{"id":37546,"date":"2023-06-21T08:55:35","date_gmt":"2023-06-21T13:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/?p=37546"},"modified":"2025-08-04T14:07:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T19:07:55","slug":"antoines-testimonial-youth-program-saint-malachie-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/antoines-testimonial-youth-program-saint-malachie-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Antoine, Youth Program, Saint-Malachie, 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Dear God, please give me the serenity to accept all the harm I have endured, the courage to continue fighting and the wisdom to help all those who are hurting.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\r\n

My name is Antoine. I am 21 years old, I am an addict and an alcoholic, and I have been recovering one day at a time for 15 months now. It took me 10 years of suffering before deciding to put an end to my substance use for ever.<\/p>\r\n

During those 10 years, I tried in vain to forget the sexual, physical and psychological abuse I was subjected to. But it didn’t help; in fact, it just made matters worse. I started drinking when I was 10 and I started taking drugs when I was about 12. I overdosed on LSD at 14 and lost my sight as a result.<\/p>\r\n

I lived through the hell of psychiatry and was subsequently placed in a youth centre. I attempted suicide several times, went into an ethylic coma, was turned out of my home by my parents, and much more besides. But despite everything, I continued getting high. In short, I waited until I’d hit rock bottom before trying therapy.<\/p>\r\n

I arrived at Portage on January 18, 2022. I was at the end of my rope, devoid of any hope and skinnier than ever. I was completely disoriented and even though I had come to Portage of my own free will, the first few weeks were utter torment and I so desperately wanted to get high. Then, as my body stabilized, I started feeling better. That’s when I realized that if I wanted to change, it was now or never.<\/p>\r\n

At Portage, I found a second family and I discovered I could be happy without drugs. I rediscovered myself, my values and my qualities and was given several tools to help me better manage my emotions. In short, I learned about the key to true happiness.<\/p>\r\n

I’m now back at Cegep and I’ve rebuilt my relationships with the people I love. I’m learning to cope with the grief of losing my sight and have started procedures to adopt a Mira dog so that I can move to Montreal in two years with my best friend from therapy. I plan to go to university in order to become an addiction counsellor.<\/p>\r\n

Thank you, Portage, for helping me save my life. The Portage gang<\/em> will forever live in my heart.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

Antoine<\/em>, Youth Program, Saint-Malachie, 2022<\/p>\r\n

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Dear God, please give me the serenity to accept all the harm I have endured, the courage to continue fighting and the wisdom to help all those who are hurting.\u00a0 My name is Antoine. I am 21 years old, I am an addict and an alcoholic, and I have been recovering one day at a… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":37561,"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-37546","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\/37546","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=37546"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44739,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37546\/revisions\/44739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}