by Scott Burgess, as told to Lisa Gregoire / illustration by Malcolm Brown

I was attacked in February 2006. Some drugs went missing. I didn’t take them but they blamed me anyway. Someone was hired to come to my place with a baseball bat. I knew the guy. He hit me across the back, my legs, my head. I went to the hospital that night. I thought I was bleeding internally but I wasn’t. The doctors gave me Percocet. Basically they gave me the same thing I was addicted to. It was perfect. I lied to the doctor. I said I slipped and fell off a ladder at work.

I was born in Saskatoon, spent my summers at the lake and had an excellent childhood. As I got a little bit older, I started wrestling. I was Saskatchewan provincial champion, Saskatchewan Winter Games champion and placed fourth at the nationals, all in 1994. If I would have placed one higher at the nationals, I would’ve had a chance to go to the Olympics.

My grandfather on my mom’s side went to the Olympics twice, in 1948 and 1952, for speed skating. My grandfather on my dad’s side was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings in the late 1940s. Two of my cousins have been to the Olympics. My mom was Canadian women’s speed skating champion. There’s a lot of drive in my family and I guess that always weighed on my shoulders. I wanted to be the best. I took too much responsibility at too young an age.

I started framing in Saskatoon when I was 15. One of my dad’s friends was a homebuilder. He was a well-rounded carpenter so I learned the cabinet trade, doors, windows and framing. I wanted to be certified so I started my apprenticeship under a journeyman carpenter. I was smoking pot and drinking on a regular basis at that time. It was more or less from peer pressure. It wasn’t something I was particularly interested in but everyone seemed to be doing it.

Eventually I got a job at a construction company in Saskatoon that was looking for a truck driver. I said to myself, “I’m going to start out as a truck driver with the goal in mind to be a carpenter.” Within two months, I was working with the tools on the job. At 20, 21 years old, I was a foreman and worked my way up to a fourth-year apprentice carpenter. I was the youngest foreman the company ever had. At any given time, there could have been four or five people plus sub-trades under me on job sites. That was a lot of responsibility.

But I loved being on site with my tool belt on. And I was good at it. I knew what was behind the wall before I opened it up. I knew how it all fit together, from the foundation to the shingles. Out there on the spring and summer mornings, right through to fall and winter, just loving it – the smell of the spruce or whatever material you’re working with, it’s an addiction in itself. You become very attached to it. That smell reminds you of where you belong.

I was 22 when I started my own business, Burgess Construction. I was pretty much a one-man team. I’d do decks, flooring, finishing work, framing jobs, full commercial renovations. That’s when I started using more cocaine. It started with a couple of pills of ecstasy.

One of my friends brought ecstasy around and I ended up trying it and enjoying it. It’s easier to express yourself when you’re on it. It’s easier to get into the party. Cocaine was just the next step. After you do it, it opens up channels to the people around you. I ended up doing it again and again. It’s a big stress reliever. All your major concerns in life get thrown to the ground and you’re loving everything around you.

Within two months of starting my business, I moved to Calgary. I had some friends out there who were involved in finishing work and installing new kitchens. My parents had moved to the Okanagan Valley earlier that year to set up for their retirement, so I decided to make a move of my own. It was very overwhelming when I first got to Alberta. I was out of my environment. I had no connections. I started installing new kitchens for some pretty big developers. It went fairly well. We did good work. Then the cocaine really started to come on.

I wasn’t doing it too much in Saskatoon, maybe two or three days a week. I got to Calgary and some of my friends there were using too – all tradesmen, every one of them. It was a regular thing. You’d go out for a couple of drinks on a Monday or a Tuesday night and it was there. People didn’t really hide it. In a fast-paced environment where the city is really booming like that, a lot of people are making a lot of money real fast. They’re moving from other places and there’s that pressure from being in a new environment. Work-related stress will throw you off. People try to get rid of that somehow and one way is by self-medicating. Cocaine is the ultimate self-medication. It was for me, anyway.

About a year after being in Calgary, I decided to move out to the Okanagan. I did very well for the first month. I built kitchens for a big shop out of Penticton. My first job was a $25,000 custom built-in kitchen that went amazing. My life was back on track. Then I slipped. I went back to Calgary in 2004.

Little opportunities would come along. I had a chance to work in the Saddledome doing some fine-finishing on a custom box there. We redid one of the booths in all-maple wainscoting. That was one of the times I was sober. Man, that job went well. When I wasn’t high, my work was beautiful. I knew I had everything it took to be number one in any field I chose but I had this constant grip around the back of my neck that I couldn’t shake.

I loved the tools. I loved the people in the trades, such good people, such humble people. Most of the people I met weren’t from Calgary. They were from  little prairie towns. When you get to know these people, you feel at home with them. It was very comforting.

In Calgary, waking up in the morning on days when I didn’t use the night before, being out in the hustle and bustle of the city and the cars going by and the beautiful city – the vibrant, new, growing city – where there’s lots of money and lots of opportunity: I felt propelled to do something big, something amazing. But I couldn’t control my hands anymore. I couldn’t control my legs, my mind. I’d wake up every morning saying, “I’m not using today.” By six o’clock that night, I was feeling better and on my way to see my drug dealer.

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