{"id":35518,"date":"2023-02-16T10:04:32","date_gmt":"2023-02-16T15:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/?p=35518"},"modified":"2025-08-04T14:24:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T19:24:37","slug":"i-didnt-want-to-live-this-life-of-addiction-johns-testimonial-adolescent-program-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/i-didnt-want-to-live-this-life-of-addiction-johns-testimonial-adolescent-program-in-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"“I didn\u2019t want to live this life of addiction” – John, Adolescent program, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

What made you ask for help. Tell us about that process.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

A counsellor at school told me about Portage. I was not ready to even think about a treatment at that time, but it was still in the back of my mind. One night, I realized I didn’t want to live this life of addiction. The day after, I told my parents and we called Portage. Three days later, I was officially in the residential program to begin my journey.<\/p>\n

Share about your experience when you started the program.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I was nervous when I started the program, and the first month was very tough. But before I knew it, the program became a family – even though I wasn’t getting along with everyone there. They made me feel comfortable in a way that I was able to be open and share my story with them. I told them where my thoughts were, and I listened to their stories in return.<\/p>\n

When I first walked in, I realized what a community is, because I did not have that before. I had a mentor to guide me around, and eventually, months later, I became that mentor to new residents. It is very empowering to be able to help people that went through what I went through just a few months before.<\/p>\n

What did you learn about yourself and how it changed the way you saw your life.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The exploration at mealtime and the cleanups really helped to open my eyes on understanding my behaviors, and being able to further analyze my conduct.<\/p>\n

The morning meetings were the most impactful moments in my therapy. I was able to openly admit my wrongdoings, share them with the community, use the meeting to explore why I did what I did, and then analyze it. This helped so much to prevent and even stop certain behaviors altogether.<\/p>\n

What were the ups and downs?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I liked the excursions we went on. I remember we did a lot of activities, and we went to the gym. I was able to revive some of my passions and pastimes. It was nice to participate in activities that calmed me down, or things that I loved in life.<\/p>\n

I started hiking again, and was of course back in the school curriculum. I had lost my interest in school when I starting using. At Portage, school is a big part of the program. It allowed me to find my love for studying again, which I didn’t think I would get back. I really appreciated that.<\/p>\n

How did you become stronger- what did you learn?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The aftercare groups, definitely. Every Wednesday, I knew I had to go back to tell them about my week. Knowing I needed to be honest and open, and to admit my wrongdoings allowed me to live guilt free. I learned to always talk to my parents or a friend. The aftercare meetings allowed me to live guilt free and to learn to be open and honest. <\/strong><\/p>\n

How does it feel being back home – what has changed for you and your family?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Life is fantastic. It’s amazing. My family and I were pretty close before, but now we are extremely close. I tell them everything, they tell me everything.<\/p>\n

I lost relationships with my sisters when I was using, I stopped talking to them. But now we are very close and we hang out a lot.<\/p>\n

In my daily life too, being motivated, being happy, being able to see the good in any situation. For example, if I do bad on a test, I won’t put myself down for it. I used to be a perfectionist and it would drag me down. I know it won’t be perfect, and I am okay with that.<\/p>\n

Portage was a great experience overall, it definitely change my life. I am never going to forget that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

– John, Adolescent program, Lac \u00c9cho, 2020<\/em><\/p>\n\t

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What made you ask for help. Tell us about that process. A counsellor at school told me about Portage. I was not ready to even think about a treatment at that time, but it was still in the back of my mind. One night, I realized I didn’t want to live this life of addiction…. Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":35516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[364],"tags":[175],"class_list":["post-35518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-testimonial","tag-adolescents"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35518"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44760,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35518\/revisions\/44760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}