If there's one stat that can show you just how tough 2020 was for a lot of people, it's the overdoses in the province of Saskatchewan. According to data from the Saskatchewan Coroner's Service, Saskatchewan saw a total of 172 confirmed overdose deaths in 2020, and another 35 deaths in the province are being treated as such but are not confirmed yet.

There are another 207 deaths suspected to be caused by an overdose on drugs although they have not been confirmed, but they are still counted towards the aggregate total for 2020. That means there is a total of 379 deaths attributed to drugs in Saskatchewan this year, which higher than any other year the province has seen, the closest being 2019's total of 177.

Carson McPherson is the Managing Director Cedars at Cobble Hill out of British Columbia, who have a partnership with the Addictions Centre at St. Joseph's Hospital and were a major part of creating the facility as it is today from providing insights on the equipment and other physical things within the centre, all the way to helping create the programs that addictions patients go through every day in Estevan. McPherson says that the addition of a facility in Estevan is not only something they're happy to see, but it was also vital.

"Individuals struggling in Saskatchewan don't have many options, and the options that they do have, are all good but the wait times to get in oftentimes become barriers to actually initiating recovery, so what we end up seeing and what we saw over the last 10 years is a lot of residents of the province actually coming out here to the coast and to receive treatment and ultimately end up staying. Being a small-town Saskatchewan kid is born and raised in Shaunavon. It was sort of disappointing to see this many years later, there still wasn't enough capacity in the province to actually provide support."

There's a lot of things that contribute to the growing numbers of overdoses in the province, and the challenges of 2020 certainly did not help. Reports from the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction show increases in alcohol and cannabis use, and with opioids and other forms of drugs already being a rising problem, the pressures 2020 created the perfect storm for people who might be on their last straw.

"I think that the societal pressures that you see now that are people not knowing if I'm going to have a job next month, can I pay the mortgage, is my make my partner going to be employed. All these types of things that that sort of stack up for individuals, and in some cases, it can be the breaking point for individuals that were really kind of on the cusp with stressors to begin with pre-pandemic. For many many Canadians, I think it's really just been such a circumstantial change to their life and livelihood that absolutely added pressure and uncertainty and ambiguity that we have in the world really lends itself too towards these types of problems arising."

As for the solution to this problem, there isn't just one answer to it and in fact it lies behind a number of courses of action that stem from government funding to changes that people need to make in their own lives and perceptions.

One major thing that needs to change is something that you can take part in whether you know someone who is struggling with addiction or not. Addiction is defined as a disease, but still is not treated as such in conversation by addicts and non-addicts alike. Because addiction is so looked down upon, it becomes harder for people to admit to themselves that they really are addicted and taking that first step becomes all that much more difficult.

"You've got the stigma that really provides an unrelenting barrier for people to reach out. 'How am I going to be judged? How am I going to be viewed? Is this a weakness? Is it a moral failing?' All those conversations one has internally, but it also lends itself at the same point in time to denial.

McPherson adds that what you see in the media is very rarely what an addict truly looks like, and that representation needs to change.

"Out here on on the West Coast, if you pull open the newspaper and you see the pictures of the downtown, it really helps to reinforce someone who may not be at the point where they can really admit the degree of their problem. That, 'hey, I'm not like that, I'm not as bad as that person laying down on the street', and the more images that you see, that the highly marginalized, downtrodden crowd. I think it does a real disservice because of the reality that we face in Canada and most other countries is that addiction is the working wound. It's your neighbour. It's the, you know, the mom taking kids to soccer practice. It's the dentist. It's you name it, but it's not the representative sample is that person you live right next door too."

McPherson believes that individual care of patients towards their situation is the biggest factor that leads to recoveries from addiction. The Addictions Centre at St. Joseph's Hospital is a great example of one of the things that need to happen more to help people through their recovery, and that's through their personalized care for each patient that comes through.

"I would say it's absolutely paramount to any program being successful. I mean what we know about addiction and recoveries is that they are nonlinear. We know there are many, many pathways toward and through recovery, and having standardized programs that don't appreciate the specificity of each individual have a predictable end, and I think we've seen that."

Another avenue that is much more controversial is safe injection sites. They have opened up in numerous places around the country including one in Saskatoon that has not received funding from the provincial government. While the idea of having a place where addicts can legally use substances that are illegal anywhere else can sound wrong to some, McPherson is an advocate for them if they are implemented properly. 

If safe injection sites were to start being rolled out in smaller communities, McPherson believes that they could lead to more people taking that first step towards recovery.

"The idea that you can place a safe injection site or simply harm reduction services in the community and think that that will take care of the problem is extremely flawed. That said, if you look at these elements as part of a much larger continuum of recovery, I'm in full support. No one's going to find recovery that isn't alive, and when we're in this age with synthetic opioids and other drugs that we see now, this really is a life or death day by day lifestyle individuals live and they don't have to. So if it meant being linked up to a safe injection site to start, we know someone's alive and safe, and then we could start to use other techniques."

Overall, if you yourself struggling with addiction, reach out. Talk with someone, learn about what options there are for recovery close to you and talk with someone who can help. If you have someone in your life who you may be worried is facing addiction, talk with them.

"One of the key characteristics of addiction that you would want to watch for is isolation. When people start to withdraw from social circles and communities that they would typically be very much a part of,  it's a very  telltale sign that there are some problems taking place. So when people start to sort of pullback, withdraw, it can look like depression, they can become very unreliable, we think about the workplace you'd be looking at things like absenteeism, sick days, erratic mood, those types of telltale signs that do vary from individual to individual, but really do galvanise towards some key themes."