The Path to Recovery by Alberta’s Earl Thiessen
Every person that is struggling with addiction needs recovery
Although PHO Dr. Bonnie Henry states that the opposite of addiction is connection and connection can be found at an Overdose Prevention Site, Mr. Thiessen’s organization, Oxford House, offers a real, life-changing connection.
You can explore Oxford House’s multiple levels of recovery-oriented housing and their inspiring social media and ask yourselves why this can’t happen in BC? A non-profit agency entirely dedicated to whole person abstinence-based recovery and housing.
The funding model encompasses public and private agencies, with even the Building Trades of Alberta Charitable Foundation recognizing that trade workers need this type of assistance.
Wouldn’t you like to see Westbank, PCI, Polygon and Onni step up and donate to and build similar recovery-oriented housing in BC?
Below is Mr. Thiessen’s presentation to the Alberta Safe Supply hearing. The transcript has been removed or relocated from the original Legislature of Alberta location.
Alberta - Examine Safe Supply - 16 Feb 2022 - Earl Thiessen
Mr. Thiessen:
Excellent. Thank you. First, I’d like to thank you all for this opportunity to share my lived and professional experience on this matter.
I was homeless for seven years in Calgary, addicted to alcohol, cocaine, and pharmaceuticals for 20 years.
Only after two overdoses on an alcohol-and-pharmaceutical combination and the murder of my partner, who is one of the missing and murdered Indigenous women in our country, in 2007, did I reach out for help for me, right? That was the huge thing for me.
Many of the homeless people that I hung out with are now deceased from alcohol, drug abuse, and accidents related to both drugs and alcohol.
I understand we’re here to speak about safe supply, but I feel it’s my obligation as an Indigenous leader in the recovery sector and as a recovery service provider in the mental health and addiction sector as well as a person in long-term recovery in the mental health and addiction sector to remind everybody that methamphetamine abuse is still on the rise and that alcohol is still the leading contributor to death and health issues in Alberta.
With the committee’s permission, I’d like to share a short video with you.
[A video was shown from 1:32 p.m. to 1:33 p.m.]
The young lady in that video was my sister Amy, a 31-year-old paralegal, mother, daughter, and sister that died alone at home in Hawkwood in northwest suburban Calgary from an overdose. I and my wife are now raising her three-year-old daughter and 16-year- old son. The other beautiful Cree woman in that video is my mom.
She died four years ago. I found her body. She died as a direct result of alcohol abuse and not healing from her childhood trauma of being placed in foster care and the shame society placed on her for her Indigenous heritage. I want to thank you for allowing me to share that video with you all.
Most of my experience is lived experience. I am in this sector. I do oversee an organization that is recovery and abstinence based, but I pulled a couple of quotes here. One is: if you’re someone who is smoking meth every day, you can’t smoke extended-release Dexedrine. Dilaudid is not the same as heroin and certainly not the same as fentanyl, says Nyx. The reason it’s ineffective isn’t because safe supply as a concept doesn’t work; it’s because you’re not giving people what they want, so of course they’re going to divert their drug use. In other words, if people aren’t providing addicts with their drug of choice, they will continue to seek it out regardless of being provided with other drugs.
In my opinion, nothing is stopping an addict from getting their free drugs and trading them to their dealer for their drug of choice. I can’t be the first person saying this.
Opioids were perfectly legal when our family members became addicted to them, promoted by pharmaceutical giants and doled out by unsuspecting physicians, who enabled the crisis by accepting drug companies’ claims that they were safe. An example of that is OxyContin. When the reality became clear and prescriptions became hard to come by, it was too late.
Opioids are commonly prescribed in Canada and are the medication class most frequently identified in harmful medication incidents voluntarily reported to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada. One report states that over 12,800 people died from overdose involving any opioid, including prescribed and illicit opioids, from 2016 to 2019. That’s a government of Canada stat. Another report states that between January 16 and June 21 there were almost 25,000 apparent opioid deaths. Another report states that the number for the same period was almost 23,000. One report says that 4,395 people overdosed on opioids in 2020. On the same page it states that that number was 6,214 deaths in Canada. Pretty dramatic differences. My point is that we can find any data we want to support our cause, whether it be for or against.
Another point is that although fentanyl remains the leading cause of opioid death, updated data shows that the prescribed painkiller hydromorphone sits as the second-deadliest drug when it comes to fatal overdoses. That’s a stat from the province of Ontario. Hydromorphone is similar to heroin and goes by the trade name Dilaudid. It’s extremely addictive and is used to treat pain. This is one of the most talked-about drugs when speaking about safe supply. If we do more on prevention and treatment, we can save lives. According to a study done by the government on opioid-related deaths in Alberta from 2017, it’s clear that we may also want to address the issue of opioid dependency recovery for those suffering from substance use disorder that are incarcerated in our corrections system. An approach to help offer recovery services while in custody could dramatically increase the number of deaths of those being released. Roughly 41 per cent of opioid addicts coming out of incarceration overdose within the first two years after their release. This includes federal, provincial, and remand centres. There is a program, TKO program, treatment, knowledge, opportunity, that is a wonderful complement to this idea. They provide supportive classes on addiction, literacy, and career and education planning. This is an effective way to build self-esteem and self-worth, better stabilizing those being released. Several factors have contributed to a worsening of alcohol- and drug-related issues and overdoses over the course of the pandemic, including increased feelings of isolation, stress and anxiety, and limited availability or accessibility of services for those who use drugs. We need more treatment services to be created and supported, not safe supply. We’re all hearing about the long wait-list for residential treatment.
I believe one area that needs to be focused on is pretreatment housing. The purpose of this housing model is to keep people safe while waiting for treatment in a peer-supportive environment. I’d like to state that over the past two-plus years the whole recovery-oriented system of care in Alberta has done a three-sixty. An actual investment in improving people and recovering lives by the Alberta government has had a massive impact on the sector. I’ve been in the sector for 12-plus years, and over the past year, while speaking with our residents, one of the biggest sighs of relief is the fact that the cost of residential treatment is being taken care of. I can only hope that other provinces in our country can follow Alberta’s lead.
This is lived experience speaking again. When I’ve spoken to alcoholics and addicts in our housing – and I mean thousands of in- person discussions – the one thing we all relate to is trauma. Discussions from childhood trauma that carries into adulthood: I don’t have sympathetic conversations; I have empathetic heart-to- hearts.
Not one of us wants to keep using. We all want to talk about our trauma. We need a release, we need healing, and we need people with lived experience to provide this opportunity. To an addict and an alcoholic, trust is the beginning of taking that first step. The opportunity to speak about trauma with someone they trust is the beginning of the healing process, and that’s vital. We want to reconnect with our self-worth, self-esteem, and purpose. I’m not a doctor, but I’ve heard that by people speaking here. We were disconnected due to our traumatic experiences. We want to live a life free of substances. A safe supply is the farthest thing from our minds. You can’t put a Band-Aid on trauma.
Now, to an addict who has no intention of healing, no intention of learning to trust anyone, or facing themselves or their trauma, this idea would be appealing, and I’m speaking as an addict. We can play out that it’s helping just to get our fix, and, trust me, I’ve done it a hundred times in active addiction. I would walk out of a doctor’s office with enough pills to fill a Ziploc bag.
To meet someone where they’re at is commendable, but to leave them there is a miscarriage of my morals.
There is a way out of addiction, and it’s recovery. I understand that not everyone is ready to take that step, and nothing that society in general does will make that decision for them; they need to make that choice themselves. My sister and mother chose not to heal and recover. I love and miss them dearly. They’re not suffering anymore. If I hadn’t begun my recovery journey, I wouldn’t be here either. Survival mode keeps you alive, but it’s not living.
I’ve heard people say, “Dead people don’t recover,” and to that I say, “People in recovery don’t overdose and die.”
My final point: if we seek harsher penalties for drug dealers that sell fentanyl causing overdose deaths, will we hold the prescriber of so-called safe supply accountable to the same standards? Thanks again for this opportunity. I’ll take any questions you have.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr. Thiessen, for sharing your story, your mother’s story, and your sister’s story and putting a human face to all of this. This isn’t just statistics but people. Thank you for that. We’ll now open up for Q and A. MLA Amery.
Mr. Amery:
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Thiessen, for coming here today, for sharing your experiences and your background with us, and, I think most importantly, for sharing some of the details of the personal tragedies that you’ve shared with us.
On behalf of, I think, my colleagues I want to send our sincerest condolences to you and your family for your untimely losses. Certainly, this is one of the tragic aspects of this entire consideration. Mr. Thiessen, it’s clear that you bring a wealth of experience and information to us, but this is the first time that we’ve had an Indigenous leader address the committee. Addiction plagues all groups in society equally, and I know that there are many ways to approach treatment and recovery. Obviously, we’re here to consider the concept of safe supply. You’ve spent some time in your presentation discussing treatment and recovery, and you’ve emphasized that those are the important components that we should focus on, and I appreciate that. As an Indigenous community leader with experience in the field of addiction services you said that we need to focus on things like pretreatment housing, which is one thing that you emphasized, addiction recovery, but you specifically said: not safe supply. What is working, in your view, both within Indigenous communities and within the greater public to the extent that they differ?
Mr. Thiessen:
Thank you for the question. What’s working – and I’ve heard many of the doctors say this – is pure support in both aspects. As a First Nations person, what happened years and years, hundreds of years ago was disconnection – right? – disconnection from our culture, from our practice, from our ceremonies, and that comes into play with addiction as well. There’s a disconnection from self, from your family, from your community. They coincide. For the healing process – this is what I say – to take place, we need to speak about our traumas. For me, in my opinion – and I’ve seen thousands of successful cases – it’s the peer support environment. It’s the opposite of disconnection. You’re reconnecting, right?
You’re reconnecting with your culture. You’re getting put in a group setting where you can actually have discussions with like- minded people about your traumas, and it’s an empathetic discussion. It’s the gateway for people to heal and take that step towards their recovery journey. In keeping somebody in their place of discomfort – right? – like I said, you can’t put a Band-Aid on trauma. You have to have a healing process.
The Chair:
A supplemental, Member?
Mr. Amery:
Yes, please. Mr. Thiessen, you mentioned disconnection with communities, disconnection with families, and so on. Is the disconnection you describe a consequence of opioid abuse? If so, does this guide your advice to this committee about why safe supply is not one of the treatment procedures you would recommend, and why?
Mr. Thiessen:
One hundred per cent. People like to use in isolation, right? To keep them in isolation isn’t going to be productive. Like, even when I used, you might use with people, but you’re alone, right? For someone in recovery or in addiction, that’s going to make perfect sense, right?
We need to heal around others. Community: it just means everything. Being alone, isolating – I call it running laps, basically, in your own head – by yourself is not healthy, right? I mean, you’re going to use, commit suicide. The recovery-oriented system of care needs to be the focus. I’m speaking this for myself. I’m 14 years clean and sober. I went from homelessness to overseeing Canada’s largest peer-supported recovery housing organization, with my recovery.
That may not be the be-all, end-all for everybody, but it was for me and for hundreds of people: my best man, my wife, half of my staff, and the list goes on and on. I mean, the evidence is on the camera speaking with you.
Mr. Milliken:
Thank you, Mr. Thiessen, for being here. I will be directing people to watch that video. It is powerful. There are times where I recognize that I am at a loss when it comes to available information relative to people that I speak to, and that happens – surprise, surprise – quite a bit. In this circumstance, though, it’s especially true. So I want to really thank you for being here and sharing your lived experience as well as your expertise. You did touch very briefly on criminalization. I have some experience through part of a previous legal practice that I was working with, which touched on individuals entering into the judicial field, et cetera, through use of opioids and other substances. I am keenly aware that it affects all communities, the whole community of Alberta, any jurisdiction you can think of. But I do think, through my experience, that there has been a disproportionately large burden that the Indigenous community has felt throughout criminalization. I was just wondering, kind of putting you on the spot, if you have a view with regard to decriminalization and then, depending on your view, whether or not that could actually be of benefit for Alberta.
Mr. Thiessen:
I’ve been asked this question before. There are many different views people have on decriminalization. My view on decriminalization would be to have the people getting charged with small, personal-possession offences or with large – well, I don’t want to say “large” because I don’t want to get out of hand. Charges like that or related to minor offences: there should be an ultimatum, right?
This is a part where I get a lot of push-back. You can either give the person the opportunity to be charged, go to jail and get a criminal record, or to enter into a recovery-focused treatment, right?
In my opinion, anything less than a year would be insufficient. We spend decades and years using. It’s going to take a little bit longer to start that.
But when it comes to decriminalization, that would be something I support, and we actually work with the drug court and have a collaborative home with them in Calgary as well. It would prevent people from going to jail. It would give them the option. Maybe that’s the push they need.
I got arrested with 11 warrants. The JP saw it in his heart to release me, and I told him, “I need help with my addiction and the murder of my partner,” and he gave me that small window of opportunity. This could be the opportunity people are waiting for, where they have no other option if they don’t want that, to go into a medical detox and to a residential recovery program and then enter long-term, peer- supported housing. I think it would change the whole demographics of everything that’s happening in the province.
Mr. Milliken:
If I could, just based completely on your response there, I was just wondering, then, if you would agree that perhaps there’s some sort of opportunity within government policy. It’s my kind of understanding that, for the most part, if I was a police officer and encountering somebody who had an OUD, was deep in use, my only real tool would be to put that individual in handcuffs. I’m just wondering. Are you, then, implying through your answer that if there was some other direction, whether it was some sort of opportunity where they could just be moved straight into some sort of treatment focused – I know you talked about TKO: treatment, knowledge, opportunity. I’m assuming that’s kind of, also based on some of your responses, based on evidence-based treatment, education, traditional knowledge. We’ve heard through many stakeholders that have come and talked to us that there has to be an element of hope associated in order for someone to have effective treatment. I was just wondering: is that kind of something that you think might be lacking in Alberta?
Mr. Thiessen:
I think that, well, it’s lacking everywhere. I think it would definitely be a benefit, right? When you’re put in that position – and it’s a choice.
Every person that is struggling with addiction needs recovery. It’s the want that makes the difference, and giving somebody that opportunity to avoid doing time, to go into a program, I think is going to do nothing but benefit people. I always say that want and need are light years apart. For the people that need to, you know, hopefully they have hope. The people that want to recover most of the time do recover.
Mr. Milliken:
Thank you very much. With that, I’ll cede the floor.
The Chair:
Thank you, Member. MLA Sigurdson.
Mr. Sigurdson:
Thank you, Chair. I as well would like to express deep gratitude to you, Mr. Thiessen, for sharing your story. I think when we go through this and we start talking about concepts like safe supply or decriminalization, you know, a lot of these theories are kicked around, and I think it’s incredibly important, considering the fact that – to be clear, my understanding is that for over a decade you’ve served with Oxford House, developer of numerous recovery housing models, pretreatment housing, collective peer-supported Indigenous recovery housing model. I’m really interested to know. I mean, you’re on the ground. You’re the person that’s living this. You’ve experienced it personally with your family. You’re out there every day working with these people. I just really have one question. When we’re talking about this safe supply – and maybe I’m putting you on the spot a bit, but I think your voice really matters here because you are on the front line dealing with this every day. If safe supply is expanded, what do you think the reality is of that for you and the work that you’re doing moving forward?
Mr. Thiessen:
I think that’s a very good question, and I really, really worry about people that are on the cusp of grabbing ahold of their lives and recovering, that when they’re having a safe supply, they’re just going to scratch that whole idea, right?
To me, safe supply, like people say, is going to keep you alive, but that’s not what people want to do. People want to recover. People want their lives back. They want to hug their children. They want to hug their parents, right?
They want to live a productive lifestyle, and I don’t know – I haven’t seen, in my 12 years, someone successfully do that while on drugs. I mean, it’s basic. I don’t want to say that it hasn’t happened ever, but I’ve never seen it. So my worry is that the want for that recovery and that reconnection will decrease, and that’s horrible, because, as you’ve seen, I mean, I lost my mom, and I lost my sister and many others along the line.
If there was safe supply, I wouldn’t be here talking with you, because if I’m going to get 20 hydromorphone and I’m told to take one every eight hours as an addict – I was speaking with one of my staff, and we both started laughing, because that isn’t happening. I’m doing three, and if that doesn’t work, I’m doing two more. So safe supply isn’t going to be productive for recovery, period.
The Chair:
A supplemental?
Mr. Sigurdson:
Maybe I will just follow up on that. Based on what you’ve said – and we’ve got to focus around harm reduction strategies – maybe you can comment on how these should coexist with recovery-oriented approaches, which is, I think, really what you’re talking about, that recovery-oriented, putting the lens on that, shining the light on that as the key approach. Is that correct? Just a bit of a clarification, and once again thank you, Mr. Thiessen.
Mr. Thiessen:
Yeah. I mean, harm reduction, again, has many different views, right?
You could look at – pretreatment housing is harm reduction. That’s positive harm reduction. Given somebody who’s taken that step to go through medical detox and that wants to change their life, pretreatment could be viewed as a type of harm reduction, but that’s a positive harm reduction, right?
There have to be positive outcomes. There are going to be roadblocks with everything, but that was the whole purpose of me developing for Oxford House pretreatment housing and entry-level housing for the chronically homeless and institutionalized, that there is a safe place for people to go when they make that decision to recover. I mean, I’ve said it. It’s a form of harm reduction, and to me that’s true, but then there’s safe supply, which people say is a form of harm reduction. But that’s not a safe form of harm reduction, right? Moving people through the steps to recover is a safety measure with harm reduction aspects, I guess you could say, in place.
Mr. Stephan:
Thank you for your presentation. I was very moved by your video, and something that struck me is that often individuals who die of overdoses do it in isolation. They often die alone, and I wanted to ask whether or not – you talked about the importance of connection to help healing. Other individuals have referred to this as social capital in terms of helping move towards recovery. I’m just wondering: does safe supply just by its very nature connect people, or does it tend to move them towards isolation in their addictions?
Mr. Thiessen:
In my opinion, as a person in recovery, I would say that it would contribute to isolation, right? If I was using, I would grab my little goodie bag or prescription, whatever people deem it, and I would be gone. If I was homeless, I would be under the bridge using. I would find somewhere to use alone because, number one, I wouldn’t want to share it, right? Because it’s mine. That’s another thing that promotes isolation, right? That’s why in our homes it’s peer supported.
You can’t be alone. We all know, unless, you know, you’re extremely busy and you’re alone and you like to collect your thoughts and spend some time by yourself, to be alone and struggling with trauma and addiction is not healthy for anybody.
It’s counterproductive.
The Chair:
Thank you.
Mr. Stephan:
Can I ask a supplemental?
The Chair:
Yes, you may.
Mr. Stephan:
Again, just talking about the isolation, I find that so sad, actually. I’m just wondering if it’s a sense of shame that drives people to be in isolation while suffering under these addictions.
Mr. Thiessen:
One hundred per cent. One hundred per cent it is. There’s a lot of shame. I as a male that was sexually abused at a young age, as a young teenager – I was a pretty recognized freestyle wrestler. You don’t talk about stuff like that to your friends, right? It all comes back to shame, Jason. It all does. And it’s okay to cry, because that means we’re feeling. I had to hold mine back when I spoke about my mom. It is shame based.
You’re ashamed of being neglected. You’re ashamed of being beaten. You’re ashamed of having your culture disrespected. Emotional, mental, physical: all the aspects of the medicine wheel, right? Sexual abuse is a huge, huge thing when it comes to people feeling shame and isolating when they use.
That’s why I’m a huge supporter of the DORS App as well.
The Chair:
Thank you, Member. Next up we have MLA Milliken, with about 30 seconds.
Mr. Milliken:
Yeah. Thank you again for being here. If we don’t have time, we can connect. I represent an area of Calgary. If you could just briefly tell me about pretreatment housing and then also whether or not it’s a function of there not being enough beds.
Mr. Thiessen:
It is a direct function of there not being enough beds, and I think we need pretreatment homes across the province. That would fill a huge void for people waiting to get into treatment, and it’s still the peer-supported environment – right? – so it’s a win-win.
The Chair:
Mr. Thiessen, feel free to finish answering that question. Thank you.
Mr. Thiessen:
Like, I developed this from my lived experience. I was sitting in detox waiting for my treatment date two months from then thinking: if I go back to the streets, I might not make it back. That prompted me to develop the model for Oxford House. We need more; I can’t say that enough. We need more pretreatment housing, peer-supported recovery housing, period, and that is a big plug for Oxford House.
The Chair:
We appreciate the plug. Thank you again, Mr. Thiessen, for joining us here today and bringing a face to this conversation. We certainly appreciate that, helping us see the harm in addiction but also the victory in recovery. We appreciate you sharing your story.
Mr. Thiessen:
Thank you.