B.C. womans journey to sobriety highlights the need for drug treatment – BC [Video]

Eight years after B.C. declared a public health emergency due to the toxic drug crisis one woman recovering from addiction says she is an example that the right treatment can work.

Heather, who Global News agreed not to identify, says she was first introduced to drugs as a child and was a runaway at 14.

“Sometimes somebody will offer you drugs and it is a quick and easy alternative to being hungry, to being cold, to being afraid,” she said.

“At one point I ended up working in the sex trade, the underage sex trade, just to be able to survive.”

After two traumatic decades on the street and several attempts to access treatment, in 2021 the Union Gospel Mission’s Women and Families Centre took her in.

Heather is now clean and sober but says it took too long to find help.

“I knew that when I needed help, and …