Contaminated drugs and counterfeit drugs affect Quebecers of all ages, from all regions and from all walks of life. Some survive it. Others leave their skin there.
Many parents fear that their children will succumb to a drug overdose. Anicia Boyer Dupuis, she was worried about her father.
A father she describes as a “real tanning”, a “solid trippy”. A man who raised his daughter in the middle of parties, friends who arrive, bottles, joints and other substances that were consumed more or less without the knowledge of the little one.
But a father who was also completely crazy about his “over-spoiled princess”—his only daughter whom he cuddled, made laugh and embarked on all his follies.
“He was the most wonderful father in the world. He was such a caring father, listening to his daughter. I was really very pampered,” says M.me Boyer Dupuis.
Gaston Dupuis died in 2020 in his trailer at the Lac des Pins campsite, in Montérégie, from an overdose caused by a mixture of drugs and medication. He was 63 years old.
I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I knew that one day I was going to find my father in a state of overdose.
Anicia Boyer Dupuis, daughter of Gaston Dupuis
Seated outside her house in Sainte-Martine, Mme Boyer Dupuis recounts the life of his father by drawing from a box of photos.
The first shots, in black and white, show a mischievous-looking boy in a religious school.
Later, we see the young man on a motorcycle. Then, a bottle in hand, all smiles and shirtless, surrounded by friends.
“It was the 1970s. My father and my mother took alcohol, drugs, a bit of everything. I know I myself was conceived on acid! “says Anicia Boyer Dupuis.
When she was 7 years old, her parents separated. Gaston Dupuis, who works as a machinist for the Héroux-Devtek company, settles in a four and a half located in a basement in Longueuil. His daughter mostly lives with him.
“It was always the party at home,” recalls Anicia Boyer Dupuis. But despite the noise and the police who sometimes arrive, she claims to have missed nothing.
“His priority was me,” she says. Her father is a “cordon bleu” who then cooks pancakes and donuts that delight his daughter… and all the “single mothers” in the neighborhood.
Gaston Dupuis brings Anicia everywhere and makes no decision without her. “If he bought a car, I accompanied him and I chose the color,” she illustrates, recalling a Honda Civic called Cocotte.
“I had such a strong and close bond with my father that it scared many women. He had love affairs, but it never lasted, ”says Anicia Boyer Dupuis.
When his daughter needs her first sanitary napkins or her first bras, it is her clumsy but willing father who drags her into the shops and asks the saleswomen for help.
And when Anicia becomes pregnant, because the future father is not very present, it is still Gaston Dupuis who takes time off from work to accompany his daughter to the ultrasounds.
“His grandchildren, he took care of them as if they had been his own children,” said Ms.me Boyer Dupuis, who shows photos of “Grandpa Gaston” dressed up for Halloween with the little ones.
When drugs meet drugs
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
“My father was a drug addict, alcoholic and addicted to medication,” says Anicia Boyer Dupuis. Despite that, I couldn’t have had a better dad. »
But life becomes more and more difficult for Gaston Dupuis. An old motorcycle accident aggravated by physical labor comes back to haunt him. He underwent three back surgeries, each leaving him more limited. He soon suffers from depression.
“In the summer, he was at the campsite and it was better. But the winters were hard, ”says his daughter.
Mr. Dupuis takes medication for pain and depression, which he cheerfully mixes with alcohol and drugs.
In 2020, Anicia was diagnosed with skin cancer herself.
For him, it broke the camel’s back.
Anicia Boyer Dupuis, daughter of Gaston Dupuis
Gaston Dupuis constantly visits his daughter to support her. But he’s in such bad shape that she’s the one who has to take care of him instead. “I was fighting my cancer, I had my kids, he was always after me… It was too much,” she says.
“At one point, we had a fight. I told him: go back to the campsite, I need a break “, continues M.me Boyer Dupuis, whose voice breaks.
“It was the fatal blow,” she said, on the verge of tears.
The next day, Gaston Dupuis was found dead in his trailer by neighbors. Traces of cocaine and several drugs are found in his body.
“My father was a drug addict, alcoholic and addicted to medication,” says Anicia Boyer Dupuis. Despite that, I couldn’t have had a better dad. »