Guy Felicella spoke on his own recovery journey, and what he believes needs to be done to further support others struggling with addiction and mental health challenges.

By Tommy Osborne

Guy Felicella

The power of hope: First Nations gather to address the toxic drug crisis

Mar 24, 2026 | 3:21 PM

PRINCE GEORGE — Carrier Sekani Family Services organized a meeting among several First Nations, local and provincial leaders, and community organizations to discuss how to address the ongoing toxic drug crisis. Speaking at this event was Guy Felicella, a B.C. man who spent close to two decades battling addiction and homelessness, but is now a well known advocate for recovery and harm reduction.

“One of the biggest things that was projected out through my life, of my struggles, was that people showed up with hope. I didn’t have too much of it, but when it showed up in forms of kindness, access to a service and support, access to a recovery service to get into detox to get into treatment, that gave me hope to move forward in my life,” Felicella said.

“The most impactful thing of this whole conference that I tried to bring to it was the power of of our human connection together, collectively, and how we can empower people to make better decisions to move forward with their lives,” he continued.

His battle against addiction saw him survive six overdoses and multiple life threatening bone infections, but he is now more than a decade sober and currently enjoying life with his wife and three children.

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“Behind every individual that we see struggling on the street, there’s a story behind that individual, and a lot of the times we don’t know the story behind those people struggling, and just how impactful it is to break bread with people, understand their story, and give people a little bit of hope,” Felicella said.

“We see the people on the street, the stigma is that they’re there under their own means. I think these gatherings gets behind that, gets behind the truth and talks about why they’re there,” said Stellat’en First Nation Chief Robert Michell.

Felicella said prior to the meeting he took the time to buy coffee and meet with several homeless people in Prince George to get to know them and their stories, and also offer encouragement to keep trying. While acts of kindness like that can go a long way towards helping people, Felicella knows it takes more than that to support a community, so he says there has to be more supports to help somebody through the entire recovery process.

“Addiction is a chronic, relapsing condition, so we’re going to need all the services available so that people don’t die of a drug overdose when they relapse, that they have access to supports and addiction and mental health services so they can have the ability to try again,” he said.

“We’ve had healing fires and other such events in Prince George which provides a very short time in their lives that we provide some sort of relief. We need to do something more, a longer, better approach to have longevity into their support,” Michell said.

Michell says communities that are close to each other need to “put their heads together and put a lot of the resources together to try and figure out how we can be better,” as he believes in the community oriented approach to care. As far as other avenues like involuntary care, Felicella believes this only causes more harm and trauma, so he advocates for expanding voluntary care instead, as well as increasing the ways people could access this care.

“If people are committing crimes for their substance use and addiction, I think we need an option outside of the criminal justice system where it gives people a choice: instead of prison, we can put you in treatment. Let the choice fall on the individual instead of forcing them into something that we know is not successful,” Felicella said.

While fully addressing the toxic drug crisis takes an entire community, Felicella’s emphasis on the individual power of kindness was one that resonated with those in attendance, as his story of resilience is one that highlighted the power of hope and human connection.