Pubdate: Wed, 26 Jun 2013
Source: Record, The (Kitchener, CN ON)
Copyright: 2013 Metroland Media Group Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.therecord.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/225
Author: Brian Caldwell

PARENTS LAMENT 'WHOLE CHAIN REACTION' OF SON'S ADDICTION

KITCHENER - They tried to help and only made matters worse.

That much was clear Tuesday as a dying man and his wife took stock of 
the fallout since they got sucked into a world of drugs and guns.

Robert and Nancy Wilson are parents. Their son, Ryan, is a drug addict.

When he stole stuff from their Kitchener home to pay for his habit, 
they went to the pawnshop and bought it back.

When he told them he owed money to dealers, they bailed him out and 
got payday loans to cover their rent.

And when his drug problem grew into a $6,000 debt with dangerous 
people, Robert came up with a desperate, hare-brained plan.

A longtime gun owner, he suggested selling the rifle, shotgun and two 
handguns in his collection to get some quick cash.

Less than a year later, Ryan, 21, is serving the equivalent of three 
years in prison for trafficking in firearms.

Nancy, 60, has completed 15 hours of community service work and 
courses on decision-making for backing up a lie that the guns had 
been stolen in a break-in.

Robert, 58, will likely spend his last few months alive on house 
arrest, the result of a lenient plea bargain Tuesday that took into 
account his terminal liver cancer.

As they waited for the necessary paperwork to go home, Nancy pushed 
her husband's wheelchair and held his hand.

She also spoke up when he couldn't find the words to explain why he 
did it, why a man with no criminal record of any kind would stoop to 
selling guns to street thugs.

Part of it she put down to Parkinson's disease, which has affected 
his ability to think things through. The rest she blamed on good 
intentions gone awry in a family under pressure.

"As a parent, you try to help them, right?" Nancy said, wiping away 
tears. "But when drugs are involved, it's a whole chain reaction."

Sold in the basement of the family's Wellington Street North house 
last July, the guns fetched a total of $2,700.

The shotgun ended up in the hands of a man with ties to a local 
street gang. After police got a tip, they seized it along with $1,800 
worth of crystal meth from a Louisa Street house.

That was the beginning of the end for the Wilsons.

One of seven people arrested in the raid linked the sale to Robert, 
who had tried to head off trouble by reporting the guns stolen and 
getting other family members to back him up.

They eventually admitted the lie, but the three remaining firearms 
have never been recovered despite co-operation from father and son.

Looking back, Robert doesn't regret trying to help his son out of his 
latest jam after he got hooked on oxycodone and heroin.

But he does realize that the way he went about it wouldn't have 
solved the underlying the problem even if they had got away with it.

"Paying off their debts doesn't seem to help," he said after pleading 
guilty in Kitchener court to lesser charges of careless storage of 
firearms and mischief. "They'll just come back to mom and dad - again 
and again and again."

Nancy said the case highlights the dangers of drugs and the need for 
treatment, the only thing that might really have helped Ryan out of his mess.

"Unfortunately, we were the story behind the facts," she said

She is thankful Ryan is finally getting help in custody and that, to 
their knowledge, the guns haven't been used in serious crimes.

In an odd way, Nancy said, their arrest, prosecution and punishment 
have also brought the family closer together by forcing everyone to 
deal with the problem head-on.

"It was a hard lesson and a costly lesson, but he's going to be a 
changed person," she said of Ryan. "I can see it already.

"I'm just glad it's over and now we can get on with the time that's left."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom