Guy Felicella spent 30 years in the repeated cycles of gangs, addiction, treatment, and jail. Today, he lives with his wife and three young children, and has over a decade of recovery and sobriety under his belt.
Felicella was one of the speakers at a recent community dialogue on the toxic drug crisis at Nanaimo’s Port Theatre. Speaking with People First Radio before his presentation, he said a one or the other narrative pitting harm reduction and recovery based approaches against each other is the bane of his existence.
“I don’t support harm reduction over recovery. And I don’t support recovery over harm reduction. I support people in where they’re at.”
“You just don’t walk into a front door of a recovery society and walk out the back door and your life gets better. It takes numerous attempts, numerous, sometimes it takes years, decades even,” he said. “When people have a chronic relapsing condition and stay sober for three, four months and go back to that volatile supply, unfortunately it’s there to ambush them. And sadly, a lot of people die because of it.”
Also among the speakers was Wanda LeBlanc, who shared her son’s story.
“He experienced depression and anxiety throughout his young life. We as a family did everything we could to support him. His father and I were both educated in child and youth care and strongly connected to resources in the field,” she said.
“As an adolescent, my son started experimenting with substances. He says they made him feel normal. He used for three years and became actively suicidal. He realized he was not coping without substances and agreed to go to treatment. He was in recovery for an extended period of time.”
LeBlanc said her son got married, had two children, and worked a full time job in his twenties.
“Four years ago, after his 12 year marriage ended, he moved into a basement suite alone. He was grieving the loss of his marriage and the lack of time with his children,” she said.
“His job was put on hold due to COVID, and he became very depressed. He began using substances once again. Within a short time, he attempted suicide by fentanyl twice, and was admitted to psychiatric emergency unit at [Nanaimo Regional General Hospital]. There was no psychiatrist available to assess him, so he walked, twice.”
Leblanc said that was the beginning of a trauma that has affected her family for four years.
“He left the hospital while medicated, in withdrawal, and in psychosis. He lost contact with reality. I called police in sheer fear for his life. He got into a scuffle and assaulted a police officer. He came very close to being shot. He was taken down, arrested, and put in jail. He was transferred to Wilkinson Prison for many months to await sentencing,” she said.
“Since it was during COVID, no one could visit him. He detoxed alone in solitary confinement in what the inmates call a taco, which is basically a straitjacket. He was naked, alone, and afraid, stripped of any dignity he had.”
LeBlanc says that when things opened up and she could visit her son, she saw a huge change in him.
“The sensitive, caring man I knew had to get tough to survive in prison. There were no programs, no supports, other than a psychiatrist who only prescribed medications, and an addictions counselor who was available about once a month. He tried to navigate the lord of the flies mentality in prison and was beaten up badly.”
She said her son has been in and out of recovery, in and out of the criminal court system, and on and off the streets since that time.
“The deterioration is terrifying. He has not seen his children in three years, and all I can do is hold them close and tell them that daddy is ill. I can’t make them any promises that they will see him again.”
“My son needed mental health support and kindness, not imprisonment. At any point in that first year, if he had had the support he needed, I believe he would have had a chance to thrive again. I worry about my son every day.”
LeBlanc is also involved with a support group called Holding Hope, which is available for anyone with a loved one currently experiencing substance use.
“Everyone in the group, including the facilitator, has a loved one who’s using substances so they have a good understanding of what that’s like.”
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