When Megan Poole woke up from her third overdose, she knew she needed help.

“I walked into a facility, threw my hands in the air crying hysterically, ‘I don’t want to die,’” she said.

It’s been a long road to recovery for the 25-year-old. She started using drugs and alcohol at the age of 14, and after graduating high school she became addicted to cocaine and OxyContin.

“[The drugs] convinced me to lean on it and I’ll be safe with it. From that point forward, instead of believing in myself, I believed in the drug,” Poole said.

She thought she was “invincible” to the drugs, but eventually they took over her body. In January of 2018, on her brother’s birthday, she overdosed for the first time.

“I was so taken back that it finally caught up to me,” she said.

She said she was scared and in disbelief, but still didn’t do anything about it. Thirty-nine days after her first overdose, Poole overdosed for a third time.

“I took one pill and I took the other pill, and when they collided in my system, they basically tranquilized me,” she said.

She was rushed to emergency, where she was given several rounds of dialysis for kidney failure. She spent 21 days in intensive care and once she was released, she checked herself into rehab.

“If I put all of the effort I put into getting a fix into getting myself being better, I knew I could start crawling up out of the hole that the drugs and alcohol put me in,” she said.

Today, Poole is celebrating nine months of recovery. She said being clean has given back her power of choice.

‘The stigma around who this disease affects needs to be broken’

Poole’s story is one of several featured in a four-part documentary series the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN) has created called On the Frontline of the Addictions Crisis in Saskatchewan.

The goal of the series is to break the stigma around addiction and to admit there is an opioid crisis in Saskatchewan.

“It’s our calling to talk and put this out into the open so that treatment and a process can begin for recovery,” SUN president Tracy Zambory said.

Zambory’s family story is part of the documentary series as well. Her son, Wesley was addicted to opioids and cocaine. Zambory said she was stunned and in denial that something like this could happen to her family.

“I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me,” she said.

She said seeing her son go through addiction showed her that addiction doesn’t discriminate against who is targets, saying it can happen to anyone.

That’s why Poole is sharing her story - to show that the addictions crisis in Saskatchewan is real.

“The stigma around who this disease affects needs to be broken. Every day people are dying. Upper, middle, lower class, it does not care where you came from,” Poole said.

“If it sees an opening in your life where it can slip in and ruin it, it will. This disease’s sole purpose is to take your life, play with your life, and ultimately end your life.”

Both Poole and Wesley have a happy endings to their story. Wesley met a woman who convinced him to go to a methadone clinic, Zambory said. Now Wesley is in recovery and doing well.

“His is a story of hope.”