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Ransone previously revealed that he developed a heroin addiction and a debt of $30,000 by the time he was 27. He was able to get sober in the years since and went on to marry wife Jamie McPhee, with whom he shared two kids.
“I told you I have loved you 1000 times before and I know I will love you again,” McPhee wrote via Instagram, after Ransone’s death. “You told me – I need to be more like you and you need to be more like me – and you were so right. Thank you for giving me the greatest gifts – you, Jack and Violet. We are forever.”
Keep scrolling for everything Ransone said about his personal struggles — and addiction issues — before his death:
James Ransone’s Own Words About His Addiction
In a 2009 article for Malibu Magazine, Ransone wrote a first-person account of the spiral he went on before getting sober.
“I weighed 115 pounds, was about 30 grand in debt and had developed a pretty healthy heroin habit,” he wrote. “There were a lot of things going on inside me that I hadn’t faced, or at the very least, refused to acknowledge for a long time. There were a lot of hard corners in me that needed to be softened. I had no idea what the results were going to be as far as taking some responsibility for my past, but the outcome has been pretty remarkable.”
James Ransone Candidly Discussed His Drug Use
James Ransone Family Guide: Meet the Late Actor’s Wife and Kids
WESTWOOD, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 26: James Ransone attends the Premiere Of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “It Chapter Two” at Regency Village Theatre on August 26, 2019 in Westwood, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images
“I never shot dope. I snorted and smoked a lot of dope because I had this thing in my mind that only junkies shot it so I thought I wasn’t a junkie, but I definitely was,” he told The Fix in 2015. “My habit was really bad. It was a bundle [10 small bags of heroin] a day. The real segue into drugs for me were prescription pills. I think, without a doubt in my mind, that they are the most dangerous substance in America right now.”
Ransone clarified he wasn’t battling addiction while filming The Wire. “I was not strung out on heroin,” he added. “That happened a couple of years after I had already completed the show, which is weird because I think people thought I was a junkie then, but I wasn’t — not yet.”
James Ransone Opened Up About Hitting Rock Bottom
Ransone said prescription painkillers got him into heroin, telling The Fix, “Vicodin, oxycodone, Xanax, benzodiazepines. What happened is I became strung out on those pills and when you’re a junkie, you do anything to get it. I ended up ripping off a lot of doctors, stealing a lot of prescription pads. I started that hustle but then a couple of my friends got arrested for that. Somehow, I had enough foresight to go, ‘OK, this is a federal crime and could result in some serious time.’ So, I switched to doing heroin because it was much easier to get a hold of.”
Ransone recalled how he “almost died a couple of times” before getting sober.