'His death has to mean something': Windsor woman hopes story of brother's overdose spurs change

Candice McCowin still remembers the night her younger brother Graeme McLean died of an opioid overdose. 

She was in Michigan when her sister called her on the phone in a panic, screaming at her to "get here now to Windsor."

McCowin had managed to arrive almost half an hour before the ambulance.

"I wasn't with all of them," she said. "I was on the phone with my mom when it happened, when he was in the bathroom and he wasn't answering."

McCowin said her sister and her cousin were the ones who had administered CPR before firefighters arrived and took over. 

"I didn't think he was dead," she said. "I went to the hospital. I knew something was wrong … but even when we were up there, you just thought he was gonna wake up."

McLean never recovered. He died on Dec. 30, 2018 at the age of 27. 

McLean was the 51st person to die of an opioid overdose in Windsor last year — likely one of the last to do so in 2018. 

McCowin spoke with CBC News hours before the International Overdose Awareness Day Memorial Dinner on Friday.

She described her brother as the baby of the family, always reliable, as well as the life of the party. 

At the same time, she said her brother was struggling with addiction and ashamed as well. 

"He used to shoot up between his toes so people wouldn't know that he was a drug addict," she said. 

She said he had tried a few times to overcome his dependence. In fact, he hadn't used substances for over 100 days before his fatal overdose. 

Hopes brother's story makes a difference

McCowin said she hoped others would look to her family's story and learn lessons from her family's experiences. 

"He had a disease and we weren't educated enough or equipped enough to help him, or cared enough to make it our problem," she said. 

Now, she urges families of individuals living with addiction to understand that addiction is a disease.

"At the end of the day, they're sick," she said. "At the end of the day, they're doing these terrible things to their family and people, because they're sick and because they have to have that high."

McCowin also said she hopes families to take action if they believe their loved ones are struggling with addiction.

"At the beginning, you just want to say 'It's an isolated incident,'" she said. "Maybe the first two, three times, maybe you don't want to put him in jail, because it's your child or your brother … and I think that's absolutely the wrong idea."

McCowin said she hopes her brother's death makes a difference. 

"I feel like his death has to mean something," she said.