Bob Ramsay - Love or Die Trying: How I Lost It All, Died, and Came Back for Love

BOB RAMSAY

HOW I LOST IT ALL, DIED, AND CAME BACK FOR LOVE

Copyright Robert Ramsay, 2021

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Publisher: Scott Fraser | Editor: Russell Smith

Cover design: Paul Haslip, HM&E Design Communications

Cover image: Bill Allen, Unsplash

Printer: Marquis Book Printing Inc.

Text in chapters 16 and 17 first appeared in Life After Near Death: I Marvel at My Heart and the New Life Its Given Me. Macleans, September 24, 2012. macleans.ca/society/health/a-ticking-time-bomb/. Used with permission.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Love or die trying : how I lost it all, died, and came back for love / Bob Ramsay.

Names: Ramsay, Bob, 1949- author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210121874 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210121939 | ISBN 9781459747173 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459747180 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459747197 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Ramsay, Bob, 1949-Family. | LCSH: Marmoreo, JeanFamily. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC CT310.R36 A3 2021 | DDC 971.07092dc23

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

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For Jean

Its too bad we screwed up our friendship

We all have our broken pieces. In this life, nobody gets away unhurt. Were always trying to find somebody whose broken pieces fit with our broken pieces, and something whole emerges.

Bruce Springsteen

I ts said that 90 percent of interventions led by friends or family members fail, while 90 percent of those led by a professional interventionist succeed. By succeed, I dont mean that the person being intervened on stops drinking or doing drugs for the rest of their lives; I mean they take the first step to getting help to stop. This usually means attending meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous or its many variants, or agreeing to go to treatment in a rehabilitation facility.

In my case, there was no time to find a professional, and I was too far down the hole of my addiction to give stopping more than a frantic passing thought.

My best friend Charles Fremes was worried about me. A month earlier, Id had to borrow money from him to take a train home after a wedding in Montreal.

My accountant, Arthur Gelgoot, had warned me, Just dont get arrested. My denial was so tight that I was offended by Arthurs words. How did he know? How dare he think Id run afoul of the law?

Of course, as with most alcoholics and addicts, everyone knew. Why did my staff of ten all drift into jobs elsewhere? They knew. Why was I huddling in a tiny office that Id bargained for with my landlord after giving up our entire floor upstairs? She knew. Why were the tenants in my triplex dropping their cheques in my mailbox and not ringing the doorbell to chat? They knew. As for the police, its a miracle they didnt pull me over as I inched my way home in my car, terrified of exceeding the thirty kilometre per hour speed limit, and instead driving only twenty.

Addiction is a way to push people away.

But Charles and Arthur hung in there. Once, many months after they engineered my intervention, Charles said to me, You grossly underestimate the depth of our friendship if you think you can run away from me and us.

Charles and Arthur were also well aware that Id never sit still for an intervention. So, Charles called me one night. Arthur and I want to meet with you to do some long-term business planning. How about tomorrow afternoon?

I was flattered. Long-range business planning implied a number of things that were no longer true: that I had a business, that I was able to plan anything beyond my next high, and that my long-range future looked even possible.

At some level, I knew this was the intervention that Id both dreaded and desperately hoped for. Thats the thing about addiction: a rare glimpse of reality will occasionally seep through the tightly held denial. Its in those brief moments that change can happen.

All the next morning, I was tempted to call my friends and cancel. But I was just so tired and lonely, and so hurt that my willpower could do nothing to help me stop. So, I waited for the knock on my office door at 2:00 p.m. The door was locked, of course, because thats what addicts do.

When they arrived, Charles kept the mood light, just like old times, with lots of witty chit-chat. Then he pulled out a piece of paper. Arthur and I have done up an agenda for our meeting so we can use our time efficiently.

Again, I was flattered. This sounded like I just had to do a little planning and everything would soon be shipshape.

He handed me the paper. There were half a dozen items on it Clients, Staffing, Taxes but item number one was Improving Your Health.

So we need to talk about your health first, Arthur began, because if youre not prepared to work on that, then theres really nothing to say about the other items.

My health? I asked.

They were tired of my denial. Your cocaine addiction.

Right. Yes, of course.

You need to give yourself a break. We think you need to go away to get better Weve found a place for you

Really? I was so grateful I almost broke down in tears. This hell would soon end. I could start over. They cared! Charles and Arthur were the cavalry, and the cavalry had finally come to rescue me.

Its a treatment centre outside Atlanta.

Atlanta? Why so far away? I cant go there. Ive got things to do here. My denial was preventing me from grasping the lifeline they had thrown me.

Like what? asked Charles.

Well like Actually, there wasnt a single thing I could think of that was holding me back from seeking treatment. I had no kids, no work, no relationship, and I was fast pushing away my few remaining friends.

Arthur stepped in. Dont worry, well pay the bills when youre gone.

But I was terrified that people would find out, and worse, talk.

Again, as I would learn when I intervened on dozens of others in the thirty years since then, we addicts have a huge fear, not just that someone will learn our secret, but that theyll tell others about it.