SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE
It’s not hard to find an expert opinion on what’s needed most for the treatment of opioid addiction in Atlantic Canada. But there’s a segment of the population that is sometimes overlooked when it comes to sharing ideas about how to change things for the better. We reached out to regular people who are living with addiction and asked them what they think would help the most. Here’s what they had to say: In his battle with addiction, David Crowe, 48, of Sydney, says he is at a place where services offered for maintenance won’t work for him because of medical conflicts with respect to methadone and suboxone. Crowe is encouraged that Health Canada recently changed the rules allowing doctors to prescribe medical grade pharmaceutical-produced injectable hydromorphone, the drug of choice for many, including himself, however, he feels it’s going to be “forever” before it’s implemented in Cape Breton. What Crowe would like to see is a safe place with medical staff for overdose prevention, safe consumption and the ability to get prescribed injectable hydromorphone for maintenance. A safe place rather than a dirty spot or bothering someone in a public bathroom, he explained. “When a person is suffering from withdrawal and is sick, sometimes you can’t get all the way back home. Sometimes you have to go somewhere it’s not safe, but you have to get your drugs in you.” “I've been addicted to opiates since the young age of 12. No one told me what they were, and how addictive they could be. The system that we have for opiates is moderate at best. They finally implemented doctors being able to prescribe methadone more freely, but also with more restrictions. The wait-time has been cut down to get help, but there’s no long-term rehabilitation. You do your 30 days in rehab, then you get on methadone and then they just expect you to stay on methadone for the rest of your life. I don't want to stay on methadone for the rest of my life. I want to be a normal person like you. Nova Scotia should have long-term rehabilitation facilities, a place where you can go detox and stay and learn how to reimplement yourself into society over again… I'm talking a year, year-and-a-half, two years — as long as it takes.” “Information, information, information — and a lot of support. People that don’t have family support, or community support, or anything like that, they do end up not getting help. It ends up coming down to that. They will not go to get help if they don’t have these supports available. … I was a drug user for two and a half years of opioids, and I found myself getting addicted to it more and more . ... I came up to the (Unity in our Community) meeting. It took me a while to come up, but I did, and I got involved with these people — a good bunch of people. With help from these guys — I talk to them individually on a day-today basis, I can phone any of them and they’ll talk to me, they take me out and do stuff with me in the community — it kind of keeps your mindset off (drugs) because you do need to keep your mind off of it, and they really did help me do that . ... I’ve been away from it now almost three years. Roger Francis grew up in the First Nations community of Elsipogtog, an hour north of Moncton, N.B. He developed an addiction after being prescribed opiates for a herniated disc in 2013. He currently lives in Charlottetown. He said his community, like many other rural regions in Atlantic Canada, often lacks the skills training, recreational activities or peer support programs needed for individuals in recovery. “The No. 1 problem is there is no resources in their communities to help that person reintegrate,” Francis said. “When that’s not all in place, that person will stay clean for only a certain amount of time.” Francis says these services are essential for individuals in rural towns to feel like they are contributing to society. “A lot of times these people feel abandoned. They feel unwanted, unloved. In my experience, they take their addiction or their choice of drug as the love of their life. A lot people will tell you that,” Francis said. “A person can only take so much of being alone.”