‘We were lost’: Families share struggles accessing addiction support

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Jackie Johnson and her family have been navigating addiction for more than a decade.

Her son was 19 when they turned to the Parents Empowering Parents Society (PEP), a Strathcona-based organization dedicated to supporting families with loved ones struggling with addiction.

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That was 11 years ago.

At a Tuesday evening event put on by the society to keep addiction top of mind, Johnson said her son has been sober for 18 months.

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“It changed our trajectory forever. We were lost, we didn’t know where to go,” Johnson said. “We went to PAP and things started to change for us. Where the government failed us, the community picked up for us and it changed everything in our lives.”

Lerena Greig, executive director at the PEP Society, said the support system and familial aspect is typically overlooked when it comes to addiction.

“We believe that the family and the community needs just as much support and education as the person struggling with the addiction. There can be a cyclical relationship between the person with the addiction in the family and they can kind of get on that journey of chaos with them. We think it’s very important for the family to be intentional about their own personal wellness in the midst of supporting their loved one,” Greig said.

Johnson said in high school that she was drunk and partied with her friends, which they thought was a regular thing for kids of her age. But when he went to Fort McMurray for an apprenticeship after high school they began noticing a shift. His behavior became erratic, things became progressively worse — he began lying to Johnson and her husband, he was fired from his job and began having seizures.

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When he was caught trying to steal gas it was then that the RCMP put Johnson and her husband in touch with victims services who referred them to PEP.

“(Our health care system) is very reactive unless you have an emergency situation which, in my mind, that was an emergency. As time has gone on, I’ve realized that while this was traumatic for me, not necessarily the worst, but unless someone is near death, there just isn’t any help available to you,” Johnson said.

“You’re literally just searching and Googling things because this is my first experience with any kind of drug use and I just had no knowledge. I think our systems are just so overwhelmed with all of this right now, even through my son’s journey, he’s only been clean for about a year now. But also I think there’s a portion of it that is if we could be more preventative in these things, the system wouldn’t be overwhelmed.”

‘Fails the most vulnerable’

Dr. Rob Tanguay, a professor at the University of Calgary and one of the panelists at the event, acknowledged that while the province has stepped up, the current health care system is failing the most vulnerable.

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“Access to care is so important in our health care system. We often like to talk about how we have a universal health care system. But do we have a health care system that covers your psychologist, your social worker, your occupational therapist, your physiotherapist?” he said.

“We don’t have a system that covers chronic complex illness, which is what addiction is. A lot of people ask, why do we have a fentanyl problem in Canada and the United States? They don’t have one in Japan or Australia or France or Israel or England or anywhere else in the world. Quite simply because our health care system fails the most vulnerable.”

According to the latest data provided by the province, Alberta has surpassed its 2021 record of 1,634 opioid-related deaths with a new high in 2023 of 1,706 deaths. In November 2023 Alberta added 138 opioid-related deaths to its count and the final numbers for 2023 have yet to be posted.

At Tuesday’s event, attendees were able to pose questions to the panel which included Mental Health and Addiction Minister Dan Williams. Parents raised concerns surrounding the issue of consent, with many saying it needs to change.

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Right now, parents with legal-aged children are unable to access medical information regarding any form of addiction treatment if their child does not give consent. One parent said it was extremely frustrating considering she was the one taking her son to treatment and was left in the dark about next steps.

Williams said the issue of consent is something that has come up multiple times and said the current act is not “fit for purpose” as it stands for parents struggling with knowing what is going on in their child’s care.

“We’re going to have to look at the politics around that and have a serious conversation with Albertans and say, what is the nature of the state of someone who is in crisis. That they don’t have moral agency the way you or I do to choose to (answer questions soundly).

“We have to recognize that so Albertans are going to have to realize what you do through as parents and what is an appropriate sense of sharing with family,” Williams said.

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X: @kccindytran

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