Beth Haywood has lived a life engulfed by addiction.
Haywood, who lives in Langford, turned to crack cocaine at age 35 and eventually heroin to numb the pain of her mother’s murder. Her mother, Penny, a social worker in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, was killed by an alcoholic client on March 12, 1978, when Beth was 15.
Three of Beth Haywood’s four children became caught in the trap of addiction. Her son, Hughie, has been in and out of jail for a good part of his life while her daughter, Hilary, is homeless in Victoria and struggling with the death of her former partner, Brandon Markel.
Haywood has plotted the hills and valleys of her life, including the story of Markel’s death, on a photo board displayed Friday at Westshore AIDS Vancouver Island health clinic in Langford. The clinic specializes in treatment for people with addictions. The art project, featuring people who have died of drug overdoses as well as those who have survived, is timed to mark International Overdose Awareness Day at Centennial Square on Wednesday.
Markel died at the age of 33 on March 4, 2017, at his home in Salmon Arm. He aspired to be an actor and adored the son he had with Hilary.
The child, now five, lives with Haywood’s oldest daughter, and she and Hilary are allowed to see him only under supervision.
“This boy is going to grow up without father and possibly someday without a mother,” said Haywood, who worries every day that her daughter will die of a fentanyl overdose. She doesn’t want her daughter to become another statistic.
Even as the provincial government last year declared a state of emergency over fentanyl deaths, created the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions and funded new supervised consumption sites, fentanyl continues to kill people in record numbers.
Illicit drug overdoses killed 134 people in B.C. last month, according to the B.C. Coroners Service. That was a 25 per cent increase over the 107 deaths recorded in June and a 12 per cent rise from the 120 deaths in July 2017.
Haywood, who is petite with dark hair and high cheekbones, wants to see more detox beds so people who want to get clean are not waiting for weeks for treatment. She also decries the shortage of addiction treatment services specifically for women and particularly women with children.
She also remains frustrated with the Ministry of Children and Family Development, which she said is too quick to take away people’s children.
“When you take their children away, it just destroys them,” she said. “How do you explain to a child that they can’t see their mommy?”
Haywood has been clean for 110 days and is determined not to relapse.
“The consequences of going back are far too great,” she said, noting that she won’t be able to see her grandson if she turns to drugs again.
She is also aware of the game of Russian roulette that’s being played every time someone shoots heroin laced with fentanyl. “I don’t want to die. If I continued down that path I’d be dead today.”
Haywood works with an addiction treatment program in downtown Victoria and is involved in a methadone support group at Westshore AIDS Vancouver Island. She is sharing her story because she wants to break the stigma around addiction.
“I just want people to know: We are human. We have people who love us.”
The “We Are Human” art project will be on display at the Royal Jubilee Hospital’s patient care centre Monday to Friday. It will also be featured at the downtown Greater Victoria Public Library on Friday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., where the artists will be on hand to talk about their work. Naloxone training will also be offered.
International Overdose Awareness Day will be marked Wednesday with a rally and candlelight vigil from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Centennial Square.
