IT TAKES MORE THAN GUTS TO GET INTO REHAB

With Phil for coffee in Pickering the other day. He is in his forties,
a handsome man with a tennis player's handshake. No surprise, he was
nationally ranked at 15 years of age. The world was his oyster for a
very long time.

And then things went to hell.

Some years ago, he separated from his wife; these things happen. Then
other things happened in a very blurry hurry. He did not flinch when
he said, "I met a woman half my age. She gave me ecstasy." He isn't
blaming her. He got high to get with her.

"I took one ecstasy pill. I had never messed with drugs. I lost my
judgment and I tried coke. I like to say I was at a party and it
lasted two years."

The party cost him his $80,000-a-year job and further estranged him
from his wife and his son.

A practical question: How could he afford to buy drugs when he wasn't
working?

"I burned through $70,000 of my RSP savings. The only reason I have
any money left is because Revenue Canada froze my account for not
paying taxes. I was on a binge. I owed a few grand. I chose to party
instead of filing."

Get high, get stupid, get caught.

He is the only man I know who is grateful to RevCan. "I'm still
behind. I'm lucky to have anything left."

He's lucky to be alive.

"I'd be buying drugs, my dealer wouldn't answer, I'd end up in Regent
Park at 3 a.m. People get shot, get stabbed, they get ripped off."

The pursuit of pleasure carries other risks. He chased a lot of skirt.
"In Toronto there is a subculture of beautiful young women who are
addicted to cocaine. You meet, you talk, you amuse them; if you want
to be with a woman half your age, buy drugs. I got caught up in that."

The corollary: As there is a subculture of young women, so there is a
subculture of weak men.

Jump-cut to the wake-up call.

"I was driving home at the end of a three-day binge. I fell asleep at
a red light." As he was nodding off, he noticed a woman pushing a
pram. When he nodded off, his car lurched forward and he smashed into
a parked car and the car ran up on the curb and he heard a shriek as
he awoke. He thought it was the mother and her baby.

He got out, trembling. He looked under the front wheel.

The shriek was the sound of his undercarriage on the curb. He has not
driven for a long time.

He has been in jail. Stupid stuff. His wife wouldn't let him see his
son, rightly so. He harassed her over the phone. She called the cops.

He's not complaining. He knows he was wrong. He can apply for a pardon
in a couple of months. With a pardon, he can get a better job. Nobody
likes to hire a guy with a record. How did he turn things around?

"It was the car accident. I tried to get into rehab and couldn't." The
waiting list is an addict's enemy.

"There are other drug treatment centres that test you when you show up
on Day 1; if you have drugs in your system they send you away." That's
equally stupid.

So how did he stop?

He quit on his own.

He's been clean nine months now. That is the discipline of the older
athlete.

Not everyone has that resolve.

"Ideally? All you should have to do to get into rehab is raise your
hand."

I'm with him all the way.