Donna – Produced by Health Canada: Canada.ca/Opioids
Narrator:
In Plain Sight is a Health Canada audio series that explores the personal stories of people affected by the opioid crisis.
The most recent data shows that every day, approximately 12 people die from opioid overdoses in Canada.
We see this on the news. We know that it’s happening. We know that it’s real. Yet, we tell ourselves that it couldn’t happen to the people we know, the people we work with, the people we love. That it couldn’t happen to us.
The reality is, the opioid crisis is happening right before our eyes, in plain sight, and it can affect anyone. There are thousands of stories waiting to be heard.
Donna reflects on her relationship with her daughter who struggled with problematic substance use. Let’s listen to Donna’s story…
Donna:
She suffered from, from symptoms of anxiety and mental illness for years before she was finally diagnosed. She self-medicated with OxyContin that she was prescribed. And she was very honest about it, she was, “This works, this works with my social anxiety.” And in my naivety I said that’s great, you know, let’s have you stay on that, and you’re functioning! You’re functioning well, you’re perfect, you’re easy to get along with. And then the doctor cut her off of course when she said to him, you know, “this is what I’m using it for”, and he said, “well I won’t prescribe it for that”, and actually fired her from his practice. And then she turned to the street drugs and that was the downward spiral to the point where she lost everything. Her children, her home, her relationship, everything, and ended up living on the streets, and becoming your stereotypical substance user, you know, the one that you want to cross the street to avoid.
You know, and my experience with her was to just practice tough love, and that just pulled her down ever further. By the time I realized how dangerous what she was doing was, it was already too late, and I couldn’t get to her to try to turn anything around. And then like I said, it was a matter of, you know, getting the phone call from the hospital saying you better come, we don’t know if she’s going to get up off the operating table. We’re going to amputate her legs to stop the necrotizing fasciitis. And, and by the time I got there, they had finished the surgery itself and said, you know, there’s nothing that we can do to stop the infection. It had already gone into her internal organs, and she was going to lose her life from it. And then it was just a matter of her saying to me, you know, you really need to know what addiction is really all about. And, for the remainder of her days that’s what she did with me, is she talked to me about what her issues were, the underlying causes of her needing to take drugs.
And, it was an eye-opener. When she first died, I, you know, her wish was for me to go out and to be able to help other moms and dads to understand what their children are really using drugs for. And it’s not for pleasure and it’s not for fun, it’s not for, you know, just – keeping up with your peers. Once, once you get started on something it’s very difficult to turn away from it especially when it comes to opiates, and the differences that it makes in a person’s body. That’s been my biggest challenge, is to let parents know that it’s not just a willful behavior, and something that they can stop. We really need to work hard to understand what opiates do in a person’s body, and the dependency that’s created out of it.
You know, and parents just, they find it easier — and I personally found it easier — to practice tough love then to delve into a problem that nobody’s been able to solve over decades. And, that all was back when opiates were, I’m going to put it in the terms of “clean drugs” because they were prescribed drugs. And now, what is out there on the market, I mean, it’s not even, people don’t even have a chance to get addicted to the drugs. They die before they even use their second dose in a lot of the cases. So, it’s not the same crisis as what it was when I was dealing with my daughter I… Parents today don’t even have the chance to practice tough love, or even decide, to decide to use it, it’s just automatic death and you know, they, they get that phone call that their child is dead rather than their child is addicted. I mean, I had the chance. I blew it. But parents today don’t even have that chance.
In most cases, I don’t think it is possible to see it coming. You know, a kid goes out to a party and somebody says, “hey, try this”, and they do, and it could be anything from cocaine to, you know, a pill party, and fentanyl is laced into the drugs, and they take it, they’re opiate-naive and they’re gone, they’re dead.
If I had it all to do over again with the knowledge that I have today, and I do do this with my grandchildren, and with my nieces and nephews is, I’d just be completely open and honest. I inform them of the crisis, I let them know that the bad drugs are out there. You know, and to be very, very careful of what they’re doing and what they decide to do. I’m not naive enough to think they’re not going to try drugs. I don’t want to see another member of my family die from that, and it’s just warning them, letting them know how to use naloxone, to never use alone, to give all the precautions out there to them. Give them all the tools in the toolbox, and let them know that, you know, I’m an open book. You can ask me anything, you can tell me anything, and I’m only here to help. I don’t criticize, I don’t stigmatize, I wouldn’t do any of the things that I did to my daughter. It’s just a matter of being there, having an open discussion, being available for someone to reach out to. You really cannot have high morals and put yourself above this crisis. It’s deadly.
Narrator:
Donna dealt with problematic use of prescribed medication herself. Even with that experience, she found it difficult to relate to what her daughter was going through.
Donna:
You know, I was on prescribed OxyContin, I was on Neurontin, I was on Effexor, Wellbutrin, all at the same time and I drank. And totally addicted, and I just stopped cold turkey. I was able to do it, and it wasn’t pleasant, it wasn’t pleasant for the people around me. But I was able to do it.
My daughter didn’t have that opportunity, instead of working with her through that I criticized her and stigmatized her and… I mean, I was responsible for taking her children away from her and putting her in jail. So, the policing aspect of it, or the criminality aspect of it is, really, what caused her to turn away from asking for help from any of us. And trying to fend for herself when she’s in crisis mode already. So, no, it’s not the answer, that’s not the way to go. I, I do believe that health and social and mental wellness is, is absolutely the medicines that are needed to combat this crisis.
I think it’s important for people to be able to freely speak about their own battles with addiction. And I think that that, taking it out of the closet is the only way that we’re going to be able to solve this crisis. With the way that we treat people who use substances, we force them to keep it hidden, and like I’ve said many times that’s what kills them. We can’t solve something that we can’t see. If we can bring it out in the open and discuss it from the perspective of the people who are using the substances and also the people who are trying to help them so that we are actually understanding what it is that we’re trying to help, rather than just doing what we think is needed to be done, that’s when we’re going to come to the proper solutions.
I mean, in my experience now, in running the underground overdose prevention sites, I was getting lawyers and judges, coming in just to be watched while they use their substance. So, creating that open atmosphere kept them safe. But still, I had to do it underground, so it wasn’t as open as what you might think. People are ready for help. People are ready to get off their substances, but we need to develop a system that will draw them in and make them feel comfortable, so that they aren’t using in their bedrooms.
We had, a young boy, as young as 13, come and ask us for help. And, it’s a matter of accepting the fact that they’re doing it anyway, that they need to be supervised so that they don’t overdose and die, and to provide all the other… arms of health care and social care and mental health care at the same time. This was a boy who was from a good family, had broken his, well, had shattered his leg, and had been on opiates for the pain, and just could not wean himself away from it, and couldn’t speak to his doctor, and couldn’t speak to his family, about the fact that he was going through painful withdrawal. He was told to just buck up and put up with it and get over it. But he went to the street and he started using street drugs. And he was stealing from the home and stealing from the family to get the money to buy these drugs. And, and just continued.
Instead of, instead of, you know, punishing the child for doing all these bad things to get something that he absolutely needs, it might have been a better situation if they had said, “Okay, why are you stealing? Why are you selling everything in the house? Why do you still need the drugs?” And then go to the doctors and say okay, we need to wean him down, cut or titrate him down, in a matter that, that is going to allow him to not be ill while it’s happening. And we have to pay attention to this and we have to monitor what’s going on. In hindsight I would go all the way back with my daughter and say, “Okay, you fell down the stairs and you’ve been given OxyContin and you’re addicted to it now. Let’s go to the doctor, let’s go to the addiction clinics, find one that works for you where we can… not have you go through the painful withdrawal and you know, and everything else and just bring you down on your dosages until we can actually get you off”.
I think the first thing that I would caution a parent to do, is to not make it what they expect to happen. It has to be the values that the person who’s using the substances wants to attain. And that might be using for the rest of their life but being able to manage in society at the same time. You cannot expect people to be what you want them to be. You have to allow them to be what they want to be. And… in my daughters’ case, after she learned that she was going to die, she said, “I just want to be peaceful. I don’t want the demons running around in my head anymore and I don’t want the pain from all of the injuries that I’ve caused myself. I just want to feel at peace.” And knowing that she was going to die regardless, I had to accept that, you know? I had to accept the fact that she was going to continue using substances until the day that she passed away. It’s her choice, it’s not ours, it’s not our life to live. Yes, I want to keep them safe. I want to keep everybody alive, but… it is a matter of it being their choice, and when they’re in a position of not being able to make the right choice, you have to support them in trying to find that right choice.
My go-to now is definitely going, sending people to the rapid-access addiction medicine clinic. They sit down and literally ask the person, “What is it you want? Do you want to use safely? Do you want to reduce your use? Do you want to go cold turkey? What is it that we can help you and support you in doing?” And they make a plan. They have a contract, and they work through it.
Yes, there is a lot of relapse, and there is going back and forth, but it’s an open dialogue where a person is just accountable to themselves: this is what I decided to do and this is what I want to do and these people are here to support me in getting that done. Rather than locking them up and throwing them in an addiction clinic and just closing the door and saying, you know, you’re going to suffer through this. Not only have they been punished for whatever troubles they had to be on opiates in the first place, but then they’re being punished to get them off of it. I just don’t think that we need to continue to punish people for something like this. I think that we need to be in a position of helping them. Getting to the root causes of why they’re using substances in the first place.
Narrator:
Problematic opioid use is devastating Canadian lives. The numbers are tragic and staggering. These are the stories behind the numbers. This crisis has a face. It is the face of a friend; a co-worker; a family member. Meeting those eyes, and seeing our own reflection is the first step toward ending the stigma that often prevents people who use drugs from receiving help. To learn more about the opioid crisis, visit Canada.ca/Opioids.
This audio series is a production of Health Canada. The opinions expressed and language used by individuals on this program are those of the individuals and not those of Health Canada. Health Canada has not validated the accuracy of any statements made by the individuals on this program. Reproduction of this material, in whole or in part, for non-commercial purposes is permitted under the standard Terms of Use for Government of Canada digital content.
