/Maggie Jansen brings book signing event to Master’s Book Store

Maggie Jansen brings book signing event to Master’s Book Store

by Thomas Smith

On July 16th, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Master’s Bookstore will be hosting Maggie Jansen  book signing of her new memoir Surviving Magnelia Monsoon: Beyond 1215 and the Bottle. “It’s a book about hope, if I can get sober anybody can,” said Jansen. “Don’t despair.”

“In my early 20s, my drinking was kinda fun and cute and was the life of the party. My nickname was Magnelia Monsoon. In another 20 years of horrendous addiction, I became all monsoon. The cute, sunny, fun party girl became all monsoon, all about wreckage, destruction, and damage,” said Jansen.

Jansen describes her memoir, Surviving Magnelia Monsoon, as a creative nonfiction memoir.  

“I have recreated my memory as best as I can. I write creatively. I have a certificate in creative writing. Using devices you find in creative fiction, I wrote my true story as I remembered it.”

Jansen attended the University of Toronto for creative writing and received a certificate from the University of Toronto School of Continuing Education.

“It started out as a 400 word assignment, ten years later it became a book,” said Jansen.

“I think deep down, I’ve always been a bit of a writer, but never pursued it, the alcoholism go tinto the way.My eldest daughter encouraged me to take a course and my first assignment, I just couldn’t stop writing. I needed 5 courses to graduate and I took 10, I just loved it. It was all these different pieces of the memoir, they are still in there.”

Haliburton County and especially Minden, holds a special place in Jansen’s heart.

“I have a cottage in Minden, I’ve raised kids here. There, it’s where I hit rock bottom.”

One summer, Jansen also worked as a waitress at the world famous Rockcliffe Tavern.

After completing her memoir, Jansen wanted to publish her story to share with others.

“Towards the end, I was trying to get it published. At that point it was 63, I was going to be a grandmother. I did not have the time to get my work published.”

Jansen ultimately decided on self publishing her memoir.

Feeling safer at the cottage, Jansen took her kids to her cottage in Minden. Her father also came to support her while undergoing treatment.

“I met these infinitely kind and incredible people who passed me along. People would pick me up, an old farmer took me to so many meetings,” said Jansen. “It was all these lake people, country people, people that I wasn’t used to being associated with while living in the city.”

Jansen attributes the community involved with AA and her own personal devotion having a heavy hand in saving her life.

“I always call AA this incredible invisible network of people supporting and loving one another. It is everywhere, even places you wouldn’t think would be there. I owe my life to it.”

“It was suggested to me to contact Kathy Stouffer at Master’s Books. I phoned her to follow up and she asked if I would come on July 16th for a book signing from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.. She is very supportive, she actually had a lady go in and order my books. Kathy just seemed so supportive and kind,” said Jansen.

“Reach out for help, to do it alone is so hard, whether it is rehab, AA, a counsellor, a neighbour, someone will get you to the right person.”

Jansen describes recovery from a reliance on alcohol as an incredibly hard journey.

“To do it alone is hard. It is a disease that wants you dead. It taps on your shoulder all the time, it is tough. There is so much help out there these days, it is amazing.”

“Alcoholism is cunning and powerful and baffling,” said Jansen. “In my 20s when I was Magnelia, before I hit monsoon, all I ever wanted to do in life was to be a good mother. I was raised in a wildly dysfunctional family. I turned out just like [my mother] in a way.”

When Jansen’s children were little, she describes her alcohol use disorder as not being an issue.

“I know 18 years later, that was the progressive journey into alcoholism. It is a progressive disease. Once my girls got older and I could get away with it, I started to drink more. Then my husband’s career started to do better, so I didn’t have to work. Once we had some more money I began to buy not a bottle of wine, but wine by the case. It was a creeping insidious thing in my life. I tried to be a loving wonderful wife that my children and husband deserved, but the dark side of me wanted to get drunk all the time.”

“The shame I felt and desire to hide my secret nearly killed me,” said Jansen. “I knew when I went into the detox, I knew standing in the detox that if I didn’t get sober, I was going to lose him and my girls. “

“I was just being devoured by addiction and had no control going on. It was destroying my brain. I am so grateful for my husband and my girls. I was going to lose everything I cherished, everything.”

The road to recovery was a long and perilous journey for Jansen that can be read about in her memoir, Surviving Magnelia Monsoon: Beyond 1215 and the Bottle. Copies of her memoir will be available for purchase and she will be doing signings and speaking with fans at her book signing.

“I am living a life beyond anything I could have ever even visualized,” said Jansen.