Halifax, Nova Scotia.
March 2002.
I was seated near the back of the banquet hall, waiting for the presenter to start speaking again. Dozens of doctors filled the rows of seats. I noticed there were fewer people there that afternoon, on the last day of the conference.
I looked down at the booklet on my lap: Health and Safety At Sea. Seafarer’s Medical Certification.
I twisted the cap off a water bottle and swallowed the tablet I’d been keeping in my pocket.
The presenter changed the slide.
He flipped through the booklet to the corresponding slide:
Symptoms of Addiction
High tolerance to the drug
Must take drugs to avoid or relieve withdrawal symptoms (symptoms may include nausea, anxiety, restlessness, insomnia, depression)
I could no longer hear the speaker reading the items on the slide:
Loss of control over drug use (user wishes to stop using but feels powerless)
Life revolves over drug use
Fuck.
I could no longer hear the speaker.
Continued use despite knowing the danger
I could feel my face flush. How did I let this happen? This is me. I am a drug addict.
Okay, Grant. This is enough. I’m done. We are done.
And I was.
Until I wasn’t.
I honestly thought I was in control of my drug use. I was a doctor, for crying out loud! I knew how much medication I needed. And then I saw my own symptoms in that presentation. I had an epiphany at that moment: I’d been justifying my drug use all along, saying I needed the pills to make my ankle feel better. But I was using the pills when I shouldn’t have been. And, as a doctor, I knew that with my pain receptors bathed in these chemicals, I was just making my ankle more and more sore, screaming for the stuff.
I didn’t take any more pills after that.
Withdrawal symptoms kicked in right away. It was uncomfortable but not severe. It mostly left me feeling really depressed, tired, and weighted down. It felt like there was a bear on my back and every movement I tried to make was just so heavy.
I got back home on Monday and called the lecturer. I didn’t give him my name, and this was before Caller ID. I needed to talk to someone.
I told him that I was a physician from the conference on the weekend and that some of the things he spoke about—addiction—he was talking about me. He said there usually is someone in the crowd that ends up calling him to talk for the very same reason. It made me feel a bit better to know that other doctors and nurses ended up in the same boat as me. He suggested I see someone, which was much easier said than done.
I had to be extremely careful about who I talked to. If I told my doctor about a problem with narcotics, he would have a legal obligation to report me and I could lose my license. And if he didn’t report me, and the powers that be were to find out he knew about it, he could lose his license.
So later that week I spoke to the psychiatrist I’d been working with since my divorce. I couldn’t tell him about the drugs, but I could talk about my depression. I was getting more depressed with the withdrawal, that was true.
I had taken that week off work because I had no energy and because I needed to right myself. I couldn’t get off the couch. I was going through pretty standard withdrawal: nausea, diarrhea, hot and cold sweats.
Because I had to explain these symptoms without including the bit about drugs, my psychiatrist simply thought I was depressed. He actually suggested that I may be manic depressive. Perfectly sensible because I would have these highs (on drugs) and lows (not on drugs). I loved that I had this to tell people. Being manic depressive is way better than being a drug addict. I was prescribed Lithium, which did nothing for me, but I took it to make the College of Physicians happy.
I got through that week or ten days of discomfort (the withdrawal really wasn’t all that horrible) and that was the end of that. I was doing well. By the time my birthday rolled around in April, life was good. I had been clean for a solid month but I was a little bit agitated. The best way to describe what I was feeling is that I was on edge for no good reason.
We were expecting another baby and we were thrilled about that, but I was feeling a bit unsettled. I gave up my hospital privileges at this time to alleviate some of the work pressure I was under, to see if that might ease the stress.
On Victoria Day weekend, we were attending a wedding in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia. We booked ourselves into a little bed and breakfast. When we arrived, we realized I had forgotten my suit.
Great. Here we were in a small town with nowhere to shop for a suit except a thrift store.
There was one suit there that fit me and it was like a Halloween costume. I felt like a mobster in this wide-collared pinstriped suit. It was ridiculous. It smelled weird. It was horrible.
I was sitting there, feeling awful, between a friend of mine who looked so good in his expensive suit and my gorgeous, perfectly dressed wife.
I didn’t have that numbness from my painkillers, so I decided to drink away my feelings. I had never been a drinker. Here I was in my late thirties, and the most alcohol I had had was a couple of beers in a social setting. I didn’t have much of a tolerance for alcohol. And I never really considered how alcohol might affect me since getting off the Percocet.
After a few glasses of Rose wine, I stopped caring about the suit. I stopped caring about anything. I finally had that sense of calm back. The same feeling I would get from my pills.
So I kept drinking.
Four glasses of wine turned into eight glasses of wine turned into nineteen glasses of wine turned into twenty-eight glasses of wine turned into thirty glasses of wine turned into a memory I wish I could forget.
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
May 18, 2002.
I lay on the bed in my socks and underwear, pieces of my suit strewn around the room. Beth, her rounded abdomen visible beneath her nightdress, tried to pull the white duvet out from under me.
“You’re so beautiful,” I slurred. “I think I drank a little too much.”
“Jesus, Grant, get up!”
But she was too late.
I was heaving the contents of my stomach onto the duvet.
Beth kept me propped up on my side. “No, no, no, no!”
My body lurched and went limp. I wiped my mouth with my arm, “I think I need some water.”
She passed me a glass of water. I took a sip. I set the cup on the bed, spilling the rest of the water. I found my way to my feet, lay on the couch at the opposite side of the room, and passed out.
“You bastard,” she said. She folded the duvet and carried it to the bathroom where she tried to scrub it clean.
That drinking binge was the first time I ever did anything like that. I felt horrible. I was so drunk I couldn’t clean myself up. It was completely out of character for me.
I know now that I was overcompensating, trying to get that same feeling I was missing from the pills. But it hadn’t worked, and I was ashamed of my behaviour. So enough of that.
I spent the summer working as many hours as I could, without the hospital shifts. A lot of people were depending on my income: two daughters, an ex-wife, a current wife, aging parents, and a baby on the way. There was a huge financial strain on me. And, as a physician, it was always a catch-up game with Canada Revenue Agency, paying off taxes from the previous year. No wonder I was feeling agitated.
I took some time off work to be with my daughters before school started again. We were trying to pack in as much fun as we could. They were keeping me busy, and I was dearly missing my old friend, the one who kept me calm and gave me the energy to do all those fun things with the girls—and the ability to work a hundred or so hours per week with ease. I clearly recall spending a week of vacation at my in-laws’ cottage thinking
, Okay. I just have to get through this week and get back to work into a regular rhythm and everything will be all right. Just get through this week.
I was trying so hard to stay strong in my recovery. And I was doing well.
Knowing what I do now, that drinking binge indicated that I was in clear danger of relapsing, but I didn’t know anything about addiction then.
In med school, we had to attend one AA meeting. That was the extent of my addictions training. I knew nothing about addiction recovery. I hadn’t even heard the word relapse before I went to rehab. I didn’t know classic things about addicts, like bargaining, minimizing, and justifying. I didn’t know anything about any of it.
Things are a little better now, but for the most part, medical schools were once notorious for teaching next to nothing about addiction. These are the people giving out narcotics, and yet they are taught nothing about the dangers of addiction.
I was doing a horrible job of being Grant’s doctor. I was totally ill-equipped to help him. I didn’t know how much trouble he was in. There were no second opinions to be had. So Grant kept on going without any support.
Until the last weekend in September when Grant’s brother…my brother…walked into my office on a Monday morning in very rough shape. And then our world came crashing down.
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
September 30, 2002.
He walked into my office wearing a plaid shirt, faded jeans, a leather motorcycle jacket, and well-worn Kodiak boots. He shut the door behind him.
I told him to take off his sunglasses.
He did. He put his sunglasses in the pocket of his leather jacket. His eyes were bloodshot, his pupils narrow. He sat down in the chair in front of my desk.
“Jesus, you’re in rough shape. What happened?” I asked him.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
“Are Mom and Dad all right?”
He nodded. He put his face in his hands.
“I need you to give me a prescription. I’m in bad shape, Grant.”
“A prescription for what?”
“Dilaudid.”
“What? What have you gotten yourself into? I can’t write you a prescription. Can’t do it.”
“Please, Grant.” He was sweating, hands trembling. “I’m in bad shape.”
“Go see your own doctor. I can’t help you.”
“He’s on vacation, I have nowhere else to go.”
“You’re going to have to wait, Buddy. I can’t help you. Go see my psychiatrist.” I wrote down a name and address on a piece of paper and handed it to my brother.
He took the piece of paper. He looked down at it and back up at me.
“I’ll go see him now. After that, I’m going home to drink. Can I drink?”
“Go ahead,” I said. “Go home and drink. But I can’t do anything for you.”
So that’s what he did. He got drunk.
On the final day of his life.
I’d always believed that my brother and I couldn’t have been any different. And, yet, it seems that we were more alike than I ever could have imagined.
I had no idea he’d gotten himself hooked on Dilaudid. Yet, here he was in a bad case of withdrawal, looking for a prescription. I couldn’t do what he was asking me to do. Especially not after what I’d just been through myself.
I thought about his visit all day long. I couldn’t shake this feeling that something bad was going to happen.
That evening, Beth and I decided to have dinner outside. It was a beautiful autumn day... warmer than usual for the end of September. Beth was getting supper ready and I just couldn’t shake this horrible feeling. I was pacing the deck thinking about my brother. I called his house but he wasn’t home. I told his wife he wasn’t in good shape earlier that day. I suggested she go out and look for him. She said she would.
A little while later I tried calling my brother again, but there was no answer. I figured his wife had gone out to the bars to find him, so I left it at that.
After dinner, Beth and I were on the couch watching television when the phone rang. And I got the worst news of my life.
It was my sister-in-law.
I couldn’t make her out at first because she was crying.
I knew what she was going to tell me before I picked up the phone.
RCMP. Accident. Driving drunk.
Dead.
My brother was dead. And it was all my fault. It was all my fault.
My world stopped in that moment.
I remembered thinking that afternoon, what if he dies tonight? I should have followed my gut. I should have gotten in my car and driven to the bars until I found him. But I didn’t.
Instead, here I was, having to drive to my parents’ home and wake them with the news that their son had died. I was trying to console his wife. It was me who told my niece that her father was dead.
Apparently, he did try to get in to see the psychiatrist, but he was turned away. The receptionist gave him an appointment for the next day.
Dad and I both went to the morgue to identify the body. Because we had to.
The days that followed were a blur.
During the funeral mass, some bikers made an appearance to show their respect. Nobody had any idea that my brother was involved in a gang. Least of all our father, the minister.
The bikers were very respectful. They did a ceremony at the casket and they led the procession to the graveyard without their helmets.
I was in this daze. I had no idea who my brother was and I never will.
I knew something was going on, but he would deny using drugs anytime I brought it up. He’d gotten hurt the year before and was on prescription painkillers. Mom had said to me at one point that she was worried he was addicted to them, but I didn’t want to hear about it. I was trying to do everything I could to not be part of that world.
I had to go back to work the day after the funeral, and I was putting everything I had into that. I was working to manage my stress. I always found solace in my work, especially evening clinics. I used to love those. I sincerely enjoyed being a physician, and I especially loved when I could see five or six patients in an evening clinic and I was presented with these puzzles to solve. I loved finding issues that were overlooked by other doctors. I was a good doctor and I loved helping people. So I focused on that.
I had an extremely difficult time coping with my brother’s death. I didn’t even want to face my psychiatrist. I was so angry with him for not seeing my brother that day. When I did go in to see him, he gave me a big hug and I distinctly recall wanting to punch him in the mouth. I couldn’t open up to him now because I hated him. Never mind the fact that I was hiding the addiction I was trying to deal with.
He put me on antidepressants, but they weren’t touching the pain. Not like my old friend, Percocet. But I wasn’t going down that path again. My wife was about to give birth.
Two weeks after my brother died, I was completely overwhelmed. I made a decision that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
October 12, 2002.
I paced the floor. My daughters giggled in their room across the hall. It was my weekend with them and they were waiting for me to play with them. I had forts to build, grass to cut, clinics to work. Beth could go into labour at any minute…
“You just have to get through this week,” I told myself—the same line I’d been feeding myself since the funeral.
I sat on the bed, facing the antique cabinet. I heard a voice I hadn’t heard in six months—the seductive voice of my former lover.
Something is wrong with the child your wife is carrying. You will have to pay for killing your brother. But don’t worry, I will make the pain go away. I will make it all go away.
I put my head in my hand and rubbed m
y temples. I believe I could actually feel her and smell her. I wanted her, just once more.
I stood up, put my hand on the cabinet.
I crossed the room, found the key, returned to the cabinet, fingered the lock. I inserted the key.
Click.
The lock turned.
The door opened.
I could hear a voice.
“You just have to get through this week. You just need to feel numb for a little while.”
Among the pill bottles I found the one I had put there in case I needed it.
OxyContin (oxycodone hydrochloride extended-release tablets) 20mg
100 Tablets Rx Only! Keep out of reach of children.
I popped the child safety lock. Twisted open the bottle. Dropped one round white pill in my hand.
“If you do this, are you going to be able to stop?” I asked myself.
The voice of the Oxy soothed my worries. It’s just a low dose. You’ll only need one and you’ll feel so good all day long.
I swallowed the pill. I put the bottle in the drawer, locked the cabinet. I felt immediate release wash over my entire body. I left the room, played with my kids, cut the grass, kissed my wife, survived the day.
After my brother died, I took a bottle of OxyContin home with me and added it to my stash of medications, in case I ever needed it. That will tell you how sick I was, but as a doctor, it was easy for me to justify that to myself. I kept all kinds of medications on hand, just in case.
OxyContin, we’d been told by the drug reps, wasn’t an addictive drug, so it was a safer form of pain management. And because it was slow release, the pain sufferer would get all-day relief from a smaller dosage.
When I was in my bedroom that day, completely overwhelmed with life, I thought maybe it could help me. My ankle was bothering me again. I wasn’t able to run anymore, I wasn’t able to get to the gym. I was stressed to the max, and I needed to work more and more hours to pay for this money train I’d gotten myself on. I was on a financial hamster wheel I couldn’t get off of. Maybe the pills in that bottle were the answer.
When I took the pill, I had immediate relief, but I felt like I was going to remain in control. The Oxy numbed me nicely from my worries while giving me the boost of energy I was looking for since I had stopped taking Percocet.
The Golden Boy Page 2