Drug Poisoning and the Pandemic

Nicole – Grieving as a community

Nicole discusses the power of grieving together as a community. Finding connection and trust.

Kristal – Professional Experience and Work

Kristal discusses being a peer support woker, working on a one on one level with community members to help them with their goals related to substance abuse. She supports those in the community dealing with loss and grief. She speaks to everyone’s experience with loss and grief being very individual.

Christian – Denial and grieving

Christian discusses what happens after members of the community die from drug poisoning and how it’s OK for grief to be messy

Christian – Grieving the whole person

Christian talks about how we choose remember people when there has been a loss to drug poisoning

Kristal – Poetry, Comedy, & Art for Grieving

Kristal discusses using poetry and other forms of creative expression as a distraction from her grief and to disassociate in a safe and productive way. She discusses grief being love with nowhere to go, so she puts it into art.

Christian – Grieving those who died of drug poisoning

Christian talks about grieving, stigma and dying from drug poisoning

Nicole – Pandemic’s Effect on Safe Spaces and Mental Health Access

Nicole discusses how the pandemic affected access to safe spaces and shelters for those living rough and living with addiction.

Laura- Loss to Covid & Disconnection

Nicole – Power of Speaking About Lost Ones

Nicole discusses the importance of sharing memories of those lost to drug poisoning and speaking their names.

Beauty found at the edges: a portrait of community support

I’d sent a text saying “Hello friends, I’m putting out a call for flowers. I went to public school with Kory, the young man who died in downtown Cobourg this week, and though I hadn’t seen him in recent years, I feel the loss of him on a community level, as I imagine you do, too. Some of Kory’s people are gathering tonight in vigil at the bank where he died, and I’m gathering flowers from those of us who have gardens to share with this grieving community. Do you have some blooms in your garden that you’d be willing to share?”

Nicole – Working in Community Outreach

Nicole discusses her work in community outreach and how she has lived experience with addiction and living rough.

Kristal – The Value of all Those Lost

Kristal emphasizes that the lives of those lost to drug poisoning had value, they were an opportunity that was lost, and that the community is missing so much in their absence.