AFRAID OF FREEDOM
Man addicted to drugs is desperate to kick his habit. But he’s run into a bureaucratic tangle that is frustrating his determination to go clean
Ryan Langlois emerged from the dark and dirty confines of the old Windsor Jail, felt the sun on his face, and went looking for drugs. With more than 30 convictions in seven years, it’s a pattern the 25-year-old addict has repeated many times.
When he was released from the South West Detention Centre in February, he lasted a few weeks. Then, after desperately waiting to be assessed for a treatment program, Langlois disappeared last week on another crystal meth and morphine binge. Langlois resurfaced after four days and spent the weekend in jail because his mom reported he was using again. He was still feeling sick Tuesday from an opioid hangover. “I put myself around the wrong people, and I just fell,” Langlois said. “But I’m happy that I’m back home and that I got shown a little bit of grace and mercy, and I’m able to start off where I left off.” Langlois said nothing scares him more than being released from jail, because he has no immediate access to treatment programs to help kick the habit and stay out of trouble.
The required assessment to qualify for provincially funded programs takes weeks, an eternity for a desperate addict struggling to fight off a relapse.
“They kick you loose, that’s it. There’s the door, have fun,” said Langlois, who finished a fourmonth sentence Feb. 6 for stealing a car and breaching court conditions. “Once you walk out and feel that air, you’re gone. Right when somebody is released, and for me personally the last few times, help goes out the window.” Langlois breaches court orders and steals cars while high.
“All the offences that I have are due to me being an addict and using drugs,” he said.
During his recent stay at South West Detention Centre, Langlois decided he was tired of wasting his life in jail, tired of destroying his body, tired of hurting his family. He said in late February he hadn’t used drugs since the last hit of crystal meth he smoked before going to jail. It was the longest he’d been sober since he was 15.
He wanted to keep the streak alive, so he tried to get the required assessment for a counselling program while still behind bars. “I was told they don’t facilitate that,” said Langlois.
Provincially funded drug treatment centres require people to undergo an assessment called the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs (GAIN). Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare is the only organization in Windsor that does the assessments, and there is no agreement allowing it to send personnel into the South West Detention Centre. Sharmaine Tanario, a GAIN administrator and trainer with Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, said the assessment addresses issues such as mental health, substance abuse, history of violence and learning disabilities. The multi-step process takes at least a couple weeks. Criminal lawyer Bobby Russon, who represents Langlois, said that’s too long.
“Ryan made incredible efforts to be the squeakiest wheel possible,” he said. “He was making three, five phone calls a day to people just to say to them, ‘What can I do to facilitate this?’ Everyone said no — shut the door, shut the door. It’s very frustrating.
“I’m not going to sit here and say I have the solution, but starting with the ability to be assessed while you’re serving a sentence would make a ton of sense.” Tanario said it makes sense “to a point,” but it’s not a perfect solution. She said the assessment is based on a three-month window in a person’s life.
“We’re going to get some of the past but the present will possibly be a little distorted because they ’re in jail,” she said. “It can’t always be realistic to what will happen when they leave jail because it’s a confined area.”
But Tim Baxter, executive director of Crossroads Centre for Personal Empowerment, which offers addiction counselling, said it’s still beneficial because it would get people help much quicker, which is vital to staving off the risk of relapsing and reoffending.
“I like to use the analogy that you need to have a stick to jam in the window when the window of opportunity opens,” he said. “Somebody, when they’re incarcerated, may be a lot more motivated to institute change in their life. They’re thinking I don’t ever want to be in here again. But the problem is once they’re released, a lot of them go right back to the drug of choice. That was my concern with young Ryan.”
Langlois, a Grade 10 dropout, grew up in a family of addicts. His mom and stepdad were heavy drug
Everyone said no — shut the door, shut the door. It’s very frustrating.
users. Langlois started with marijuana around age 15.
His stepfather, James Whitehead, who said he quit a life of drugs and crime after he and his wife found God 12 years ago, acknowledged he bears some fault for the road Langlois travelled.
“I feel that we’re responsible for our actions,” said Whitehead, who long ago lost count of his own criminal convictions. “He chose to go down that way. But at the same time, I guess it was pretty hard for him. I guess I could take responsibility for that. Not total responsibility, but some part of it.” Whitehead said there were a lot of drugs in the house. He used weed, pills, cocaine and crack.
“In my house, there was a lot of chaos,” said Whitehead. “There was a lot of chaos because of the drugs, a lot of crime on my behalf. What he was exposed to in that environment, it wasn’t good.”
By age 17, Langlois was snorting cocaine.
“I started to fall deeper into the streets and what the streets offered,” he said. “My drug use started to get worse. I started to fall into harder drugs such as crystal meth and heroin and stuff like that. Then I started to get involved in criminal activities.”
Langlois did his first stint behind bars at 18. He got high and stole a car “just for the rush.”
It took a week for police to catch him. Langlois pleaded guilty and spent three months in jail.
His first taste of incarceration was at the old Windsor Jail, notorious for being overcrowded, dirty and dangerous. For young Langlois, then new to a life of crime, it was a scary place.
“It was nerve-racking,” he said. “Just the environment — I was like, ‘Oh my god, what did I get myself into?’ The environment was very unique, I guess you could say.” But those months in jail, where weed and pills were plentiful, were not enough to scare him straight. The first order of business upon his release was to get high. “That’s when I started to get into crystal,” he said. “I got out and I just went right back to the old people, old lifestyle, continued on using.” As the drug use escalated, so did the crimes. He stole his grandfather’s car. Three times. “He stole my car. They found him doing 140 (km/h) on the 401,” said Bob Godfrey, who learned about the theft from a 4 a.m. call from Chatham OPP. “He rear ends a car, and he leaves the scene.” Godfrey had to buy a new car. “He stole that, too,” said Godfrey. “He came into my place and he took the keys. I didn’t know it was missing for a weekend. I get up and my car’s not there.” Langlois’ last arrest was Oct. 9 after a police chase down Dougall Avenue. Another stolen vehicle. “I was behind the Mission and the Windsor police come pulling up in a car,” he said. “Somebody gave me the heads up that they were coming up the alley. So the second they pulled out of the alley, I flew down the alley and began a chase.” He eventually pulled over.
“I just gave up,” said Langlois. “It was like, you know what? I’m done running. Just gave myself up. I was sick and tired of living the way I was.”
After his release Feb. 6, he went in for an assessment. Then he waited. “They just keep giving me more appointments,” he said.
Still waiting for the assessment, he made the bad decision last week to visit someone from the “old lifestyle.”
When he didn’t come home after the first two days, his mother knew what was happening. Lisa Dobson-Whitehead went to the courthouse to have herself removed as her son’s surety.
“I said zero tolerance,” said Dobson-Whitehead, also a peer support worker for the AIDS Committee of Windsor. “The minute you go back and use again I’m pulling your bail because I do not want to see you get more charges, or it could end up worse.”
Langlois eventually turned himself in, and his mom agreed to sign on as a surety again. His sponsor met him Monday night after he was released once more from jail. They went straight to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.
His family hopes this will be the time Langlois can finally change things, but they ’re weary from years of relapses and jail visits. “He’s just got to get the drugs out of his system and he’s got to stop,” said Godfrey. “He’s been very good, and it’s nice. I hope he makes it this time. I don’t want him to go back again. I always figure it’s going to be worse the next time. Instead of six months, it’s going to be a year, a year-and-a-half, two years.” Whitehead knows the struggle his stepson faces. “I try not to focus too much on what he’s done in the past,” Whitehead said. “I try to focus on where he’s going in the future, because I understand where he’s at. I’ve been there before and the struggle is real, man. It’s hard.” Langlois knows what’s at stake, but he doesn’t know what to do. On Tuesday, he was still waiting for that assessment. “What’s going to happen? What steps do I need to take? Am I going to screw up this time?” Baxter at Crossroads tried unsuccessfully to help Langlois get an assessment before his release in February.
“At the end of the day, no matter what you do, until the corrections system and the addictions system hook up, there’s not really going to be an opportunity for you to be able to do that.”
In a series of emails, a spokesman with the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services skirted questions about why GAIN is not offered in the jail. Dorijan Najdovski, press secretary for Minister Marie-France Lalonde, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Patrick Kolowicz, Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare’s new director of adult mental health and addictions, said his job includes looking to reduce the time it takes to access assessment services.
After an initial interview with The Star about the process, Kolowicz said he reached out to jail officials to discuss partnership potential. He said he envisions jail personnel being trained to do at least some of the assessment work to speed up the process.
“When people are ready to quit, they’re ready to move forward. We can’t create a time delay,” he said. “It’s just going to potentially put people at risk. So I fully agree we need to be more responsive to peoples’ needs, when they need it.” Until such a partnership is created, said Baxter, people like Langlois remain at risk.
“I understand Ryan’s plight. I understand that it’s a difficult time,” said Baxter. “Somebody who has been incarcerated for stuff they’ve done and they don’t want to do it again, the addiction is a very strong attraction to pull them back. It’s difficult, especially for somebody like Ryan who is attempting to make positive choices.”