My Life And Death On Opioids

A memoir of addiction

- Chris Willie

IN NOVEMBER 2017, The Walrus started working with Chris Willie, a thirty-two-year-old environmental and exercise physiology researcher, a university lecturer in British Columbia, and an experienced mountain climber. Willie had recently completed a memoir about his experience with and recovery from fentanyl addiction. He was eight months out of rehab when he finished his draft at the mountain and wilderness writing residency at the Banff Centre. But, on December 21, after returning from a climbing expedition in South America, Willie relapsed and died due to a fentanyl overdose. This version of his story is based on editing conversations with The Walrus before his death and is published with the approval of his family.

Coming to is like waking up in an underwater car crash — a lightning moment in the crack of a missed heartbeat, breath erupting in an agony of terror. Sobbing, gasping for air, I’m bewildered at the sight of waxy fingers clawing at the bathroom floor, fingernails chewed past the quick. My arm leaves a thin red smear along the toilet’s edge as I prop myself up: just a few more bits of me left behind. Alone. Beyond the locked door of my staff bathroom, the happy chatter of students begins to regain form, and a spot of sanity returns. I crawl up the sink to my feet and look to the face in the mirror, all reds and grays and blues of a landfill fire. Abandoned eyes. You fucking moron. This is such idiocy. You obviously need to dilute the fentanyl so you stop overdosing.

AUGUST 2017