The Ben Mulroney Show - Addiction and recovery with Sleep Canada co-founder Gordon Lownds

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

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Find an agent today at Desjardins.com slash business coverage. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And here is a universal truth as I see it, no matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, what your background is, who you surround yourself with, the world is a hard place and it's gonna, however hard you push at it, it's gonna push back harder. And because of that, addiction is something

that can befall anyone. And the reasons for falling into that whole are myriad and unique to each individual. And I'm joined now by someone who has his own unique story of falling into the darkness of addiction. And he's got a new book that we're gonna be talking about. We're gonna talk about his story and really gain his insights onto how far he fell, why he fell and and how he found

his way back into the light. Please welcome to the show the co-founder of Sleep Country Canada, Gordon Lownes. Welcome to the show, Gordon. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Before we jump into anything, I'd like to ask you, how are you today? I'm great. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm in a very good space. I'm living with my daughter out in Vancouver Island and I'm fully retired so I don't have the stress of any business issues facing me.

And I'm just living it one day at a time. You well, I can see your, your home looks beautiful. And I hope that the piece that I see on screen is reflected in the piece that you feel inside. Okay, thanks. Okay, so let's talk about this story because it's always fascinating for people on the outside looking in

that somebody who can accomplish what you accomplished did so while being held down was being pulled down by the forces of addiction. Talk to me about where you were in 1996. Yes. So we were about a year and a half into the start of sleep country, Canada, out in Vancouver. Things were going extremely well. I was just recently divorced. My family, my wife and my ex had moved back to Toronto,

so I was on my own out here. And I was doing what a lot of entrepreneurs do is working insane hours and totally sort of mentally committed 100% of my time to basically just driving the business. And it got very successful very quickly. So how old were you back in 1996? I was 48.

At 48, so you launched the company and it was about that time that drugs entered your orbit. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. No, so tell me the story of that because like I said, every person who suffers from addiction, it's something different. For some people, they're introduced to alcohol as a child,

right? And they're forever tethered to it. Others, for others, it's one bad decision. Others, it's to fill a void. For others, it's to feel feel accepted in your case, what happened? Yeah. So in 1995, I got involved with with a young lady who would be described as the ultimate

femme fatale. So I she was living in Seattle and I was down in Seattle every couple of weeks on business to work with the advertising agency. So we had this ongoing relationship and she ended up moving in with me in early 1996. And about three or four months into that, I discovered that she had a drug problem. And it's sort of the light went on in terms of a lot of her behavior in the past had been a little bit bizarre and hard to understand and then it all became clear to me.

So I tried, I got her into a treatment program, didn't work, we got into another two or three treatment programs, didn't work. And finally I another two or three treatment programs, didn't work. And finally, I told her, I said, I'm busy, I'm committed to this business, I'm a high profile business guy, and I can't be living with a drug addict. So she basically said, look, I'll leave, but would you just try it once with me so that you can empathize with the kind of problem that I'm trying to deal with? And I basically said, sure. Yeah. You said, sure. Okay. We got to stop there for a moment. Did you recognize in that moment

that you were at a fork in the road? No. No. What did you think? I thought it was no big deal because I've been around drugs when I was in the music business in the in the early 1970s. Never never touched it. I always consider myself to be really strong willed and I could deal with anything. And I'm a survivor and I've dealt with a lot of adversity throughout my life. And I figured it was not a big deal. And my impression of cocaine was what you see in the movies where some people,

they get drunk and they do some coke to keep using and this sort of thing. And what happened was my introduction to cocaine was basically smoking crack with her. And the instant that happened, my brain just exploded. And what I now understand is that people's body chemistry is different and people react differently to different drugs. And my body chemistry reacted extremely positively to the stimulus of the cocaine. And it was, you know, literally sort of the best feeling I'd ever had. So all the stress of the world and the stress of the girlfriend, it all went away. And I said this was great. And basically spent the weekend smoking crack and having outrageous sex because all of your inhibitions go through the roof.

And after the weekend, my thought was, well, that's great, I can party like this on weekends and that'll be a lot of fun. So I didn't throw her out. So you didn't throw it so you thought okay I'm going to try this to understand her and within within just a few days you were like okay I can now I can have this as part of my life and I can control it. Yeah yeah and as I said it's never I've never had anything in my life that's been able to take control of

me. And within six months, I knew I had a problem. I was Googling cocaine addiction and all that other good stuff. I went to see a therapist who was freshly out of school and asked them if I had a problem. She was a psychologist. And she asked me how much I was using and as every drug drug user will tell you, we always lie about how much we use. So I told her how much I thought I was using and she said, Well, you don't have a problem. Yeah. So I kept going. But I got I got

asked, I need to go back to that that that went off because you tried so hard, you saw the negative impact that this drug had on your girlfriend. You saw how hard despite your best efforts and her best faith attempts to get off of it that she couldn't. You saw how corrosive and toxic and destructive it was. And then you tried it once and thought to yourself,

that's not gonna happen to me. Yep. thought to yourself, that's not going to happen to me. Yep. That's how that's so. So the drug put put blinders on you. It gave you a massive blind spot immediately. Yeah. And yeah, as I said, and you know, the I was living sort of a hedonistic dream with this girl.

Yeah. And the the cocaine was just the fuel to that dream. And as I said, I never thought that I would get stuck or tracked into a situation that I couldn't control. And all the while you're building a business. And I want to make sure that we end this segment on the right note. You were aware that you were addicted within six months and the addiction lasted a thousand days, less than three years.

So that's a really fast roller coaster. That's a whiplash inducing ride. And I'm trying to figure out whether you can attribute it to burning fast and bright or being self-aware enough to recognize that you had to get off the ride quickly. How do you see those thousand days if you had to wrap it up in about 30 seconds? So I went from smoking crack to injecting cocaine within about a year. And basically people have asked me, how far did I fall?

And the answer is I fall all the way down. And so I ended up trolling through the back alleys of the downtown East side of Vancouver, which is a notorious drug you know, drug haven, you know, looking for my next fix. You know, let's end on that hanging Chad, if you will, sir. And when we come back, we've got much more of this fascinating conversation with Gordon Lounds. Don't go anywhere.

This is the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and thanks for sticking with us because we are continue our conversation with Gordon Lownes, the founder of Sleep Country Canada, who has written a new memoir entitled Cracking Up an Unlikely Addicts Memoir from Rising Star to Junkie Despair in 1000 Days. Gordon, thank you so much for sticking with us and thank you so much for this honest conversation.

We appreciate it. Okay, thank you. So let's continue. So you're now in the throes of this addiction, which lasted a thousand days. You said before the break that you were trolling the streets of some of the darkest parts of Vancouver, all while building a business.

Like the business was new and it was successful, but it requires constant attention. I've been part of a number of startups, I know how hard founders have to work. So talk to me about juggling these two lives. So my role at State Country was primarily doing the real estate deals, marketing, advertising. And so, so I wasn't running the day to day business actively with all the people in

the in the company. And that basically fell to Christine McGee. Christine McGee, of course, I remember I remember her from the commercials. Yeah. So she was running the day to day stuff. So and again, you probably heard the term high functioning addict. Yeah. So I was an extremely high functioning addict. So yeah, what was a 24 hour day like for you? Oh, so

let me let me describe a week. Okay, so I probably party from Friday until Monday. On Monday, I intended to go to work, but I didn't quite make it out the door. So I had to get in on Tuesday. On Monday, I would have been doing some work online, so I didn't have to show up. And then Tuesday through Friday, it was like a 12, 13, 14 hour day.

And we were opening in Vancouver, on Ontario at the time we were opening into Malibu. So I was on planes going here and there. And when I was completely messed up and I couldn't show up anywhere, I would tell people in Toronto that I was in Seattle. I would tell the people in Calgary that I was in Toronto. And it was it was like a white knuckle charade is what it was. You know, I kept things going. With your family on the other side of the country, how did they, what did they know

about the state of affairs of your life? Absolutely nothing. Nothing. So I said I had divorced. So I did see my daughter once in a while. She was 14 or so at the time. But again, I was able to, you know, to get clean and stay clean for two or three days at a time without, without any sort of visible, no withdrawal symptoms or anything like that.

Oh, okay. No, no cocaine gets out of your system basically within 72 hours. So you can appear normal. And until you have the craving and the compulsion to go back and get higher and high again. So so Gordon, describe rock bottom for me, what was the moment where there was no other way to fix your life but to change it completely. So the girlfriend had gone back to Seattle, so I was on my own for about the last year of my using. Things were, I still, I basically, I probably started using more without her there. And I got to the point in May of 1998 where I couldn't keep up the charade anymore.

I mean, I just, it was too stressful and I didn't think I could pull it off without somebody finding out that I was messed up. So I took a leave of absence from the company. Steve Gunn, who had been my longtime business partner, and was working in the Ontario operation took over my role. And I told him I had some health problems and I'd be back on the in September on Labor Day. And I thought with three months time without any stress and any problems, I could get myself sorted out. And I ended up just using more and more and more. And my bottom was just sitting there, waking up every morning, basically saying, if I keep doing this, I'm going to die, but I don't know what else that I can do.

Well, let's let's move in. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Go on. Go on. So I said I broke down and called Steve, my partner, two days after Labor Day, and basically broke down and told him that I had a problem with the cocaine. And he basically, you know, I thought he was going to really be upset with me.

But he said, look, he says, we don't want to lose you. What can we do to help? And so a combination of him and my best friend came out to Vancouver the next morning and stayed with me for three days to detox me. I went to Toronto, stayed with Steve and his family for a couple of days. And then he got me into treatment at Bellwood Centre in Toronto. And this is where I want our conversation to conclude is that there are a lot of people out there on the outside looking in who assume that in order for addiction to be overcome, one has to treat it a very particular way, you know, a 12-step program, appreciation of a higher power and all that stuff. What is your take on that?

What I learned in treatment, and it certainly applies to me, is that a combination of treatment philosophies is frequently the best approach. So I was very, very active in the 12-step program for quite a few years after I got clean and sober. I had the benefit of meeting a doctor at Bellwood who was also a psychiatrist who specialized in addictions, and I stayed in his treatment care for about five or six years after I got clean and sober. And what I've found, the favorite line in my book that if I can quote it for you, is that the common factor among us addicts and alcoholics is that we have a latent disorder or two that comes bubbling to the surface like a fart in the bathtub when we stop drinking and drugging.

So when you get rid of the drugs and alcohol, you know, many of us have got some mental health issues. Yeah. And mental health issues, I think, you know, are best solved with professional psychological or psychiatric psychiatry kinds of treatment. Yeah, they say- Because you can't. They say that- You can't get that in a 12-step order. Yeah, they say that

the worst day for an alcoholic isn't while they're drunk, it's that day where they finally, the veil of alcohol is lifted, and they're able to, with sober eyes, see the damage and the wreckage of their life, and it's what they do in that moment, because they can either use that as an excuse to go back or they can fight through.

And that's really the test. And I'm glad you said that because, you know, off the top I said, there are so many different reasons for which addiction takes hold. And I've always found it interesting that there are those out there who feel that there is one and only one way to get clean. If you understand there's one way, there's so many different ways to find your way to drugs,

and there must be so many different ways to find your way off of it. I've got to ask, what did your family think when they finally learned the truth, and why did you decide now is the time to share your story? is the time to share your story? So the sort of the last week, my last week in treatment, the doctors had been telling me I really need to come clean and tell my my daughter and my ex-wife what my problem was. So I went and had dinner with them. As soon as I said, uttered the words, I was a crack addict. My daughter, who was 14 at the time, completely broke down, you know, ran out of the room and said, she never wanted to talk to me again.

And my wife basically, you know, said, you're a bastard, get out kind of thing. So, so a good part of my recovery and a good part of the reason that I waited so long to publish this is that I was concerned about, you know, my story basically doing more damage with my family and my friends, and also the potential collateral damage it might have in terms of the reputation of sleep country. And I only have about 30 seconds left, but can you let me know what is the state of your family today?

It's wonderful. And my one year anniversary, my ex-wife was there, my business partner was there, my daughter was there. It's taken a long time to rebuild the trust of my daughter. And what I was told in treatment and it's worked out is you have to work at it every day and never, ever, ever let her down again. And now I'm living with her. Gordon Lounds, that last, what you just said there touched me so deeply. And I'm so glad to have had this conversation with you. And I'm so glad that we can share it across the country

on this show. I really do thank you for being so honest and so candid. The book is called Cracking Up. Gordon Lownes is the author and the man who lived the story. I wish you nothing but the best as you move forward with your life, sir. Okay. I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you very much.

Wow. And thank you for joining us today. It has been a heck of a show. and The alliances get trickier and the blind sides? Brutal! Just a roller coaster of backstabbing and craziness. New house guests, new twists, same epic drama. Bro, I'm gunning for you. You're my number one target. Who can you trust when everyone's watching? Game on, baby! Big Brother, new season Thursday, July 10th on Global.

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