Sarah Schutt, Daniel’s wife, said, “Seeing my kids do well is my new high.
Daniel and Sarah Schutt are sitting in the warm living room of their townhouse in Fort Erie, Ontario, next to each other.
He leans forward in his chair, sticks out his right leg, and pulls up the leg of his pants, showing a scar that cuts through his colorful tattoos.
The scar is a permanent reminder of the life he and Sarah were able to leave behind: a life on the streets of Hamilton that was filled with drugs and violence, according to him.
Daniel said, “I’ve never felt this good as an adult.”
He and Sarah are telling their story to help people understand what it’s like to be addicted to drugs, to be homeless, and to find a way out.
The path to addictio
Daniel, who is 42 years old, said he started using drugs after breaking up with his ex-girlfriend, who was pregnant with his daughter, about 20 years ago.
Sarah, who is 41, said that she started using drugs because she was given painkillers for a long-term, incurable illness that makes her bones weak and has sent her to more operating rooms than she can count.
They met in Narcotics Anonymous in 2004, and their lives were going well. They moved in together and had three kids, but then things started to go wrong.
Sarah became sicker. Daniel said that the recession of 2008 caused him to lose his business and lose touch with his daughter.
After several family deaths in 2015, they both began abusing painkillers.
In 2018, their home in Hamilton was burned down two weeks before Christmas.
Daniel and Sarah ended up in different shelters, while their three sons, who are now 11, 14, and 18, went to live with Daniel’s father in the Niagara region.
Then they came across fentanyl.
“We didn’t use fentanyl until we were both sure that our children were dead.” “It couldn’t be fixed,” Daniel said.
“I wouldn’t think twice about putting any drug you could think of in a spoon.”
“Out there, you’re either a lion or a gazelle.
Daniel said that the dangerous street drugs caused him to overdose 18 times in one month.
Data from the city’s websiteshow that the number of opioid overdoses has been going up, from 450 in 2018 to 814 in 2022.
At least 103 people are thought to have overdosed or been poisoned by drugs so far in 2023.
At the same time, shelters can’t keep up with the number of people living on the streets.
The city’s websiteIt says that in December 2022, there were 1,509 homeless people in the city, but only 515 shelter beds.
Daniel and Sarah said that while space is an issue, so is safety. Daniel said that he slept in shelters with a hatchet to keep himself safe.
Daniel said that living on the street, which isn’t safe, made him do crazy things.
“A lot of bad stuff is going on.” “Out there, you’re either a lion or a gazelle,” he said. “I’d take meth to stay awake so I could work and get opiates so I could sleep a little, and then the cycle would start all over again.”
Daniel said that he and Sarah also stole from big-box stores in order to stay alive.
In December 2019, they started going to a methadone clinic to help them break out of the cycle.
“Enough to want to try” to get the kids back
When CBC Hamilton first talked to Daniel early in 2020, he told them how the COVID-19 pandemic’s restrictions kept the couple apart at different shelters and how he was worried about long-term recovery and being able to bring his family back together.
Shortly after that, Daniel said that he and Sarah were able to stay together at a hotel as part of a program for homeless people run by Mission Services.
Dr. Jennifer Brasch, who is in charge of addiction psychiatry at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, helped Daniel get clean.
She said that the Schutts’ hotel stay was important because it’s “extremely hard” for people to get over addiction if they’re sleeping on the street or in unsafe, open areas of a shelter.
Daniel and Sarah both thought the same thing.
“There are drug deals going on right in front of you in the hotel.” “All of the same things keep you stuck in there, but we could lock ourselves away,” Daniel said.
The Schutts also thought that having access to a phone was an important part of staying in a hotel.
Staff from the Children’s Aid Society could talk to Daniel and Sarah directly, which gave them a way to get back in touch with their children.
“Getting our kids back was the most important thing,” Daniel said. “Enough to make me want to try.”
Over time, they got their family’s trust back, moved out of the hotel, and, with the help of Daniel’s dad, rented an affordable place to live.
Daniel got a job building recycling bins in the end. In November 2020, Daniel, Sarah, Daniel’s dad, and their three sons moved into a house in Fort Erie with Daniel and Sarah.
Daniel was also able to start talking to his 19-year-old daughter again. He told her that he had helped her pay for college.
People who are still on the street face obstacles
Brasch said that other people who live on the streets face problems like not having friends or family who can help them and not being able to get methadone, so they have to use street drugs, which could be a lethal mix of substances.
She said that most people don’t have a happy ending like Daniel and his family. Only a quarter of people have a similar happy ending, she said.
Brasch said that people can learn from Daniel and his family how important it is to have big reasons to get clean and stay clean.
“They have responsibilities and are happy with their lives.” “They don’t need to run away from the real world,” she told me.
“We need to find ways to do this for people who are still using… When staying sober is better than getting high, people can leave the world of drugs behind.
“I wish that was something we did better as a community.”
The message from Daniel and Sarah is simple: don’t give up.
Sarah said, “My new high is seeing my kids do well.”