In Prince George — like in many small and mid-sized Canadian cities — the toxic drug crisis is often discussed in numbers. Rates. Percentages. Alerts. Headlines about overdose deaths that appear and fade with alarming regularity. In recent years, Prince George has ranked among communities in British Columbia with some of the highest rates of drug-toxicity deaths. Overdose advisories have become familiar, almost routine.
But statistics do not tell the whole truth.
Behind every number is a person. Someone loved. Someone known. Someone who once had routines, strength, humour, and plans. Someone who existed long before the worst moment of their life.
I have lost someone I loved deeply to addiction.
He wanted to be better. He tried to be better. He was disciplined, physically strong, and deeply human. And he was also in immense pain — pain that didn’t disappear simply because others believed it should have. Like so many people, he wasn’t using substances because he didn’t care about his life. He was using them because surviving his own mind had become unbearable.
This is the part of addiction we don’t talk about enough.
We talk about substances as if they are the problem — as if drugs themselves are the enemy. But substances are often not the root; they are the response. A way to numb, to regulate, to slow things down when emotional pain, trauma, or overwhelm has nowhere else to go.
If addiction were simply about willpower, my best friend would still be here.
If addiction were solved by strength, discipline, or wanting recovery badly enough, many people would still be alive.
Addiction does not discriminate the way we pretend it does. It affects people who are housed, employed, loved, and trying — just as much as it affects those living with visible instability. The common thread is not weakness. It is pain combined with isolation, stigma, and gaps in care.
In Prince George, addiction is visible and closely intertwined with homelessness, healthcare, and public safety. Emergency rooms, police, and outreach workers are frequently responding to addiction not because it is their primary role, but because other systems have already failed. This pattern is not unique to Prince George. Across Canada, small and mid-sized cities face the same reality: limited mental health access, overstretched healthcare systems, and communities absorbing the consequences.
Addiction is also inseparable from how we approach care. In modern medicine, pain is often treated quickly and symptomatically, while emotional and psychological dimensions are addressed later — if at all. Substances may be medically introduced for legitimate reasons, or the emotional risks may be medically overlooked. This is not the result of careless physicians, but of healthcare systems under pressure, constrained by time, resources, and rigid treatment pathways.
Relief is offered before understanding.
And relief itself is not the danger.
The danger arises when relief becomes the only place a person feels regulated, safe, or whole. When that happens, substances — whether prescribed, socially accepted, or illicit — can become anchors. Not because someone is morally failing, but because their nervous system has learned that this is where the pain stops.
This is why addiction cannot be understood solely through substances. Society tolerates — and often praises — many forms of compulsive behaviour when they appear productive: overworking, extreme discipline, relentless achievement, obsessive fitness, constant stimulation. We rarely label these as addiction, even when they serve the same purpose — avoiding distress, maintaining control, or escaping emotional overwhelm.
Everyone relies on regulation.
What separates “acceptable” addiction from dangerous addiction is often not intention, but outcome — and access to support.
When emotional regulation, trauma care, and mental health education are absent, people find their own ways to survive. Substances are not the root of that survival instinct; they are the tools that happen to be available.
Loving someone with addiction is not simple. It is painful, confusing, and exhausting. Boundaries become necessary. Distance can become a form of survival. But setting limits does not mean a lack of love — and walking away does not mean responsibility for another person’s outcome.
No single individual can carry another human through a system that is not built to hold them.
If we want fewer overdose deaths — in Prince George and beyond — we need to stop asking only how to stop substance use and start asking how to reduce suffering. How to support mental health before crisis. How to teach emotional regulation. How to address trauma early. How to keep people connected, housed, and supported — even when recovery is not linear.
Addiction is not the enemy. Dehumanization is.
When we stop seeing people as problems to be fixed and start seeing them as humans trying to survive, our responses change. Policies change. Funding priorities change. Outcomes change.
Every overdose death represents a life that mattered long before it ended.
This is not about blame. It is about responsibility — shared responsibility — to build systems that meet people where they are, instead of waiting until they fall.
Because no one should disappear simply because they were trying to survive.
