Opioid public forum draws crowd, tears

There were many people reaching for tissues and wiping tears from their eyes as a Sault woman told a public gathering Monday of the heartbreaking loss of her brother to a drug overdose.

Sherrie Pintaric, a married mother of two and schoolteacher, told an audience gathered for a forum entitled ‘Healing Our Community’ of the Nov. 30, 2016 death of her only brother, Richard Peat, after a fentanyl overdose.

Peat was 25 years old.

Pintaric said her brother, after starting to smoke marijuana as a teen, eventually quit his job and started borrowing larger and larger amounts of money from his family.

After his family discovered a quantity of used needles in his backpack, he was sent to a Toronto rehab clinic for 45 days of treatment which cost $18,000.

Seemingly recovered from heavy drug use, Peat relapsed, also abusing alcohol.

He recovered again and found employment in the Sault, but was later found to have overdosed on fentanyl while at work.

Rushed to hospital, he died a few days later.

Speaking of her brother’s affectionate nature and sense of humour, Pintaric said “I thought he would make an amazing father one day.” 

“We needed to find answers… our hearts ached,” Pintaric told Monday’s forum, her voice trembling with emotion as she described watching her brother in a hospital bed after the overdose.    

Pintaric, who said that was her brother’s only time using fentanyl, told SooToday she believes the urge to experiment with marijuana eventually led to her brother’s death.

“I think he was trying to fit in when he was in high school, he thought ‘I’m going to try this with this group of friends,’ and from there I believe it came to be ‘okay I’m dependent on marijuana’ and it continued to escalate.”

Pintaric said she struggles with the belief many people have that addictions are not the result of a choice, but the result of trying to deal with trauma from various negative life experiences.

“I do have trouble with that, I’m going to be honest,” Pintaric said.

“I believe my brother made a first choice at a young age, too young to experiment.”

“I think initially you have a choice to say yes or no to drugs, and I think my brother made that choice the first time, then a second time, and it turned into no longer having a choice, thinking ‘I need this to survive.’”

“After that…you don’t have a choice once you become an addict. Drugs take the choice away, I do believe in that,” Pintaric said.

With legalization of marijuana in Canada approaching, many opponents of legalization have stated their belief the substance can be a gateway drug to far more dangerous substances.

“It scares me,” Pintaric told us.

“I believe that personally, because of our family’s experience. Little did my brother know that his use of marijuana would be a gateway for other drug choices. What happens in high schools, I believe, is that if you use weed, then someone who sells something else would easily target youth, because they are already smoking weed. I believe in those particular situations that’s what’s going to start happening.”

“It’s wrong at a certain age. His brain wasn’t developed enough to make those choices (studies have shown development of the human brain is not completed until the mid 20s).”

“I think sharing my story might help others to talk.”

“People get into a bubble and you shut people out when you’re a family member dealing with this, and that’s what happened to me. I think that just getting it out there and finding people that have that common link with you and strategizing together (in an event such as Monday’s forum) is very important.”

“My hope is that people mingle here tonight and use the resources that are there,” Pintaric said, adding families must band together and work through drug problems with their addicted loved one.

“If families don’t do that, there’s no hope left.”

“I asked my dad after my brother died, ‘Dad, would you have kicked him out?’ and he said, ‘Absolutely not, he would have come back into my home.’ He knew home was home.”

“Please reach out for help… check out available services,” Pintaric urged the audience.

Monday’s well-attended forum, while held in Sault College’s G Wing, was not a college event, but rather a grassroots effort organized by local concerned citizens in the face of the opioid crisis which plagues the Sault and Canada as a whole from coast to coast, as well as internationally.

A moderated panel shared their insights into addictions and mental health issues locally, and fielded questions from an audience ranging from people in their 20s to grandparents, many of whom affected directly or indirectly by addictions and mental health issues.  

The panel included Kimberly Pelletier, Indian Friendship Centre healing and wellness coordinator; Timothy Murphy, a well-known local entertainer who survived his own battle with addiction; Shawna Thomas of Algoma Public Health; and Lisa Carricato, Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) mental health educator.

Pelletier said Indian Friendship Centre addictions and mental health services are open to Indigenous and non-Indigenous people seeking help.

Murphy said, “One fateful day I tried crack cocaine… it was pretty dire,” stating he became suicidal before he sought rehabilitation at a Toronto clinic, adding that more services for those with addictions are needed, urging people to pressure politicians for those added services.

Thomas, of Algoma Public Health’s Community Alcohol and Drug Assessment Program, spoke of the importance of harm reduction, urging drug users to at least change how they use substances, such as not using drugs when alone and being aware of Nalaxone kits (samples of which on display at Monday’s forum) as a ‘reversing agent’ in the event of an overdose.

Carricato, of CMHA, agreed with Murphy that more services for addictions and mental health treatment are needed, pointing out a relatively small $3.4 billion sliver of Ontario’s $53.8 billion health care budget for 2017 was put toward treatment of addictions and mental health issues.

Carricato added it would be helpful if families laid down their electronic devices for a period of time and interacted together, enjoying the outdoors as a deterrent to boredom.