Before substance use crept into my life, I was a veritable ray of sunshine! As a youth, I excelled at sports and did brilliantly at school.<\/p>\r\n
But a shadow fell insidiously over the seemingly gleaming canvas of my life. The consequences of my new habit impacted my motivation to the point where I completely abandoned what mattered to me: friends, family, sports and passions. That’s when substance use completely took over my life.<\/p>\r\n
At 16, I attended my first therapy program at the Portage Saint-Malachie Centre<\/a>. My first attempt at redemption didn’t work out, although it did sow a seed for the future. But I was involved in delinquency and spent several months incarcerated for various misdemeanors.<\/p>\r\n Today, I am completely stunned by the breadth of the journey I embarked on, as I recall the vestiges of a path without glory.<\/p>\r\n Born by the strength I found in my love for my son, I decided to start attending the Portage Day Centre<\/a> and completed the program in 2022. More motivated than ever before, I embraced life again and rediscovered my passions. These changes started with a series of concrete actions. I invested myself in my peers like the positive leader I had once been. After completing my therapy, I decided to pursue my journey by attending the Job Training Centre (Centre de formation \u00e0 l’emploi) in order to take stock of my professional aspirations.<\/p>\r\n Today, I am proud to see the results of my efforts. In addition to being a responsible father, I am studying land surveying. Incredible to think that the last time I had been a serious, convinced and sober student, I was in the prime of my youth!<\/p>\r\n That minuscule seed that was sowed 10 years ago finally sprouted – exponentially! Light has returned to my life and, like a majestic tree, I am growing and developing with the passage of time<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n Enrico, Qu\u00e9bec City Day Centre, 2022<\/em><\/p>\r\n Share this article :<\/p>\r\n Share on Facebook <\/a> Share on Linkedin <\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before substance use crept into my life, I was a veritable ray of sunshine! As a youth, I excelled at sports and did brilliantly at school. But a shadow fell insidiously over the seemingly gleaming canvas of my life. The consequences of my new habit impacted my motivation to the point where I completely abandoned… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":39175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[364],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-testimonial"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39146","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=39146"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44435,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39146\/revisions\/44435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}