How a baby boy led her out of drug hell
Ex-addict Natasha Campbell believes harm reduction strategies are the only way to save lives
KITCHENER — Natasha Campbell overdosed about 10 times.
She often collapsed in front of the bathroom sink and had to be revived by CPR.
Three times she couldn’t be resuscitated and was taken to emergency.
“I was lucky to be around people who could help me,” says the 36year-old mother of three.
Campbell couldn’t go to a supervised injection site to take drugs safely. They didn’t exist.
She believes harm reduction strategies are the only way to save lives.
“It’s an opportunity for engagement when someone is vulnerable,” says Campbell, referring to the support services available at supervised injection sites.
Campbell credits an agency that supports harm reduction — the AIDS Committee of Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo and Area (ACCKWA) — for helping her get clean.
They offered clean needles when most agencies didn’t and information on how to use drugs safely.
But her biggest motivator to getting clean was her baby boy — Ethan.
“I remember my first supervised visit with him. I was so happy to see him. I held him and cried,” she says.
Campbell’s journey was a bumpy one with setbacks and challenges.
She was born in Newfoundland and came to Kitchener with her parents when she was three. A year later, she was sexually abused by a babysitter and was drinking and smoking cigarettes by 10.
She ran away from home at 12 and three years later was kicked out of Resurrection Catholic Secondary School in Kitchener.
At 15, she got pregnant and stayed at Monica’s House. She kept her baby but lost him when she got back into drugs and her parents took custody.
At 17, she was using cocaine and heroin, and was an intravenous needle user at 18.
She went to ACCKWA for clean needles and received counselling and support there.
But she kept using. She lived with her boyfriend, a drug dealer, and used daily in their downtown Kitchener apartment.
Campbell says not being able to see her son was a motivation to get clean, but at times, she used more. “I can’t see him because I’m using — but then I’m using more because I can’t see him.”
Her use was so frequent, she was injecting cocaine every 30 minutes and opioids up to three times a day.
“Ten syringes a day didn’t last me,” she says. “We had an injection site in our home.”
But when her boyfriend, a man 30 years her senior, suffered heart issues and a stroke he was hospitalized. Six weeks later, he was released from hospital and he and Campbell moved to Niagara Falls.
Campbell, who was on methadone, was ready to get her life back. More importantly, she wanted her son back.
“He promised me he would get me back to Kitchener for weekly supervised visits with my son. He was a big support,” she says.
Eventually, she got custody of her son and moved back home in 2009.
“I used my son to motivate me. I’m so grateful I had him.”
He’s now 20 and finished his second year of music production at a university in Finland.
Her partner remained in Niagara Falls and the relationship ended, but she remained in contact with him until he died last year at 67.
In Kitchener, she met her husband. She finished high school and studied social work at Conestoga College.
Campbell started speaking publicly about her story with Preventing Overdose Waterloo-Wellington and decided she wanted to teach others about the consequences of overdoses.
She works full time at OneROOF Youth Services and has two small children at home, a five-year-old boy and a two-yearold daughter.
In 2013, Campbell took a family vacation out west and visited a supervised injection site in Vancouver.
She took both her sons. “I walked through Hastings and thought, ‘I would have utilized these services’,” she says. “It would have been beneficial to me to talk to professionals.”
Campbell says many people opposing injection sites are motivated by fear.
But those using need help, she says.
“It would be great if the world was drug free, but that’s not real. We need to deal with facts,” she says. “How do we minimize the risks for those using and everyone else?”
Campbell says she has no regrets about her life.
“I wouldn’t change it because I wouldn’t be who I am today,” she says. “I’m still me. I was this person the whole time.”