The blinds were closed tightly in the small Queens Quay bachelor condo as they always were, even during the day. A prosthetic leg stood sentry, at its usual nighttime spot in the corner while the sports highlights flickered across the TV screen, a dull glow pushing back against the darkness.

Paul Rosen, Canadian Paralympic sledge hockey star, lay in bed, blankets pulled up to his neck with one question roiling through his mind.

Why aren’t I dead?

Rosen had written three goodbye letters, one to each of his children. He’d put on a black T-shirt and shorts so no one would be startled finding a naked corpse. Then he separated 35 OxyContin painkillers, pills he’d bought on the street, into three piles before scooping them up — 10 then 10 more and finally 15 — downing each fistful with orange juice.

“I was sick of being in pain. I just wanted to stop the hurt. I was sick of living two lives. I was sick of being the greatest guy in the world to people and a piece of garbage to myself,” says Rosen, 59, of that January night earlier this year. “I just wanted to go away.”

Rosen had for years battled a deep and consuming depression and was addicted to painkillers. He’d go for days essentially bedridden.

Still, he’d give motivational talks about overcoming adversity. Rosen figures he’s done about 1,100 events from corporate dinners and sports banquets to visiting schools and hospitals.

When requested, Rosen would climb out of bed, clean himself up and then share his inspirational tale of discovering para ice hockey after losing his right leg to amputation when he was 39. That led him, after intense training, to win a gold medal for Canada as the goaltender at the 2006 Turin Paralympics, a tournament that included a shutout in the championship game and MVP honours.

The details were the stuff of legend; concussions, missing teeth, his mask displayed in the Hockey Hall of Fame, a Diamond Jubilee Medal pinned to his chest by a prime minister who called him a hero.

Rosen, however, would leave out the part where, between the first and second period of the gold-medal game, he popped four Percocets just to get him through it. Nor did he mention that his day would typically start — often mid-afternoon — with four painkillers washed down by Jack Daniel’s. Or how he stole morphine from his mother when she was dying with cancer.

His presentation over, after the applause and autographs, he’d return home to the darkness, lie in bed and think about taking his own life. On Jan. 30 — Bell Let’s Talk Day, timing he can’t explain — Rosen acted on the suicidal thoughts he’d harboured off and on since he was 17.

But his plan didn’t work. The highlights ended and he hadn’t even passed out, let alone died, and he was out of pills. Rosen lost his patience and began rummaging through the condo.

“I got pissed off,” he says. “I found a brand-new bottle of Windex, huge bottle, under the bathroom sink. I just opened it and guzzled it like water. Within five minutes I was violently ill like I’ve never been violently ill over my life with drugs. I thought every organ was coming out. I was terrified.”

Rosen figures he effectively pumped his own stomach; that final desperate grasp at death saved his life.

That, and likely decades of building a tolerance for painkillers, kept him alive long enough for medical help to arrive. For a time he was uncertain how the paramedics even got into his condo that night.

Rosen learned later he placed a call to 911. He doesn’t remember. He also doesn’t recall unlocking the door or placing his health card and keys on the dresser. Rosen has only vague memories of being rushed to St. Michael’s Hospital — “I remember saying, ‘Jeez, I couldn’t even kill myself’ ” — and briefly seeing his daughters before being transferred to the mental health unit at Toronto General Hospital, where he would stay for 17 days.

Rosen now thinks that in his altered state that night, a suppressed desire to live guided him to call for help.

Feeling fortunate to have survived, he believes he should share the raw details of what happened in hopes it will help break down the stigma associated with discussing suicide and encourage someone suffering similar depression or addiction to seek professional support. He also wants people to know that addiction is not a choice, it’s an illness.

“Corny as it sounds, if I help one kid, stop one teenager from killing himself, then this was all worth it,” he says. “I want people to understand that you have to reach out for help. There is no shame in asking for help.”

Rosen now regularly checks in with doctors and attends either an Alcoholics Anonymous or Cocaine Anonymous meeting five days a week. He says he has not touched painkillers or alcohol since his suicide attempt and he draws strength and support from a new girlfriend that he met in rehab.

“I’ve learned a lot about my life and the importance of it,” he says.

Dr. Kevin Kirouac, who primarily works in addiction and mental health, has been helping Rosen with his recovery. He also thinks that by opening up about his life, the former goalie can help others.

“There was already that story of him losing his leg and triumphing over that,” says Kirouac. “So people will look at him as this larger-than-life figure who’s got everything kind of sorted out. But underlying all of that, there is a lot of pain and darkness happening. That helps people. (They might say) ‘That’s happening to me. I’m feeling like this and Paul Rosen was, too. If he can ask for help, I can, too.’ ”

Rosen, like a lot of 15-year-old hockey players, carried dreams of an NHL career on to the ice every game. Longshot? Sure, he says now. Maybe it was a one-in-a-million chance, but as a highly regarded prospect, he’s confident he could have played pro hockey somewhere. He was an excellent athlete, a right winger with grit and a nose for the goal.

Then while playing for the Thornhill Thunderbirds midgets in 1975, his right skate caught a rut in the ice as he circled the net. The dream died in a wail of agony as his leg torqued and shattered in 14 places. He also tore three knee ligaments.

As Rosen underwent repeated surgeries to repair the leg, he never lost his love of sport. He continued to play on his high school teams, including baseball and volleyball, and once hacked off a cast to play the final in a men’s hockey league. But the leg never healed properly and it became less functional. Rosen’s dependency on the relief of painkillers grew. It was comfort he sought even when there was no pain.

“To me, drugs were like Skittles,” he says. “I’d take them for no reason other than it was habit.”

He hid his drugs from a growing family. He married at 23 and had three children by age 28. At his home, plastic bags of painkillers were hidden under the toilet tank, or stashed in his socks or amid his hockey equipment.

“I was drinking a lot. I was taking a lot of medication. I was doing a lot of things and nobody had a clue,” he says.

To support the family, and his habit, he sold running shoes at an Athletes World at Yorkdale Mall. He delivered pizza. He delivered sandwiches for a San Francesco franchise.

“Basically, from 18 to 30, I’d take any job I could get,” he says. “Just surviving.”

Limiting his options was a learning disability that caused him to read at a Grade 6 level. It was a frequent source of embarrassment, his “kryptonite,” he calls it. He remembers being laughed at and called an idiot.

But he found fulfilment doing anything in hockey. He helped turn an old industrial building on Orfus Road into a hockey complex called the Rinx. Later, he was on the coaching staff of the Israeli national team.

Along the way, there were so many procedures on his right leg, Rosen lost count but he knows it’s in the thirties. Many came in succession — 14 over 18 months — after the limb gave out in 1997. He picked up an infection that initially went undetected.

“I was very stupid,” he says. “I had this agonizing pain for three months and I just didn’t tell a soul. When I finally did it was too late.”

In his motivational talks, Rosen recreates the moment with dramatic flair. A doctor examining him in 1999, then looking him square in the eyes and saying, “You’re going to die.”

Unless, that is, he accepted that he required an amputation. Rosen, at 39, immediately flew to Israel — the mother of one of his players was an executive at a private hospital there — and the next day his right leg was cut off above the knee.

“There’s a picture of me the day after I had my leg amputated and people ask why I’m smiling. It’s because I’m alive, baby,” he says. “I didn’t give a s-- about losing my leg at that point. I’ve had a lot of issues through my life but I’ve never once felt sorry for myself for losing my leg.”

Rosen was goaded into trying sledge hockey by a young athlete he met at Toronto’s Variety Village. With a quick glove hand from years of baseball, he was a natural in net. Two months later, he was an unknown goalie in Ottawa trying out for Team Canada.

“I wanted people to (regard) me as the best Canadian goalie in the world. I wanted to be mentioned in the same breath” as Martin Brodeur, the New Jersey Devils legend.

Rosen participated in his first of three Paralympics in 2002, at Salt Lake City, as a 41-year-old rookie, an unheard-of age for a debut on the world stage. The Canadians finished just off the podium.

Rosen was now fully invested in the game. He trained relentlessly while, on the side, he held down a job collecting bodies for a Toronto funeral home.

“I was the only one-legged removal expert,” he says. “I couldn’t live on $18,000 from Sport Canada. That might have worked for younger guys but I was a dad in my 40s. I’d pick up bodies at night and train during the day. It was a nightmare life. But I had a chance to play for Team Canada so I put all that aside.”

Then in 2006 at Turin, with Rosen between the pipes, the underdog Canadians pulled off a huge upset, beating Norway in the final. Rosen made 18 saves for the shutout.

“I remember getting up in the room and saying, ‘Boys, we’re winning this gold medal. I’m not letting a goal in so if I don’t let a goal in we’re eventually going to win 1-0 or we’re playing for six days.’ I was dead serious.”

With the success came a certain amount of fame. Rosen was mentioned in one of Don Cherry’s Saturday night sermons after his medal was stolen in 2007. During “Coach’s Corner,” Cherry exhorted the “rat” to drop the medal in a mailbox. A week later, the precious gold tumbled out of a mail bag at a Canada Post facility in Toronto.

Rosen’s image appeared on packages of Excel gum leading up to Vancouver 2010, and he met documentary producers keen to recreate his life story. There was a potential book. The thrill of pulling on the Team Canada jersey more than exceeded the dreams he had to play pro hockey as a teenager.

Even those close to Rosen didn’t recognize he had mental health issues or realize he’d routinely take about 30 painkillers spread through the day most of his adult life.

Greg Westlake, Rosen’s longtime sledge hockey roommate, remembers the goalie as “an energy guy you wanted to be around all the time.”

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The two would drive around in Rosen’s truck with Aerosmith cranked loud on the radio as they talked about hockey.

“I thought he was a quirky guy and stuff but nothing was, you know, ringing the alarm bells,” he says.

At the time, the engaging Rosen could also command upwards of $5,000 for some of his corporate speaking engagements, though he did more than half his appearances for free.

Rosen says if he earned $100,000 he’d likely spend $200,000, and he spiralled into debt. He split from his wife after Turin because “my commitment to narcotics was much more important that my commitment to my marriage.”

Between Paralympics, Rosen says, he put everything into winning another gold medal in Vancouver “to the point where I destroyed every relationship I had.” He says he “maybe had a couple of days off in those four years.”

Westlake remembers it differently. He says in the buildup to Vancouver, Rosen’s commitment started to slide and he missed key events and a training camp.

“I never talked to him, at that point, straight up about drugs and painkillers,” says Westlake. “It was more about the athletic side, like ‘Man, we need you and you’re not here right now.’ … I just thought he was choosing a girl over sport. I didn’t realize it was drugs over sport.”

Westlake says if it had been another player, he probably would have been cut.

“The depression kicked in huge after Vancouver,” says Rosen.

Both the men’s and women’s Olympic hockey teams had won gold on home soil in 2010, and the sledge hockey team was heavily favoured to make it a hat trick of flag-waving on-ice supremacy.

But Rosen and his teammates were, stunningly, defeated by the Japanese in the semi-final. Even the Japanese coach conceded that his squad could play Canada 1,000 times and would consider it lucky to earn one victory. Rosen was saddled with some of the blame, allowing two goals on 10 shots in a 3-1 loss.

“We were crushed,” says Rosen. “My career ended. I was 50 years old.”

Kerry Goulet, who describes himself as Rosen’s best friend, says he understands how his pal’s mental health issues were exacerbated after Vancouver.

“The biggest drug you can ask for is the rush of winning a gold medal or a championship and have people chanting your name,” he says. “People put you on a pedestal. Once that’s gone, the aches and pains you have, they’re just (amplified). He came home and he’s not needed anymore. He’s no longer front and centre. You end up discarded to some degree.”

Rosen’s movie and book deals fell through. Two major sponsors walked away. His girlfriend broke up with him.

“I went bankrupt after Vancouver,” he says. “From that point on, I didn’t do anything in my life other than a job to pay my bills. That was it. I’d live in darkness and just do enough to survive. I really had nothing. I did my events. I had my public persona. Everybody thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. But I didn’t even have a relationship with my family because I destroyed it.

“All I’d think about is how many people I’m hurting instead of how many people I’m helping and how much devastation I was in. I was in agony, mentally, physically, emotionally every day of my life.”

This is the longest stretch that Rosen’s been clean and sober in 40 years.

He wants to get back to motivational speaking and he plans to make his mental health as important a focus as the one-legged-hero-goalie story he once used to inspire. He believes he can do more good that way.

But that doesn’t mean the narrative has a neat and tidy ending. Not yet. Maybe never.

“I still have very, very, very serious dark holes, some dark days,” he says. “But I can 100 per cent say I’ll never get to the point where suicide will be on the table again. I understand what I did to my family from seeing my kids break down and sob. I could never do that to my (two) grandsons.”

Rosen says he avoids the total isolation that was his previous life and when his thoughts become too overwhelming, he calls 1-855-310-COPE to speak to a York Region mental health crisis worker.

He had to give up his Queens Quay condo — Rosen’s income now is $733 a month from Ontario Works — so he lived with a daughter for several months, but he has now purchased a blow-up mattress and sleeps on a friend’s living-room floor in Newmarket. He’s paying attention to his fitness again and works out regularly. He has lost 80 pounds since his suicide attempt and now carries 184 pounds on his six-foot frame. He takes prescribed Suboxone to help wean him off the opiates.

He has also done some broadcasting, providing online analysis for the World Para Ice Hockey Championships in the spring. He’d done the same work for the CBC at Paralympics in the past.

Rosen needs a new leg. His original prosthetic was only $8,000, purchased by some friends after a poker fundraiser. His current one is 14 years old. He bought it used and it’s well past the 10 years it would typically last. The socket is relatively new but fits poorly because of his dramatic weight loss. So he must wrap his stump in bandages to make it snug, but that has caused painful bruising and calcification.

“It just kills but I can’t take painkillers so I suck it up.”

Rosen says the new prosthetic limbs are much more high-tech and cost $85,000, of which social services will cover a small fraction.

If a corporation — or charitably minded individuals setting up a GoFundMe account — were to help him acquire a new one, he says he would offer his own fundraising services as thanks, helping out whatever cause the donor preferred.

“I don’t want it as a gift, to take and walk away,” he says. “I’ve never taken anything without giving back.”

One of the keys to Rosen’s recovery is Arianna, a 25-year-old he met in an addiction recovery support group in July.

Despite an age difference that brings puzzled, sometimes disgusted glances from strangers when they walk holding hands in public, both say they are deeply in love.

“I know that we can conquer anything in this world together. She’s given me the strength to continue,” says Rosen

Arianna says she and Rosen immediately connected.

“It was an interesting way to meet someone, because we’re all exposing our life traumas and pain, so immediately those walls are down,” says Arianna. “I came into the group at a very difficult time in my life and Paul was there for me. We talked to each other and from there that connection strengthened and deepened.”

“It’s an excruciating experience to have the disease of addiction,” she says. “There is an assumption, a total misbelief, that it is a choice to use. No one would choose this, I promise you.”

Now Rosen and Arianna have become each other’s greatest supporters, attending addiction rehab meetings together.

Rosen is now looking ahead with a sense of newfound optimism.

He is currently in Paradise, N.L. to provide colour commentary for the international Canadian Tire Para Hockey Cup. The final will be broadcast by TSN4 at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. He’s working at repairing his bond with family members and, in December, Rosen and Goulet will launch a sports podcast — the “Rosey and Gooch Show” — from TSN’s studios, with a focus on the mental health aspects of sports.

“On behalf of everyone who has a disability, I think my number one goal in life is to get people to look past the disability and look at the person,” he says. “We’re living with it. We’ll live with it forever. That’s not going to change but we can still have incredible lives.”