FORSYTH: Can we have some honesty with safe supply/consumption sites?

Published Aug 28, 2024  •  3 minute read

The inside of the Fraser Health supervised consumption site is pictured in Surrey, B.C., on Tuesday, June 6, 2017. Photo by Jonathan Hayward /THE CANADIAN PRESS

The debate over safe supply/consumption sites is really frustrating.

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One side says that if we close safe supply/consumption sites, more people will die, while the other side says that if we don’t close them, more people will die.

Who’s telling the truth? Well, it depends on what statistics you quote and whether you believe safe consumption sites are saving lives because there are staff on hand to revive someone who overdoses, or whether you believe they are just delaying the addict’s inevitable death, alone, in a coffee shop bathroom.

As a recovering alcoholic, I can speak with some authority on this subject.

One of the things that prevented me from dying was money. While I live comfortably, I don’t have a huge bank account. I don’t have the kind of bank account that would have enabled me to buy more and better quality alcohol, without sacrificing some of the essentials.

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My frugal nature too over and I started buying one of the discount beer brands. I wanted to make sure that I had the money to pay for food and necessities for me and my daughter.

By drinking hard liquor, instead of beer, I could have consumed more alcohol by volume before passing out or dying of alcohol poisoning. I was simply trying to numb the emotional trauma in my head, not kill myself.

My point is what ultimately got me into recovery and saved my life was not being provided with more and better quality alcohol to consume, nor by making sure someone was around so that I didn’t choke to death on my own vomit.

There were several factors, but just two of the reasons I was ready to get sober were a lack of a large bank account and being a regular listener to the now-defunct radio show People Helping People, hosted by the late Nils Johanson, a recovering drug addict and alcoholic who was better known by his profession name of Mark Elliot.

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I only met Nils in person once, but I was a regular listener to his show on Saturday night. He was the next best thing to entering a treatment program, which I probably should have done too. I did attend regular OHIP paid out-patient counseling and free community support groups like A.A. and Wings of Change, and peer-led, confidential, peer support group for operational stress injuries, so at least I did that much.

My employer at the time didn’t have an Employee Assistance Program for me to access, nor was my association (union) of any assistance.

I owe my sobriety and probably my life to Nils, who gave me the determination to get and stay sober. In addition to alcohol, I was also abusing my prescription medication. I found that the sleeping pills I had been taking were no longer having the desired effect, so I started taking more than the prescribed dosage.

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When that eventually proved ineffective too, I found that washing them down with increasing amounts of alcohol helped increase their effectiveness. When it says on the bottle “Do not consume alcohol with this medication,” it’s not a suggestion. (Thanks to Tom M. for giving me that line. I use it all the time.)

My sobriety date is 4 March 2016 and I properly take my prescription medication, some likely for the rest of my life.

Bottom line, no one will get clean until they are ready to, regardless of how many times you tell them to stop, or how much you belittle and ridicule them.

Supervised consumption sites can be effective, but without a better effort at providing counselling and options to get clean, simply giving addicts “clean” drugs and needles, or providing a better place to consume, is only extending their slow-motion suicide.

Bruce Forsyth is a retired police officer, PTSD survivor and runs www.militarybruce.com.

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