The opioid crisis continues to worsen in British Columbia as we mark National Addictions Awareness Week this week.
With seven suspected overdose deaths in Kamloops last month, the city has hit an all-time record for drug overdoses with 50 in a calendar year, four more than the 46 deaths from 2018.
All told, there were 162 deaths across the province, and the BC Coroners Service says that translates to five people losing their lives to illicit drug overdoses every day in the province.
On the NL Morning News, Glen Hilke, of the Kamloops Community Action Team, was asked what families of people who are addicted can do to help cope. He says one thing we can all do is change the way we refer to these people.
“One of the big things actually, and this starts right with the family when we talk about anti-stigma, one of the big things is about the words that we use to talk about this issue,” he said. “People should not be afraid of being PC, politically correct or woke. It’s important and you know when families here their loved ones being talked about as crack heads or junkies, even using the word addict, which is still a common word and it’s used in medical terms.”
“It is a health issue, it’s not a lifestyle issue. What families can do is right within the own family is to start to think about the problem their son or daughter or their husband has or their wife has in a different way and use different language to talk about that.”
Hilke says there are resources out there for relatives of addicts that are having a hard time coping with a loved one’s addiction.
“People need help and families need help too. So, there are a couple of agencies that give a lot of support for families going through this situation. One of them is called Mom’s Stop the Harm,” he added. “There’s also another great organization that is provincial wide that is called Toward the Heart that has many, many services and supports online.”
“We also have another agency here in Kamloops called Addiction Matters Kamloops and that’s a coalition of many of these organizations that work with the Community Action Team, so supports are out there.”
If you’re looking for more information on the opioid crisis, Hilke says today’s edition of Kamloops This Week will feature a twenty page insert of what he calls ‘Kamloops’ first opioid overdose prevention guide’.