iCloud deleted all of my contacts on my Mac and doesn't have an archived version

I am sooooo sick of companies thinking they know what is best for us and doing things without bothering to inform or ask us if we want them to do these things!!!!

Sorry for the rant.

I downloaded the latest OS 10.11.4 yesterday and when it asked me for my Apple password, I entered it not knowing that it was starting up iCloud for me. So when I went into my calendar this morning, I couldn't get into it or do anything because I had a warning that it was trying to reach server which never went away. I finally had to force quit it. When I asked tech support how to fix this, I was told to sign out of iCloud, which I did. It asked me if I wanted to save my contacts to my Mac which I said yes. So now, I open calendar and everything in it is gone. I open my contacts, and everything is there.

Now I apparently make a mistake in that I go back and sign back into iCloud to get my calendar information back that was all of the sudden gone and without asking me if iCloud can overwrite my Mac or any kind of warning, it completely wipes out my contacts file on my Mac and puts in a blank file with nothing in it. There is no contacts archive in iCloud.com or anything to restore, so I'm apparently screwed as I don't have a backup any where else (no Iphone or Ipad, just my Mac that worked happily on its own without Cloud interference).

Does anyone know how I can find and restore my old contacts file on my computer. I don't have anything in Time Machine and not sure about iTunes as it appears that iCloud has taken that functionality away from iTunes, so the only thing I can think is to somehow recover a file from computer.

Ugh!!! I would sue Apple right now for this if I thought I could win. This is complete BS in that they take the master file to iCloud and do not have safeguards for overwriting files on your computer. Unfortunately, no money in the world can bring back 15 years of addresses and financial and medical information.

Appreciate any good advice on this one.