Vancouver BC  – Canadian Super Star entrepreneur, Gordon Lownds entered the literary world with a bang.  Life to Paper Publishing will release Lownds’ memoir, “Cracking Up” – from rising star to junkie despair in 1,000 days – on August 15, 2025, wherever books are sold.  With brutal honesty Lownds lays it all out there and it’s not pretty.  The author holds nothing back.  “Cracking Up” is the crushing and shocking chronicle of the successful entrepreneur’s hidden struggles. “Cracking Up” brings to life with vivid detail the old adage, “The bigger you are the harder you fall.”   A testament that even the most seemingly successful and invincible individuals can fall but, with the aid of a host of angels and support of friends can heal and find freedom.  The question is …. are you ready to accept those helping hands or does the collateral damage continue to pile up?  Gordon Lownds came out the other side and tells that story in “Cracking Up.”

At forty-eight Lownds was at the peak of his career, starting up what would become the billion-dollar enterprise, Sleep Country Canada.  Lownds began Sleep Country’s journey with his friend and business partner Stephen Gunn and Christine McGee.  Life was good, better than good, what could go wrong.  Everything.  An ill-fated experimental use of crack cocaine in the seedy depths of Vancouver’s Downtown Lower East Side quickly morphed into a raging, hardcore, shooting-up junkie experience.  How far does Lownds fall?   All the way and it isn’t pretty.  Slinking through murky alleys in the infamous downtown lower east side of Vancouver, forced to endure the raunchy underworld, featuring drug dealers, hookers, bikers, blackmail, and death threats, OD’s and drug busts, looking for his next fix– all while coping with a psychotic girlfriend.  So, yes this is a cautionary tale.  Addiction can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere, anyhow. “There are no guarantees that we will ever come back from our bottoms alive.”  His adventures in rehab took Lownds on another type of revealing carnival ride.  Navigating an afterlife in the confounding recovery community produced its own unique challenges, exacerbated by suddenly becoming a multi-millionaire.…  Lownds keeps his demons at bay and life’s journey continues. 

“Cracking Up” is a shake your head, hold your breath roller coaster ride.  A full-blown, down-and-dirty, soul-destructing, and death-defying series of events that occurred in just 1,000 days, followed by a penitential pilgrimage that took years. A journey infused with tragedy, tempered by humor.  “Cracking Up” is a ride you don’t want to miss.  

*Gordon Lownds earned a BA in Philosophy from York University and an MBA from the University of Toronto. Lownds had a distinguished career in retailing and management consulting (including as a partner at DMR & Associates and Paradigm Consulting) prior to establishing Kenrick Capital – a boutique investment banking firm – in 1988 in partnership with Stephen Gunn.   In 1994, Lownds co-founded Sleep Country Canada (with Stephen Gunn and Christine Magee) where he was CEO during its initial growth stages. Under his leadership, the company was named as one of the top fifty Best Managed Private Companies in Canada (in 1996, 1997, 1998) by Price Waterhouse. It was sold to Bain Capital in 1999. In 2003, Lownds went on to co-found ListenUP! Canada, a hearing healthcare chain that he grew to 120 locations before selling to a European hearing aid manufacturer in 2012.

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