Hazel wants to smile again

“I wasn’t smiling any more. I woke every morning and I didn’t feel good. I didn’t have that feeling of waking up and being happy.”
Hazel Chapman is 23. She has two children – a five-year-old boy and four-year-old daughter.
She started taking oxys after her son’s birth. Chapman says she would have taken them during her pregnancy but her boyfriend stopped her.
“I got hooked right away,” she says. “I liked the high feeling I got just off a little pill.”
Like Melanie Beardy, Chapman is young and beautiful. She too wants to be a good mother.
“My children are mostly with their grandparents. They don’t really have a stable life right now because I’m not taking care of them like the way I’m supposed to be and I really miss that.”
Chapman looks at her hands. She has yet to smile.
“I don’t think they’ll forgive me,” she says still looking at her hands.
Chapman finally looks up when she thinks about what life could be like without her addiction to oxys.
“I would like to fly my kids out. They’ve been wanting to go on a plane. I want to do that maybe in a couple of months. Maybe some place like Winnipeg or Thunder Bay. It will be fun,” she says. Chapman’s expression remains guarded. She glances towards the door.
“They were killing me,” she says of oxys. “They were killing me inside – emotionally, physically, mentally – and I just realized it. I just wasn’t happy anymore.”
Chapman’s guard extends to questions about her dreams or nightmares as the case was for her when she faced withdrawal.
“That’s my pain,” she states.
Chapman was between 17 and 18 when she started taking oxys.
“If I knew a 16 or 17-year-old girl who was thinking about starting, I would say don’t do it. You’re young. I can still see you’re full of life. Just say ‘no.’ ”
Chapman knows people care about her. And working at the community’s health office gives her added support.
“I work with the health office staff and they tell me everyday to try and stop. And they’re always there and don’t ever judge me.
“I know I’ll have their support because we all want the same thing.”