Answer extracted from the MusterPoint Off the Clock podcast — listen to the full episode below.
How did the loss of a pet trigger a relapse into active addiction after years of abstaining from hard drugs?
In 2019, when Mike Collison's dog Ramsey died from aggressive cancer, his use of substances shifted from recreation to escape—numbing emotional pain rather than seeking pleasure. This marked the threshold back into active addiction, despite 12 years of abstinence from hard drugs after his detox in 2006. The loss exposed a vulnerability that his years of sobriety had never truly resolved.
Collison had maintained a powerful external structure: he married in 2015, bought a house in 2016, and welcomed his son Easton in 2017. The oil patch work—sometimes stretching 78 straight days or 46 consecutive night shifts—filled his time and occupied his mind. But beneath that stability, his emotional maturity had remained frozen at age 13, the age when he first began using substances to escape.
The death of his dog became the moment when the distinction between recreational use and survival-based addiction collapsed. As Collison details in the podcast, he had never truly walked away from addiction during those 12 years—he had simply traded hard drugs for alcohol and cannabis, never addressing the void left by childhood trauma that continued to define his emotional landscape.
"Without the ability to look in a mirror and see those things reflected back at you, until you can find someone else to walk that walk with you, you cannot heal."
Mike Collison — Oil rig worker and trades professional in recovery. Collison spent a decade in the oil patch across Alberta, enduring some of the industry's most demanding schedules. He is now actively engaged in a 12-step program, working to close the emotional gap that addiction created and to process the trauma that first triggered his substance use.
What makes Ramsey's death particularly significant is that it exposed the incompleteness of Collison's recovery. He had achieved chemical abstinence from heroin and cocaine, but the podcast reveals how he continued to use alcohol and cannabis throughout those years, and his inability to process emotional pain remained unchanged. The loss of his dog didn't create the addiction—it revealed that addiction had never truly left.
December 2019 became the turning point: grief transformed recreational use into daily escape. The substances that had once been social or celebratory became essential tools for survival, the same way they had been when he first started using at 13 to cope with the abuse and bullying that defined his childhood.
For anyone tracking their own recovery or supporting someone in theirs, Collison's story illustrates why emotional healing and abstinence must advance together—stopping chemical use alone, without closing the emotional wound, leaves the core vulnerability intact and ready to resurface when grief or crisis strikes.
See also
What role does the culture of the oil and construction industries play in normalizing substance abuse?
Mike describes how in the oil patch and construction, drugs and drinking were an accepted part of life—it was actually weird if you didn't participate.
How does childhood trauma and abuse impact the development of addiction and risk-taking behavior in young people?
Mike explains that going through abuse left a void inside him that he didn't know how to fill. Without acknowledgement of the trauma and without someone to walk that path with him, true healing becomes nearly impossible.
Key takeaways
- A major loss or crisis can trigger relapse even after years of abstinence, if the underlying emotional wound remains unhealed.
- Abstinence from hard drugs alone does not constitute true recovery if alcohol, cannabis, or other coping mechanisms remain active.
- Emotional maturity must develop alongside chemical recovery; frozen emotional development at the age addiction began leaves people vulnerable to re-traumatization.
- The shift from recreational to escapist use signals a dangerous threshold where substances become necessary for survival rather than enjoyment.