Steven McCabe

It is with tremendous sadness that our family announces the sudden and unexpected passing of our brother, Steven "Chico" McCabe.

He was born to the late H. Donald and Joan McCabe (nee McKim).

He was the youngest of his siblings, Dawn Marie Kinney (Terry), Mark "Doc" McCabe and Darren McCabe (Tracey), nieces and nephews, Becky, Alissa, Jennifer, Shawna, Derek, Corrine and Connor, many relatives and friends.

After graduating from SSHS in 1984, Steven found work with Ganong Bros Ltd, where he was gainfully employed for a number of years. Sadly, Steven struggled with alcohol addiction and mental health for most of his life. He spent the last 25 years living in Saint John at an assisted living residence.

Steve is fondly remembered by many for his very kind heart, his empathy and his big smile. In visiting him, he always asked how things were back in St. Stephen, and how his old friends were doing. He so very much looked forward to our Christmas time visit, and the joy of receiving presents.

We would like to thank the management and staff of Caring Manner in Saint John for the many years of providing him a safe and comforting environment, as well as managing his medical needs. Steve was also a cancer survivor. He was well-liked by all the staff, of which he would grab them all a treat every time he walked to a store.

Funeral Service will be at The S.O. Mehan & Son Funeral Home Ltd., 23 Main Street, St Stephen, NB on Saturday September 14, 2024, at 2 pm.  Family will receive friends on Saturday September 14, 2024, from 12 pm until service time.

Interment will be at St Stephen Rural Cemetery St Stephen, NB following the service.

For those who wish, donations in Steve’s (Chico’s) memory may be made to Canadian Mental Health Association or a charity of one’s choice.  Condolences may be sent to the family online at mehanfuneralhome.ca 

 Please see Steven's Story published in the Saint John Times Globe 13 years ago about his struggle with mental health and addiction:

In the aftermath of a major Schizophrenia episode in 1999, Steven was stabilized at the Charlotte County Hospital, then transferred to the Saint John Regional Hospital, where he spent many months in the Psychiatric Unit. Now under the care of Social Development, they found him residence at the Centre of Hope. In 2001, Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon, a reporter with the Saint John Times Globe, sat down with Steven to tell his story. The following is that interview, and this is Steven’s story.

Steven McCabe was depressed, so he drank. The alcohol made him more depressed, so he drank some more, including mouthwash and rubbing alcohol. Then he added pills to the mix, getting prescriptions from five different doctors. It became a vicious, addictive, destructive cycle that led to self-mutilation, several suicide attempts and eventually alcohol and drug induced schizophrenia.

He lost his job, his apartment, and years of his life, he went through detox at Ridgewood Additional Services at least six times, frequently landing at Centracare, and wound up with a criminal record relating to an impaired driving conviction, when he didn’t have a driver’s license. "A lot of my drinking was just to escape. I was hiding behind the bottle to take the pain away" says Steven, who has been sober since March after a couple of slips. "If I felt depressed or paranoid or anxious, the old way to get rid of that was to have a drink, turn to the bottle. Now, I talk to somebody, go for a walk, or read a book. I’m glad I don’t wake up sick in the morning anymore and I can remember what I did last evening."

His mental illness has also stabilized, he says in an interview at the Salvation Army on St. James Street where he now lives. "Things are falling into place". But it has been a long, rough trip from which many people like him, suffering from a combination of alcoholism and mental illness (or disorder) never dream of coming back.

Now 35, Mr. McCabe remembers how it all started. He was 14 years old and a child of divorced alcoholics when he had his first beer with some older friends near his St. Stephen home. "It was a feeling of euphoria, I felt invincible" he says. "I never had a good life, and all my friends seem to have something more I never had. They always had a lot more money, cars, nice clothes – they had everything".

By the time he was 15, he had gotten drunk for the first time on a pint of whiskey stolen from a friend’s father. He had a terrible hangover, but within a week he started dipping into his father’s stash. He saved up the pilfered rum until he had a full pint to drink, and drank it by himself along the railroad tracks, before crashing his moped and walking away with only scrapes and bruises. "From there on I just kept drinking every weekend" he says, saving his lunch money to buy a bottle in Calais, Me on Fridays. He would have a couple of drinks during lunch hour, put the rest in his locker and finish it off later that night. Sometimes he would go to the bar in Calais with a bottle in his coat, order a glass of pop, drink half of it and then fill the rest with liquor.

When he didn’t have enough money to buy a bottle, he drank Scope, Listerine or rubbing alcohol. "I just keep sinking lower and lower" he says "Every day was a struggle. I was depressed and confused". A councillor at school even asked Steven if he had a drinking problem, but he said he didn’t. "I didn’t find it a problem. I only drank on the weekends, and it didn’t affect my grades. I was called an alcoholic quite a few times, even when I was 15 by my friends, but I never took it serious."

By the time Steven turned 20, he was drinking until he blacked out every Thursday to Sunday, not going to school or working, it made him angry when a friend’s wife told his father she thought he was an alcoholic. "The word upset me. I thought my drinking was no worse than the next person" he says.

By the time he turned 24, he was drinking on the job every day. Finally, he was injured using a piece of machinery and his boss asked him to go to Ridgewood "I told them I could do it on my own…I was scared."

He managed to stay sober three or four days a week but broke up with his girlfriend and sunk further into depression. He began missing work and drinking heavy. One night, he says he consumed a quart of hard liquor, several beers and several ASA, in which his friend took him to the hospital.

A few months later, a friend was killed in a car accident. A few months after that, another friend committed suicide. Steven slashed his wrists and was taken to Centracare. He lasted three weeks but left because he wanted to drink. It wasn’t long after that he drove a knife through his hand and went back to Centracare for another three months. "I was doing it more or less to get attention, I don’t think I really wanted to die."

He would often cut himself with a razor when he drank, he says, lifting the sleeves of his royal blue T-shirt to reveal dozens of thin, white scars. He points to another one on his forearm that required five stitches; two more on his scalp, including one that was so messy he told police that somebody must have beaten him up since he could not remember what happened; and says there are others on his legs, including one from when he ripped out four stitches when he was in a jail cell. There are also scars from falling down drunk. "It was hopeless, everything seemed all doom and gloom."

During his stays at Centracare, Steven would continue to drink when he got day passes. He got caught a few times and officials offered to send him to Ridgewood, but he refused. "I used to say ‘I’m an alcoholic’ but it never meant nothing, eh? I wasn’t sincere. I figured I admitted it and that’s all there was too it."

When he went home, he tried to act like he was a different person. "I wasn’t. I just figured it was a vacation from work. I never took any of the counselling serious. My drinking never slowed down any – I was just putting on a front like I wasn’t drinking." At the same time Steven became a somewhat self-professed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "I could be nice and then I would get right nasty." He would get into fights, both verbal and physical. One day he got mouthy with a liquor store worker who would not sell to him because he was too drunk. She called the police, and he wound up in jail. Friends bailed him out, but he didn’t want to face the charges in court and trying to commit suicide again. He headed straight to the liquor store and drank two quarts of coffee brandy and several beers. That night he found himself in Centracare again – and without a job.

Steven continued to drink daily and got into trouble regularly for several more years until he was about 28 years old. By then he was depressed and suicidal and his mental health worker sent him to detox at Ridgewood. The day he got out, the first place he went for was the liquor store.

Doctors began to think that he was manic depressive, otherwise known as being bipolar or having a chemical imbalance. "They couldn’t get me clean long enough to know, alcohol can imitate or mask symptoms of mental illness." With him, he says, "it brings it out, making it twice as worse."

When he was 33, he developed jaundice, a yellowish colouring of the skin and whites of the eyes from excessive bile in the bloodstream caused by damage or malfunction of the liver. He was hospitalized for about nine days "I swore I would never drink again, but three weeks later I was at the liquor store."

Then, in 1999, after his father died, he "hit rock bottom". He was spending his inheritance going to the bank five times a day to withdraw money to buy alcohol and not remembering any of it until he got his monthly bank statements. "I was doing anything to stayed stoned out of my mind" he says, including taking Gravol.

One day he poured boiling water over his hand so he could get a prescription for Tylenol 3. "I had nerve pills and painkillers hidden all over my apartment". He went through detox again and then to Lonewater Farm, where he stayed sober for about a month before he started sneaking booze in. A couple of months later he got caught drinking and got kicked out. That night, he woke up in jail after getting arrested for being intoxicated in a public place. He paid a cab driver $100 to buy him a pint of whiskey and a six-pack of beer and drive him to St. Stephen.

He drank through Christmas and Boxing Day, then had a psychotic episode. "I was so messed up on medication, I was seeking people who weren’t there and talking to them. I saw ghosts, I saw demons, I saw everything coming through the kitchen that day. I seen angels; you name it. I saw visions of Christ and Satan". He also saw a man with a rifle and ran down the street, trying to get away. His brother followed him and took him to the hospital’s psychiatric ward, where he stayed for 19 days. The day he got out, he woke up in jail again and his brother said he couldn’t stay with him anymore.

Mr. McCabe ended up at the local Salvation Army, funded through Family and Community Services special care assistance. "There’s been a few times here when I felt like giving up and going back to my old ways, but I knew I’d be out on the street because they’re not going to put up with it here. If you wind up on the street, homeless, you’re not going to live long" he adds. Instead, Steven reads his book from Alcoholics Anonymous every day, goes to the chapel regularly and meets with his psychiatric mental health nurse a few times a week and psychiatrist once a month. He also helped to start a dual disorders group. "I don’t feel alone…I’ve got more confidence" he says. "I’ve got a positive a positive outlook on life now. At one time all I had was negative, everything was negative".

Today, he looks forward to the future. He hopes to get a steady job, find a trusting relationship and improve his relationship with his two brothers and sister. He also wants to eventually help others with the same problems. "I have to get my illness under control first. It’s an ongoing battle". I know I’ll have it with me for the rest of my life" he says.

Steven advises others not to wait like he did to seek help. "They warned me at Ridgewood, if you haven’t lost it, put ‘yet’ behind it". Looking back, he realized they were right. "You just lose everything – your self- esteem, your self-respect, everything. You don’t love nobody. You don’t even love yourself in the end if I’d only listened sooner, I still might have them things" he says. "There’s help out there, but you cannot be afraid to ask, too ashamed. Many years I pushed it away. All I can say is that it’ll take you down in the end. You’ll lose everything."

**Footnote and Update to this article

Steven lived in the Centre for Hope until 2014, when it was closed to make way for a development in downtown Saint John. He was moved to Caring Manner in Saint John, where he lived until his unexpected passing on August 20th, 2024. Although he continued to have occasional episodes of schizophrenia, with the wonderful assistance of the staff and health care professionals, he successfully managed his illness. He was loved by the staff and residents, of which he often chatted about his life, his interests, maybe a movie he just watched, or something of interest on YouTube. He took daily walks and had friends. He often would pick up treats for the staff and residents when he was out on his walk. Staff considered him as one of their own family. He was known for his big smile, a kind and gentle heart and, regardless of his challenges in life, he never once spoke ill of anyone. He was very content where he was and made the very best of this life he was given. His passing came as a great shock and sadness to management and staff of Caring Manner, as well as his family. He will be fondly remembered by all who knew, loved and cared for him.