices got louder. The music went silent.
He tried to clean himself up by entering a program, but one rough night sent him into a relapse.
He turned himself in to the police right after that.
I messed up, Florence told them. I was in a program, I walked off, I need help.
They took him to the Behavior Analysis Unit and immediately put him in detox. When the doctor caught Florence covering his ears, he asked him what he was hearing.
I need them to stop, I need them to stop! he said. They need to be quiet.
One day later, he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a condition that combines schizophrenia symptoms with mood disorder symptoms.
Doctors gave Florence medication, but he didn’t take it as prescribed to avoid the harsh side effects. So, the voices continued. The music remained silent.
Drinking and drugging made them disappear, but when I sobered up, they’d be right there again, Florence said. That’s when I started riding trains.
I was here in Jacksonville, but I had nowhere to go and nothing to eat. I saw a train and I jumped on it. Didn’t know where I was gonna end up, but it didn’t make no difference. All I knew was I needed to get me out of here.
He did just that. Florence, nicknamed Coast to Coast by friends, has traveled via freight train to every major city in the United States.
And Guadalajara, he added, but that was by mistake.
For the next 10 to 15 years, riding was all he did, with the exception of drinking and using any drugs he could get. It was a tough, exhausting, music-less time, but Florence somehow still looks back on it with some optimism.
I was dedicated to what I was doing, Florence said with a laugh. People used to call us hobos, but I was a tourist.
I was seeing the world from the backside. It’s a beautiful country, I’m tellin’ ya. It’s just gorgeous.
He went through another marriage and divorce before heading back to Jacksonville for good in 1993. For the next 20 odd years he slept under bridges, in the woods and in bushes. He joined several recovery programs only to fail them shortly thereafter.
Finally, he had enough.
He went to Presbyterian Social Ministries, was matched with his director of advocacy, Debbi Carter, and was accepted into the Home Safe Program. Life improved almost immediately. The music returned.
We talked about how important it is for him to take his medicine regularly, Debbie said. The past year and a half has been the first time he has taken his medicine and visited his doctors as prescribed, and he’s really done this all on his own.
Florence credited the success to the mantra of his new life.
Follow the rules and good things will happen, Florence recited. I’ve been a rebel all my life, but now I’m living lovely. I forgot how good life could be.