Why many Thunder Bay, Ont., residents travel to B.C. for addiction and trauma treatment

Renee Graves says she was a different person about a year and a half ago, when she was in the grips of an opioid addiction that left her with several heart infections and a lengthy criminal record, and put her on the streets of Thunder Bay, Ont.

Her story is one of resilience and recovery, but also of how she, like dozens of others in northwestern Ontario, felt travelling several provinces west for treatment was their best option. 

Graves, 32, now lives in Victoria but grew up just outside Kakabeka Falls, north of Thunder Bay. Like many of her friends, she said, she started drinking and using drugs in high school.

"There [were] a few of us that were experimenting that did become drug addicts and then some didn't. So it is kind of like playing Russian roulette, I would say — like you either are an addict or you're not," she said.

When she was 15, she had her wisdom teeth removed and was prescribed oxycodone for pain, said her mother, Donna Harman, who pinpoints this era as the dawn of the city's opioid crisis.

Thunder Bay had the highest opioid toxicity mortality rate in the province last year at 77.2 per 100,000 population, while the provincial rate was 17.6 per 100,000, according to preliminary data from the Office of the Chief Coroner. The northwestern Ontario city also led the province in opioid deaths per capita in 2021.

Graves tried to get help by going to her doctor to attend meetings, detox and 12-step groups. But at 18, she said, she started dating someone who coerced her into becoming involved in the sex trade, working in it for more than a decade.

From her parents' place to shelters, jail cells, a cockroach-filled apartment and the streets, Graves was caught in a cycle of relapsing and reoffending.

She attended therapy and programming at the Algoma Treatment and Remand Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, but said jail isn't a place for rehabilitation. 

Even so, "I actually cried because I didn't want to leave because I knew that I was safe there," she said. "I did know that I wasn't going to stay clean.

"I do wonder sometimes if I subconsciously would purposely go to jail," she added.

Travelling for treatment

During this time, Graves said, she also faced backlash from the community. 

"People would post things about me and they would call me the criminal junkie with the abnormally large forehead, and people would say that I should die and be killed, and people would throw things at me."

Eventually, a social service worker found her and gave her their card. Over time, they kept finding her, telling her she could be sent somewhere for treatment.

Graves said that with help from the Ontario Native Women's Association (ONWA) and Thunder Bay and Area Victim Services (TBAVS), she was sent to a detox centre in Thunder Bay for five days before going to get treatment in British Columbia. She'd attempted the trip a year before, but didn't get on the plane; this time, a social service worker stayed with her to make sure she made it.

A spokesperson for the ONWA said in an email that they could not accommodate CBC's request for an interview. A TBAVS spokesperson said in a phone call they could not comment on a story involving an individual client.

Cedars at Cobble Hill is a private in-patient treatment facility near Victoria that focuses on addiction and trauma disorder. Between 65 and 70 patients are in there at any given time. Cedars says because its program is based on individual needs, cost for treatment differs.

Ethan McCandless, director of admissions, said Cedars's relationship with the ONWA and TBAVS began about six years ago. In that time, they have referred more than 50 clients to Cedars.

Graves said she was among five others from Thunder Bay who were in treatment at Cedars. To get them in there, the ONWA and TBAVS apply for funding from Ontario's Victim Quick Response Program+; people who have been victims of crimes, such as human trafficking, can receive up to $20,000 to attend an in-patient facility in Ontario or elsewhere in Canada.

"They [the ONWA AND TBAVS] wanted to get people out of Ontario, they wanted to get people out of Thunder Bay. A lot of the individuals they were working with have extensive trauma and needed to be in a safe place where they could actually feel comfortable starting this recovery journey," said McCandless.

A 2-tiered system

Graves said Cedars offered personalized programs, a focus on trauma therapy and longer treatment times than the places she went to in northwestern Ontario. There was a smooth transition into aftercare, and although she relapsed once, she was able to return to Cedars within a week to attend a stabilization program.

"There is no program like that here," Graves said about Thunder Bay. "They're not long enough and they don't go deep enough. Like they just kind of scratch the surface, and so people that don't get funding and don't have money cannot get help, and it's sad."

McCandless said $20,000 often isn't enough to cover the long-term treatment required for people facing extensive trauma. In his own recovery journey, he said, trying to access programs in the public system was "extremely disheartening, challenging and frustrating."

"There's just not enough of them. Quite frankly, they're often not good enough," he said. "Sadly, people are passing away trying to navigate those processes because they can't access them in a timely fashion."

People that don't get funding and don't have money cannot get help, and it's sad.- Renee Graves

Then there's the question of what happens once a person has completed treatment. Many clients who turn to Cedars were formerly homeless or held in safety by an organization, McCandless said.

"We're often left transitioning them back to environments that are not conducive to long-term success in recovery. It's a huge gap in the system that needs to be looked at and addressed."

While Graves found housing in Victoria following her aftercare, she admitted she couldn't imagine living in Thunder Bay after everything that had happened to her.

"It's hard to come back," she said. "I know some people who have and I think they're very inspiring because I don't think I could live here ever again."

To stay or to go

After losing her daughter, Dayna, to an accidental opioid overdose in September 2021, Carolyn Karle founded the DEK Foundation in Thunder Bay, a non-profit volunteer organization that helps people living with addiction and pushes for more resources to address the opioid crisis.

Part of Dayna's recovery journey involved travelling to a treatment centre in Guelph, Ont., but Karle said being isolated from friends and family was hard on her, and she eventually relapsed.

Karle's dream is to provide women in recovery with a safe, residential, sober-living space in the countryside where they can receive wraparound support.

"We need more beds locally for those that really want to do local treatment and have their children nearby and do those weekly visits," she said.

Many women hesitate to travel for treatment for fear of losing custody of their children, and those who do leave often find themselves returning to unsafe environments, she said.

"I think a lot of people end up staying out there, but a lot come back and then we fall into that big old problem of, 'Now I'm back. I need second-stage living. Where do I go?'" Karle said. "That's the biggest problem."

Parenting a child living with addiction

Harman wanted to have Graves deemed incapable of making decisions due to her mental health and addiction issues, but was unable to do so. She said that meant her daughter couldn't make her get treatment or access services.

"You're not allowed to advocate for your child, whether it be with the services themselves, with the justice system, with the hospital," Harman said. "Every avenue and every horrible place that your loved one finds themselves in, they have to be able to work their way through it themselves."

Harman joined a family recovery support group run by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) and also sought guidance from her minister. She learned about the importance of setting boundaries with her daughter and not enabling her.

"Not for a minute did I ever think this would happen in my family," Harman said. "Any young person in this city, or anywhere I guess for that matter, can fall into this."

It can be nearly impossible for a person in active addiction to navigate the system of getting into detox, treatment and aftercare, let alone the wait times in between, Harman said. That all leaves plenty of room for relapse.

She wants more places to offer long-term, continuous treatment, and more training for service providers to cope with clients experiencing mental illness and addiction. She'd also like a bigger focus on rehabilitation within the justice system, but recognizes "it's going to take monumental changes."

"I hope that things will change for the next generation. I would never want to see anybody have to go through the plight that our family did."

Planning for the future

A year and five months into her recovery, Graves is working and plans to get her high school diploma soon. After that, she wants to take a mental health and addictions course. 

"I think it's important when people are trying to get help … to have someone that does understand," she said. "I can help them with my experience and I know what it feels like."

While she's proud of what she's accomplished, it's not easy; recovery is an active process, she said. What helps is reminding herself that addiction is an illness, but she has a support system to help her through it.

"I think it's important for people to know that every addict is a person and they're just stuck in an addiction that is not really their fault," she said. "[It is] a disease of the mind."

Harman said she just wants her daughter to be happy.

"I am so proud of her. She's on her own now. She's working and that's all I want for her; no high expectations whatsoever. I just want her to be happy and healthy."