The Golden Boy

by Grant Matheson

  Now Dr. Cunningham was seeing me under a different set of circumstances and, for the record, his recommendations this time were ignored. I’m certain that the College’s minds were already made up and that was, honestly, okay with me. I wanted to walk with my head high again. Like I did when my Dad asked me at age ten to sit in the front row and tape the church service. I would make sure I hit those tape and play buttons just at the right time. I would be all dressed up in that three-piece itchy woollen suit. I would be so filled with essence of the hymns, the stained glass, and the feelings that were like a warm wave coming over me. I felt that spirituality but didn’t know how to grasp it.

  But right then I just wanted to know how to get out of this fucking situation. For me, my kids, and my patients and staff. I was so tired of the word narcotic; its utterance almost made me sick. Right then, I needed the support of people who understood and embraced me, to be advised by colleagues who had been in similar situations. I needed to hear what the Caduceus group of experience health professionals had to say, and just get home and hug my kids.

  The group decision was unanimous: plead guilty and see what happens. No matter if the source has a vengeful or even retaliatory purpose.

  I knew I couldn’t just run away. I had to face the music.

  I went back home and kept on working. The issue didn’t go to court until December. I pled guilty and tearfully apologized for my behaviour. How could I expect to get away with something I myself would have condemned only years before? The judge sentenced me a conditional discharge. I would be on probation for two years. During that time, I would have to have random drug tests and speak to several groups about the dangers of prescription drug use.

  The College was looking for a suspension of three-and-a-half years. We got a stay from the judge, and the Supreme Court of PEI overturned the decision in the summer of that same year. I didn’t get suspended.

  I continued to work. I exercised daily, I attended twelve-step meetings regularly, I tried to stay connected to a higher power every day. If I did that, everything was fine.

  Unfortunately, five years later, I crumbled again because I stopped doing all those things. I was too busy trying to find my next girlfriend to listen to my higher power. I didn’t return to drugs, but I did end up addicted again: this time to alcohol. Fortunately, my family and friends arranged an intervention.

  It was Labour Day of 2012. I couldn’t figure out why my oldest daughters just didn’t seem to want to leave that day. But suddenly I found myself surrounded by most of the people I loved, along with a facilitator who was a former priest and who had been sober for twenty-five years. I must admit I was half-buzzed at the time, but the reality of the situation came crashing down on me when my oldest daughters read letters to me that they had prepared. I saw that Jim Gormley was present so I knew the situation was serious. I realized I needed help again, and the next day I was on a flight back to Homewood accompanied by my sister.

  At least for this second trip to Homewood I had her. She was gracious enough to let me drink the whole trip. I had been drinking around the clock for the week leading up to that point, so it was probably the best decision. My sister doesn’t drink at all, so this was, I’m sure, a stretch for her. Alcohol withdrawal can cause severe prolonged deadly seizures and that was the last thing she wanted to happen to me during the flight.

  When I checked into Homewood I found out that the psychiatrist that I had been so mad at after my brother’s death was behind my most recent referral. We had become very close over the years and I came to realize that he had no idea how much distress my brother was in that fateful day, or he would have made time for him. Deep down inside I knew a phone call from me would have likely helped, but I had to let that go.

  There were a lot of people behind getting me help this time. I felt like a horse that fell through the ice and couldn’t understand that people were trying to bring him to safety. I felt like somehow people were attacking me and I would try to fight them off. But that didn’t matter now because I was here safely. There was a familiar smell of hand sanitizer and the familiar wristband. I can barely remember entering the building, just walking into my room, really.

  They urine-tested me to be sure they were treating just pure alcohol withdrawal, which of course I knew they were. But active addicts and alcoholics tend to be sparse with the truth. They packed my clothes away and the same physician who attended to me during my first admission was there. I was given an injection of thiamine and 60mg of Valium to stop the shaking that was not only physically apparent but also emotionally obvious. Narcotic withdrawal feels more miserable, but alcohol withdrawal can be deadly. But I knew I was in a safe place.

  As I lay on my bed I kept saying to myself: how did I end up here again? I was so angry with the fact that I had let this disease slip in the back door. I was thankful that I was safe and I quickly grasped that I could settle into the routine that I knew would restore me to health again. I could feel the plastic pillow covering below my pillowcase. It was strange, but as upset as I was at the time I was looking forward to the experience. I had stopped looking at rehab as a punishment a long time ago. It was more of a tune-up for those who are inclined to drift down the path of chemical indulgence. I had flashbacks of my previous time here. It would surely be a different experience, but that is all part of the journey, and the best way to approach it is with appreciation and excitement. As I faded off to sleep I knew when I woke up I would take on this challenge by just letting go and trusting the process. All the right people will be put in my path as they had before. I felt that glimmer of faith again. Like the feeling of that warm facecloth my mother would put on my forehead when I was sick.

  AFTER AFTER

  You need a fortress around you to keep that abusive lover from calling you back.

  It’s easy to forget how bad it is. To romance the good times.

  Addiction is a lifelong disease.

  I would like to say that I won’t go back there, but that would be naïve. I can say that I work on maintaining my sobriety every single day.

  I know what it means to lose everything, and I don’t have any interest in doing that again. After my children, my sobriety is the most important thing in the world to me. And I have realized that abusing substances will destroy my life. With narcotics, it will do it quickly, and with alcohol, it will do it more slowly and insidiously. It is much like boarding an extravagant cruise on a sinking ship. But the gash in the hull depends totally on the substance and is totally out of my control.

  As I ponder the affliction that is now certainly my label, I can’t help but wonder how I got here. Many parts of medicine have tried to treat the addict but have failed. Even more have inadvertently been a catalyst to the condition, only to throw their hands up in despair when the patient fails to respond rationally. The problem is that addiction, in my opinion, is a disease of irrational thinking that is first precipitated by a crisis in a person’s life. It is then fuelled by an emotionally numbing agent. Once the cascade of mental unfitness has been fuelled by an accelerating agent, the point of no return can be swift and merciless. No caregiver would do this intentionally: give someone destructive advice. It would be like advising someone who was cold to go home and sit by a warm fire, not realizing they had a gas leak in their house; the counsellor in this instance had no idea of the person’s separate crisis or imminent threat.

  If it was me giving the advice I would likely be defensive, and, frankly, arrogant; how could I have known all the circumstances? There would of course be no intent because the prescription was given without knowledge of the underlying situation. And the accepter of the prescription might not realize that they are in a fragile mental or situational state. I, myself, had no idea how impacted I was by the shame I felt for my brother’s death.

  Society has placed this condition in the wrong category for too long. No one intentionally causes this, it is a combination of circumstances. The more important thing is
that we remove the negative label from the condition. Who would seek help for any medical condition or mental fragility, if it met with public scrutiny, bias, and job loss? I can say this from my own experience that this is a condition, much like a mental illness, that one tends to not admit publicly. Especially when it arises and is seen as a weakness or a relapse or a slip. People who struggle with other terminal illnesses are treated more graciously. There are no cakes for the addict who uses again, no flowers for the alcoholic who met a life crisis and got drunk.

  Let’s just all be less judgmental of each other and be part of the solution for this epidemic. Judging addicts is not only part of their disease, but is exactly how the disease wants you to look at them. I know that until I had gone through this experience I would have never even entertained such ideas. But from one golden boy to another, how about we just cut everyone a bit of slack? Everyone else is not as perfect as we are right now.

  Before I finished writing this book, I went on a trip to Vancouver with my youngest daughter for a soccer tournament. I wanted to take a drive around some of the most drug-infested streets in the city. The other soccer dads asked me if I was crazy. Why would I want to go somewhere so dangerous?

  I explained that these were my people. I was one of them. Addicts are only dangerous if you take away their access. These people are sick, not bad.

  I attended a meeting while I was there. I wanted to see for myself if this disease has any geographic differences. It doesn’t. I have attended meetings in the fancy suburbs of Orlando, Florida, and the backstreets of Vancouver. The stories are very different but the outcomes all the same. Wreckage and carnage to varying degrees, but the ship always eventually sinks. I still attend meetings wherever I go, because they help me. Sharing my story helps me.

  As I was writing this I remembered an intervention that I missed. It was in the fall of 2004, by a pharmacist who was in the program. He pulled up beside my vehicle at the edge of a mall parking lot. I had just tried to obtain quantities of injectable narcotics that I had claimed were for my Botox and cosmetic facial filler clients in my clinics. He asked me to get into his vehicle and he proceeded to ask me if anyone was forcing me or putting me up to this. He was basically giving me a way out and I was in such denial or was too scared to admit what I was doing. He said that he could help me if that was the case, but I refused to admit that there was an issue. I will never know if he could have helped.

  I am sure that there are many such instances in a person’s life where help is offered but we think we can handle it ourselves. This may be true for a lot of things, but with narcotic addiction our foe is a fiery dragon that can’t be slain alone. If I had broken down and told that pharmacist the truth, perhaps things would have been different. But I would not have had the experiences I’ve had and I most certainly would not have had the opportunity to speak up about this issue. Is that a silver lining?

  Another thing I did while I was writing this book? I took a trip to Homewood again. I wanted to see it again through sober eyes. I walked around the grounds and remembered. I took pictures of the places that meant the most to me, areas where I felt I had my deepest conversations and felt my deepest connections.

  I owe a lot to that place, and to the people I met there.

  One of the doctors who helped me relapsed. At first, I felt sorry for him, but then I realized that, like me, we can learn from these experiences, if we survive them, and we become better humans. It is sort of like a great relationship: sometimes an interruption in what seems like plodding makes one appreciate just how good life is.

  THANKS

  The people around me have been affected by my experience. My children have all been amazing and I am very proud of each of them. My parents have really changed the most. Our relationship wasn’t the best after my first divorce, but I have watched their faith grow through this process. They have ended up being the ones I can count on the most, and they don’t preach at me anymore but are this haven of sanity that is always there for me. I don’t feel that pressure from them to be perfect anymore. I can be totally honest with them and I don’t feel judged.

  Something that still amazes me is that all the people in my extended family still love me and me them. My first ex-wife, with whom I am still dear friends, was part of the group that gathered for my intervention. Beth has forgiven me for developing a relationship with Scarlett and has become a tremendous support for me. We are still very close and would do anything for each other. I have met a woman who may become my wife; her understanding and support are crucial.

  Several of the people I met along my journey aren’t with us anymore. I am thankful every single day that I am. Dancer is finally sober—more than a year now. She and I keep in touch; there will always be a place in my heart for her. Bear has been sober since his stay at Homewoood. Danger had some struggles early on, but now she has a new baby and looks as gorgeous and dangerous as ever. I have no idea what happened to Scarlett and have never heard from her again. I have lost track of Jock, Cleveland, and Silicon. Silicon, I often wonder about you, so if you are out there, buddy, I would truly love to hear from you.

  I would not be where I am today without the true friendship of Jim Gormley and Donne Buell. The thing that distinguishes these two from others is that neither of them suffered from the same disease as me, yet both could somehow get me to open up to them without judging me for my outlandish behaviour. One of the reasons addicts seek out other recovering addicts for help is this fear of being judged or being labelled as mentally unstable. Most of my behaviour when I was using was very irrational, but these individuals had the ability to absorb the chaos I would divulge, and make it seem human.

  Life has a funny way of working out. The seasons will come and go, just like our problems. The one thing that I have learned from this experience is that life is really about acceptance and faith. Existence is like a continuous movie and we must accept the roles that are given to us daily.

  I have been humbled by this ordeal. I have much less control over my daily fate than I ever would have imagined. It is true that I can manage by controlling my surroundings, but then there is also what goes on inside of us, in our bodies and minds. These we can only influence by proper management. Believing that things will always turn out okay allows us to take the all-important deep breath. How can we enjoy life if we are always looking over our shoulder? I also believe in being fully aware of our surroundings and not going through life heedlessly.

  I have also learned—the hard way—that fretting and self-loathing are the opposite of life. It is almost impossible to grow when these emotions become dominant. If we believe that our experiences are all part of a greater purpose, then they become more bearable. We all should find our own divine power and not be judging each other. We are not as different as we had reckoned. Over the decades the scope of our differences has just changed, but we are basically the same. We are all in this together, and, to be honest, it would be difficult to envision life differently. Don’t let others or your disease determine who you are.

  When I was at Homewood I thought about whether I might like to work there one day. I think I would. But I’m not sure yet what my future holds.

  For now, I still live in Prince Edward Island. My eldest daughters are in their twenties. My youngest is in junior high school. She keeps me on her toes with her athletics schedule. I am grateful that my daughters have forgiven me.

  I haven’t worked since my second stay at Homewood and I don’t suspect I’ll ever work as a doctor in PEI again. Right now, that is my own choice. To clear the air of all the speculation I haven’t taken a narcotic since that airport bathroom incident more than twelve years ago.

  My hope is that someday I may be given the opportunity to work with medical students and other health professionals to open some eyes to the dangers of prescribing opioids and self-medicating.

  I hope this book will change your perspective about addic
ts. Addicts are sick. They are not bad. For me? It started completely innocently. It started with a cough. If it can happen to a respected physician, addiction can happen to anyone.

  I am no longer a doctor. I am no longer the golden boy.

  I am just Grant.

  And I am no different than you.