Moose Jaw’s Jade Pavey is sharing her story of recovering from addictions, how Ranch Ehrlo helped with that journey and how she is now helping others struggling with addictions.
Pavey was born in Saskatoon to parents who were 16, almost 17, years old and still finding their way in the world. Her dad went to school and became an EMT, while her mom quit school to look after the kids.
Pavey was the oldest of three siblings with a younger brother and sister.
At around the age of 12, her parents divorced. Her dad moved out and her mom went back to school and held three jobs to support the family. Because she was the oldest, Pavey was left to take care of her siblings.
"Because I did that a lot for them and my mom leaned on me a lot I don't feel I really ever got to be a kid. I always felt like I was 13 going on 30,” she said.
“I didn't get to do a lot of the things other kids were doing. I was always helping. If my friends were over at my house, they were helping me care for my siblings."
She added that the situation gave her a lot of free rein as she had no parental figure in her life and there weren’t any rules.
"My house was the cool house to hang out at because we were kind of the ones in charge,” Pavey said.
For a time, the arrangement worked out because Pavey was very responsible. She said her mom always joked that she was “the perfect kid until about 11 and a half.”
However, the divorce was hard on Pavey. She was born in Saskatoon but grew up in Nipawin. There was a lot of pressure to help look after her siblings with no family nearby and whenever things got bad she felt alone.
Also, when the divorce happened, she was the only sibling old enough to understand what was going on. She added that her dad had a stable job and was someone she looked up to, but he was no longer in the picture and the amount of time she got to see him was limited.
"After some time went on, I decided to rebel. I felt there was no rules. I can kind of do what I want. I was quite resentful of both my parents, a little disappointed feeling like I understand you guys are going through something but I really needed some support too,” she said.
This is when she started acting out, hanging with people a lot older than her and started using drugs and alcohol. She said it began with a few drinks and smoking marijuana but progressed over the years.
Pavey was still highly functioning at this time. She was attending school and holding down sometimes multiple jobs. She said she started to get into heavier drugs but was able to justify that life still wasn’t bad because she didn’t have a criminal record and had a good home.
"I think a lot of us justify when we are at our worst that things could be worse and I think that was a lot of what I was doing,” she said.
Addiction takes over
A few years after her parents split up, she moved with her mom to Moose Jaw and this was the height of when her addiction took over. She ended up using opioids, which she said was a lot different than going to a party and feeling sick the next day and recovering.
She became dependent on opioids. However, she still graduated high school with honours and was still holding down jobs, so from the outside there were no big “red flags” or concerns that she was struggling.
"I think it was really easy for me to convince people that I was always doing good,” she said.
Pavey said what really changed things was the birth of her first son. She said she had some sobriety about six months before he was born and was clean until he was about eight months old.
Her son was born with a cleft palate and a condition known as Pierre Robin Sequence. This meant months in the hospital, having her son on special diets and oxygen. It was nothing she was expecting.
“It was quite an intense experience, something I was not prepared for at all and I really kept it together and it kept me motivated and I did it on my own,” Pavey said.
Once her son was doing better, there was some relief for Pavey and she relapsed and had “blips” when she would go in and out of sobriety.
Finally, her mom started growing concerned not just for Pavey, but her son as well. She said this was a time when things started to “get real” and she realized that it wasn’t just about her, but something could seriously happen to her son and no one would be there for him.
She said her mom was a big support in taking care of her son when she wasn’t doing well, but the problem was she wasn’t getting the help she needed and it enabled her addiction.
The final straw
The last time she used was Aug. 15, 2021. She ended up at a party in Crowsnest Pass, Alta., and she went out there with a biker friend.
On the way home, she was in severe withdrawal, became sick and was in no shape to safely ride on the back of a motorcycle.
She ended up at a local facility at Standoff Reserve and went into a COVID isolation camp as it was the height of the pandemic. They let her go through some withdrawals and got her on medication and she went into detox for 56 days.
This had been the longest she had been away from her son and she was growing concerned because she was in a strange place, her family would be disappointed in her and people weren’t returning her calls.
"I felt really, really hopeless and alone at that point and really a lot of guilt and shame too. I actually spent my son's second birthday in there which was really heartbreaking. I'll never forget that. I would beg them every day, can I at least have a video chat with my son. I'm missing out on these things that are just so important,” she said.
She realized at this point she needed to be a mom or an addict, but she couldn’t be both. It was the first time in her life she realized she had to stop because she was either going to die or lose everything and want to die.
Learning about Ranch Ehrlo and the recovery
Her mom had gotten a worker from the Ministry of Social Services involved at this point and every day Pavey begged the worker that she’d do anything to get clean. This is when she learned about Ranch Ehrlo.
She arrived at Ranch Ehrlo and it was not your typical treatment setting.
“I was expecting I was going to hand over my phone, I'm going to hand over my computer, any of my stuff, and that is the setting I'm going to be walking into,” she said.
She said it was the exact opposite. They brought her up to an apartment suite and she was greeted by therapists, counsellors and family treatment workers.
"It is just such a great realistic setting. Your traditional treatment facility is not as realistic. You go somewhere for 28 days and you focus on you, you do all these things, therapy, programming, counselling, whatever that looks like and then you leave and you go back to life and it is super overwhelming,” Pavey said.
Pavey appreciated the fact she could continue to live her life with her son at Ranch Ehrlo and still have the supports to fight her addictions 24/7.
She was also able to re-enrol in her addictions and community health course that she was taking in school while at Ranch Ehrlo.
Pavey added that Ranch Ehrlo was different from other treatment and detox facilities she experienced because after you left they would continue to follow up.
She said being able to recover and still have a relationship with her son and her family was huge. Pavey said there was a lot of shame and guilt associated with being a parent and struggling with addictions and trying to reconnect with her son would have been difficult if they were separated.
Fast forward to today, Pavey has a second son, a partner and now works at Ranch Ehrlo to help others overcome their addictions.
She said, reflecting on her own life and how addiction was a big part of it, she felt it was her purpose to help others who are struggling like she did.
"I remember thinking what would I want to do with my life. A lot of it has been based around my struggles and addiction and the stuff I went through, so what better way to live my life than to give back to those who are just like me,” Pavey said.
She also wanted to show those in the program that, yes, it does work and that she can have a strong connection to the people that come into the program and shed some hope and faith that things will work out and recovery is possible.