Melissa Gallant is a mother, a wife and a recovering fentanyl addict. She is one-year clean and sober but admits she had a very destructive dependency on her drug of choice.
“I couldn’t function without it — I thought it was normal that we were going through 100 pills a day.”
Gallant said she and her husband were both struggling with addiction while raising two daughters. Their family intervened and took the kids out of the home, finally compelling them to go into recovery.
“My daughter is 13 and my other daughter is five and I have never shown up until this last year as a parent for them,” Gallant said.
The story of two Calgary parents losing their lives to a suspected drug overdose gave her chills. Four children are now left without a mother and father.
READ MORE: Suspected drug overdose orphans 4 Calgary children
“It’s gut wrenching. That story hit home,” Gallant said.
“I get it, I understand it, I was probably weeks away from that.”
Watch below from Dec. 5: Calgary police are investigating the possibility of an accidental drug overdose after a mother and father were found dead in a southwest home Saturday morning. Jill Croteau reports.
She doesn’t take for granted how difficult it is to recover. She continues to work at staying clean every single day.
“That’s where fentanyl brought me. I was hiding in the closet wanting to die and thinking my kids would be better off with anybody but myself because I don’t have the capability of giving up drugs for my kids.”
READ MORE: 14 carfentanil deaths in 3 months spurs opioid warning in Alberta
Addiction specialists say the death of both a mother and father are clear evidence of the power of addiction.
“It doesn’t discriminate,” said Brad Oneil with Recovery Calgary. “We think it’s the domain of young people or street people yet here’s some adults that left their kids homeless and parentless over the holidays and for the rest of their lives as a result of the disease of addiction.”
Those on the front lines are bracing for the number of fatalities linked to fentanyl to grow.
“We are in the 270 range for deaths in Alberta but 2,500 people are carrying around the antidote for fentanyl,” Oneil said. “This is a big problem and we haven’t seen the last of it by any stretch of the imagination.”
Gallant is now applying to university to become a social worker — a dream she clings to in order to keep her from spiraling backwards into her addiction.
“I wouldn’t be gracious enough to come through that twice. It’s Russian roulette.”
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