Debbie Reed’s son Johnny died from opioid-related causes in March 2020.
As told to Charnel Anderson
Johnny was a big, funny guy. He was always making jokes, and he was very well-liked. He grew up in the country, fishing and camping. Johnny was big into fishing. I miss the fish. He loved his family. Johnny has two daughters. They lost their daddy at a very young age, and they miss him very much. I really miss Johnny, too. He was my baby.
Johnny was probably around 18 when his addiction began. I didn’t know anything about addiction, so at first, I was like, just quit taking that shit. Stop that. Then I realized, like, whoa. Because I sat with him through withdrawal, and I was terrified. There’s a lot to learn about addiction when your kid is sick. I didn’t know anything about opiates.
What they teach you as a parent is to step back so they can step up. You got to let them fall. They got to hit a bottom. And the last thing you want to do is stand back and watch your child hit the dirt. Addiction is a horrible thing, and it changes them. They become this husk of a person that you don’t know anymore, and the transformation is unbelievably painful to watch.
One of the big things that needs to happen is people need to stop stigmatizing this disease.
People see addiction as such an ugly thing, like they brought it on themselves. I would say Johnny did not bring it on himself. He was prescribed pain medication twice in a year, and it just escalated. He had a snowboarding accident, and then he had an accident at work. He had been clean for quite some time, and then he got hit on the back of his shoulder, it was a big rock, and they took him to emergency.
I flew over there, and when I got there, he was all relaxed and doe-eyed, and I said, “What’d they give you?” He said, “Oh, I don’t know.” So, I went to the desk, and I said to the nurse, “What did you give my son?” And he said, ‘We gave him morphine.”
Now, this is a guy who I personally had taken to the hospital on multiple occasions for addiction-related situations. So, the break in the system is really quite shocking. I spoke with another doctor about this, and I said, “How could you possibly give him morphine?” And he said, “That’s our first line of defense against pain, and we don’t dig that far down in the charts. Somebody comes in, and we try to control their pain.” That ignited another relapse. I’m not blaming the medical system; I’m just saying it’s broken. It’s almost like we need a separate emergency addiction centre that tracks patients carefully.
Johnny loved fishing and camping, according to his mom, Debbie. (Courtesy of Debbie Reed)
It was extremely difficult when you have somebody that’s as unwell as Johnny, trying to get them into a detox centre, which is part of the recovery process. You have to go to detox, and then you have to fill out an application for pre-treatment, and then you have to wait for a date to get into a treatment centre. The paperwork to get through that is unbelievable. It was a hell of a process. If they’re trying to do it on their own, you’re asking somebody who’s unbelievably unwell to climb that mountain. Imagine trying to go up a set of stairs in a wheelchair. That’s what we’re asking these people to do.
When I realized that Johnny was taking fentanyl, I woke up crying, I went to bed crying. I spent the day crying, clenched in fear, because you know that your kid is going to die. There was no way to reach him.
It’s such a brutal experience because you’re going into places that you never thought you’d be going to. I went into a motel called The Midtown. I marched in there. There was about 15 people in this room, and my kid was in there. I said, “You’re coming with me right now. You’re not staying here.” He was sick. He had pneumonia. He wouldn’t leave with me, but he came to my house that night. He showed up and he’s like, “Mom, I’m so sorry.” We sat up and we had some grace that night. We talked about a lot of things.
I got up in the morning and I went to work, and I came back home, and I thought, this guy needs to go to the hospital, and he needs to go back to jail. I called an ambulance, and I called the police. They had him in emergency, he was there for 24 hours, and he just died behind a curtain. He passed in March 2020.
The grief is like a tsunami. It just comes and you get this spike of grief, and it just takes you off your feet. It’s incredible how powerful it is. The first four months after Johnny died, I barely got up, and just slept. It was really awful. It’s out of order, and it doesn’t make sense. The brain will only let in little bits at a time. It’s a very heavy burden to carry. It’s there all day, every day. I can’t tell you how many times you just want to go back and change things. If I had just been more careful, if I had just watched, if I had been aware of what Percocet could do.
Addiction is such a complicated thing. One of the big things that needs to happen is people need to stop stigmatizing this disease. Johnny was a lot more than his addiction, and it would be really nice if people started recognizing that just because somebody has an addiction doesn’t mean that’s the sum of them.
The year that Johnny passed away, a lot of his friends passed away too. It was a tough year. The drug
Johnny was father to two daughers. (Courtesy of Debbie Reed)
supply is so toxic. I know it’s a touchy subject, but I would really like to see a safe drug supply. Once somebody gets into the throws of addiction, they usually end up with a criminal record. It makes it very difficult for them to get back to work and get back to life on the road to recovery. Even to get a job in a factory. The road back needs to be made a little bit easier.
I am part of a bereavement group. A lot of the moms have come together, moms that have lost their kids. That’s the backbone of my support now. Some of the other moms and I have made a proposal to the City of Thunder Bay, and we have asked for a Gone Too Soon memorial garden at Kam River Heritage Park. There’s this tiny little plaque underneath a crab apple tree, and it just says, “In memory of those gone too soon.” We adorn that tree with the faces — it’s the reality — of the people that are gone too soon. We would like to see a tree, like a weeping birch or a weeping willow. We are in consultation talking about putting a medicine wheel garden, too.
I think we all have a lot to learn. I learn more every day about addiction. One of the pieces that I really feel is missing is research into healing the brain. I think you can put all these programs in place, and it’s still probably the only disease where the person has to recover themselves.
This story has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
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