Fact-checking claims about recovery: Investing in saving lives

Content warning: This story mentions substance use, the toxic drug crisis and death. Please read with care. To connect with your local mental health or substance use centre, call 310-MHSU (6478).

Sean Marshall, executive director of Blue House Recovery, a peer-based residential recovery house for men in Kamloops, says it is “frustrating” to hear arguments that people struggling with addiction don’t deserve multiple chances to get sober and back to health.

“A lot of the time, people are not successful the first time around. It’s just the way it is,” Marshall explains. “It takes a lot of folks a few kicks at the can to get better.”

About 18 per cent of Canadians, or about one in five people, met the criteria for substance use disorder between 2021 and 2022, according to Statistics Canada. 

“Everybody’s got an aunt or uncle or cousin or somebody that it affects,” Marshall says. “I don’t think there is a family out there that addiction doesn’t affect one way or the other.”

Research shows that relapse is part of addiction recovery.

“Recovery from drug addiction can be a long-term process and frequently requires multiple episodes of treatment,” writes Doctors of B.C. in a report on improving addiction care in British Columbia.

Substance use disorders also disproportionately affect people who have survived trauma, including Indigenous people, people living in poverty and people in the corrections system.

“When somebody gets clean and sober, and they get their employment back and their health back, they’re much less taxing on the judicial system, on the healthcare system,” Marshall says, adding that recovery is a process that takes many months, if not years.

“If you don’t want to look at it like they’re a human being, at least look at it from the standpoint that getting these people help is actually, I would argue, not only revenue-neutral, but cheaper for us and cheaper for the system than it is to just let them sit out there and suffer,” Marshall adds. 

In 2020, substance use cost an estimated $7.4 billion in health care, lost economic productivity, criminal justice and other direct costs in B.C. alone, according to the Canadian Substance Use Cost and Harms project, a partnership between the University of Victoria and the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction.

Accessing recovery resources takes time

Oftentimes addiction persists, requiring multiple lifesaving attempts, because recovery supports are difficult to access in Kamloops and across B.C. Access is an ongoing challenge.

“These resources are all months sometimes to get into,” Marshall explains. “Call down the list of the 20 or so treatment centres in B.C. and every single one to tell you the same thing — that there’s quite long waitlists.”

“There’s always a need,” echoes Siân Lewis, executive director of Kamloops’ only medical in-patient detox program, Day One Society. 

The society’s waitlist ebbs and flows between 25 and 50, she explains, but this isn’t a clear representation of need because it doesn’t reflect the actual number of people who might be interested in detox at any particular time.

Blue House Recovery and Day One Society are part of the Kamloops Recovery Engagement and Bed Utilization Committee, hosted by the City of Kamloops, which brings together local treatment and recovery operators and Interior Health to improve access to treatment facilities and supportive housing for individuals struggling with substance use disorder.

“[We’re] just trying to make good use of the beds that are available and trying to present a united front to the people who need,” Lewis explains.

Though this level of coordination is a step in the right direction, recovery service providers say waitlists persist because they struggle to find sustained funding.

To help understand the critical role funding plays for each recovery service, The Wren asked local recovery service providers how funding supports the work they do. The unanimous response was that without funding from the province, nonprofits and individual donors, recovery program doors would shut.

“To keep the doors [of Blue House Recovery] open, it takes the community of Kamloops to donate $35,000 to $40,000 a year just just to keep us going,” Marshall explains, adding that the rising cost of housing is an added expense for residential programs like Blue House.

When funding isn’t available or sustainable, this causes longer waitlists, inconsistent or short-term resources and difficulty retaining trained and educated staff. 

Accessing funding also requires extensive application processes, often left to a few full-time staff. As Susan Wright, executive director of The Tree also points out, funding is typically awarded on a year to year basis, not for multiple years, and is “never guaranteed.” 

When funding is available, it means more job positions can be created in response to recovery needs. For example, Wright explains The Tree is able to offer counselling after receiving a grant from the Community Action Initiative. 

“When you look at how bad this opioid crisis has gone, and how bad the addictions are on the streets — and even not on the streets, even behind closed doors — it just shocks me that there aren’t more options,” Marshall says. 

Struggling through the process of recovery and being in active addiction is not a sign of moral failure. Marshall uses empathy to encourage people to see the person first, not their addiction. 

“That person is somebody’s son or daughter, and that’s a human being that just needs some help.”

If you or someone you know is struggling, visit HelpStartsHere.gov.bc.ca 

You can also visit the Interior Health Authority’s Mental Health and Substance Use Services.