Squamish’s Dan Splinter takes a break from talking breezily about sobriety and staying out of jail to order an “extra large, triple-triple,” coffee at the Tim Hortons drive-thru.
He laughs good-naturedly at the suggestion he has a bit too much sugar and cream in his coffee.
“Oh yeah,” he says. He had just gotten off from a shift as a framer for a local construction company and was heading home to an apartment he shares with a roommate.
Sprinter is approaching two years clean and sober. “I have an absolutely amazing life today,” said Splinter, 33, who grew up in Squamish. “It is the longest I have been clean and sober in my entire life.”
Splinter got into trouble early and often, he acknowledges.
“My upbringing was pretty interesting to say the least,” he recalled, touching on his parents’ divorce and frequent moves.
He started doing drugs when he was in Grade 8, was kicked out of Howe Sound Secondary for issues related to drugs and didn’t finish high school, he said.
Originally, he was into drinking and smoking marijuana, but once he was kicked out of school he began using harder drugs.
“Once I started into the hard drugs it was a long and tough road,” he acknowledged.
His father took a hard line and wouldn’t let him live at home if he wasn’t working full time or going to school, so Splinter left home at 14 years old. Stints in foster homes sent him further spiraling into addiction and criminal behavior that landed him in and out of jail for over a decade, he said.
Splinter said what perhaps could have put him on the right path at a young age was more support and understanding.
“I was totally angry,” he said. “It felt like the whole world was against me and nobody had my best interest at heart. So I used the drugs. Drugs were my solution to the problem of life.”
The birth of his son, when he was 21, cleaned Splinter up for a short time, but the pressure of parenthood without the tools to cope pushed him back into trouble.
“I buckled under pressure,” he said. “I just got carried away with the drug addiction and there was absolutely no hiding it.”
Splinter said every longer stay in jail just made him a better criminal and a worse drug addict.
“I met people in there that weren’t drug addicts until they went to jail,” he said.
Ultimately, Splinter said he simply got tired of going in and out of jail.
He credits Squamish Helping Hands Society and his mom’s support for his turnaround.
“I think that we have probably the best community services in the Lower Mainland,” he said. “From what I have experienced myself and I talked to people in prison and stuff, we have a pretty good go at it out here.”
Splinter connected with local programs, and moved through a host of social services offered in Squamish: from the Emergency Shelter Program to rehab to a work program, where he was hired by Target Homes to do construction, to finally being hired by local a company as a framer.
“I am a hard worker,” he said proudly.
Maureen Mackell, executive director of Helping Hands, cites Splinter as a success story.
“We don’t always see people through the whole process of health and healing. But in Dan’s case we were privileged to watch him re-imagine his life before our very eyes,” she said.
“It was Dan’s perseverance and willingness to dig down deep and wrestle with his personal issues that got him where he is today. Helping Hands and other community partners were only there to support and cheer him on because we know in the end making positive change is an individual choice. But no one should have to do it alone, so we were there with some key programs and services.”
Others in the community have not faired as well as Splinter, Mackell acknowledged.
“In 2015, I think we had 12 deaths in the vulnerable community,” she said, adding in the early part of 2016 four and possibly more people at risk died. The needs of people struggling in Squamish are why a new catchall Helping Hands Society facility is needed, sooner rather than later.
“I have to think if we can provide a little bit better service, with a little more dignity, that maybe, maybe the outcomes are different,” she said. “That is really the key. We are doing all these things and what we really need is a facility to do it and to invite other partners in.”
Within the new facility Mackell said all Squamish Helping Hands Society services will be offered, plus the Squamish Food Bank will operate, mental health beds will be available in the building along with a medical room, among other services.
“So that when you walk in the door we can say, ‘Here’s the path for you,’” she said.
She said currently, unlike Splinter, some people go downhill because there isn’t the easy movement between services. “There is no flow-through, where the new facility will provide that.”
Mackell said the society is working closely with the District of Squamish, BC Housing and other partners on a location for a new facility, but it will be at least two years until it is up and running. Until then, the society will keep operating its various programs at different spots around Squamish including the shelter on Third Avenue, at Home Instead on Wilson Crescent and out in the community.
Meanwhile, Splinter said local RCMP officers used to constantly hassle him when he was an addict, but now they show him respect.
“They see the change in me,” he said. “Whenever I see them now, it is not ‘What are you doing? What do you got on you.’ It is, ‘How have you been? I haven’t seen you in awhile.’… That feels kind of good.”
