Can't go home: Recovering addict makes case for transition house

John Snelgrove can't bring himself to open the door to his former home — it triggers too many memories of being in the throes of addiction to pills and alcohol.

"I just wanted to use, drink, and hopefully one morning I wasn't going to wake up to reality and face the facts of the people I hurt on the way," Snelgrove said Wednesday, speaking with CBC News at U-Turn Drop-In Centre in Carbonear. 

He's one of many who were disappointed when residents of Victoria, the town next door in Conception Bay North, voted against a proposed transition house for people finishing rehabilitation programs. 

Snelgrove said it's difficult for addicts to return home after rehab, especially if they lack support from friends and family.

Without a safe space, he said, it's easy for people to fall off the wagon.

"It's something I never want to live through again," he said.  "And if I go back there [my house], there's no question in my mind that I wouldn't be sat here speaking on behalf of this today."

Snelgrove's addiction began with alcohol in 2007. But by 2016, after a prescription turned into addiction, Snelgrove would take anything he could get his hands on.

Desperate for help, he applied to get into a program at the Grace Centre —  an Eastern Health adult addictions treatment centre in Harbour Grace — a program he completed this year.

What's Plan B?

Snelgrove said he will live with his partner and has the support he needs, but others were relying on the transition house that people in Victoria rejected.

Residents voted 475 to 350 against the project, which would have provided 24-hour monitoring and assistance for up to 18 people. 

• Town vote: Transition house for addicts to be decided by Victoria residents

The founders of U-Turn, Jeff and Tammy Bourne, were upset that they didn't have much time to make their case.

The Victoria town council notified them just two weeks before the plebiscite that they couldn't reach a consensus and would ask residents to vote. 

"We've heard from other neighbouring towns that they wish they had a building right now to give us so we could open a transitional house," Tammy Bourne said. "We've been in Carbonear for six years. We were quite welcome to be here."

Bourne said she would never want to bring someone in recovery to a town where they weren't wanted. The Bournes are looking for other options for their growing operation. 

Breaking the cycle

John Snelgrove said he was raised in a home riddled with alcohol addiction.

"The one thing I always said, when I got a little older was, 'How can grownups do this to their children?' Back then I didn't understand. I was too young to understand."

Now he realizes his parents had the same disease of addiction he has, Snelgrove said.

"After doing the same thing to my kids, and my life has turned out somewhat the same way, I understand now."

He wants to break the cycle for his children, and to do that, Snelgrove said he needs continued support of places like U-Turn. 

"I am not ashamed to say it, I owe my life to Jeff and Tammy Bourne."