Filed from the field · Ottawa & Ontario
From inside it.
Honest writing on addiction, recovery, and the systems built around them. Written by a working roofer, three years clean, in Ottawa.
Ottawa · Ontario · Est. 2024
Honest writing on addiction, recovery, and the systems built around them. Written by a working roofer, three years clean, in Ottawa.
Retatrutide works. Methadone works. Both come with a contract most people don't read until they try to leave. What the GLP-1 hype is missing from someone who's already lived inside a miracle drug.
Read this piece →It only needs to work once. You can fail two thousand times — none of it counts against you. The one attempt that holds is the one that builds a life.— Josh Pearsall, Ottawa
Most people writing about addiction policy have never actually had to live inside the system they're writing about. They come from healthcare, academia, government, or advocacy. That's not a criticism. It's just a different perspective.
I come at it from a roof.
I'm a roofer in Ottawa. I've spent years dealing with addiction, treatment, methadone, jail, parole, housing, and trying to build a life afterward.
Detox. Treatment. Federal time. Parole. Re-entry. I know these systems because I've had to use them.
So when I write about policy, I'm not writing about theories. I'm writing about what those policies look like when they meet real people and real life.
That's really all Recovery Roofer is: one person's attempt to connect what's written on paper with what actually happens on the ground.
A live walking map of methadone, drop-ins, food, income support, and recovery resources near Eccles Street — with real hours, written notes, and what to expect on a first visit.