{"id":43921,"date":"2025-07-18T12:07:42","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T17:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/?p=43921"},"modified":"2025-10-10T12:29:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T17:29:35","slug":"portage-gave-us-our-son-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/portage-gave-us-our-son-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Portage gave us our son back"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p class=\"lead\">After our son overdosed, we knew he needed help &#8211; and fast &#8211; only we had no idea how to get it. We felt like we were flailing and spiraling all at the same time, so we did what most lost people do: we took to Google. Turns out, we&#8217;ve never been so thankful for search engine results in our lives &#8211; because it led us directly to <a href=\"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Portage<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<p>The staff at Portage were so kind and so caring from the get-go. They understood that, as parents, we had a million questions &#8211; and with absolute grace and patience, they answered every single one.<\/p>\r\n<p>Within a week, we were dropping our child off to complete strangers, and yet we both felt comfortable and at ease &#8211; we could finally take a breath, exhale, and relax. Our son was now in the best place possible to get well. He was safe, and we both felt that he was surrounded by people who truly cared.<\/p>\r\n<p>Now, to be honest, we were &#8216;a bit much&#8217; at first and probably drove our son&#8217;s counsellor crazy with too many phone calls &#8211; and yet, she answered them all with the same kindness and grace that we had been shown by the intake staff.<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>Portage not only healed my son, but it helped turn him into the well-adjusted, kind, caring man that he is today. <\/strong>And now, when people compliment us on how great our boy is, we wink at each other, knowing that, really, it wasn&#8217;t us. It was the hard work he himself put into an incredibly proven program &#8211; and the counsellors who led him to the finish line of Portage &#8211; that made him so great.<\/p>\r\n<p>Even long after he had &#8216;graduated&#8217; from Portage, <a href=\"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/services\/aftercare\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the aftercare<\/a> gave him an outlet to speak confidentially with counsellors and other graduates about the highs and lows of being a sober teen.<\/p>\r\n<p>Oh, and<a href=\"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/services\/family\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> the family group<\/a>? Attend it. Trust us &#8211; you have no idea how badly you need it until you do!<\/p>\r\n<p>We are forever in debt to Portage and its staff (you are only as good as your staff). They truly gave us our family back &#8211; and for that, we will be timelessly grateful.<\/p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>Jaymee and Mark, Family Support Group Program, <a href=\"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/atlantic\/adolescent-program\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Portage Atlantic<\/a>, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<h2>Related Content<\/h2>\r\n<h3><a title=\"Portage gave us our son back\" href=\"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/portage-gave-us-our-son-back\/\">Portage gave us our son back<\/a><\/h3>\r\n<p>07-18-2025<\/p>\r\n<h3><a title=\"No matter where I go, I know I have a place I can call home\" href=\"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/no-matter-where-i-go-i-know-i-have-a-place-i-can-call-home\/\">No matter where I go, I know I have a place I can call home<\/a><\/h3>\r\n<p>05-22-2025<\/p>\r\n<h3><a title=\"Portage Atlantic saved my life\" href=\"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/portage-atlantic-saved-my-life\/\">Portage Atlantic saved my life<\/a><\/h3>\r\n<p>04-28-2025<\/p>\r\n<!-- .pp-content-posts -->\r\n<p>Share the article:<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/?p=43921&amp;fl_builder&amp;title=Portage+gave+us+our+son+back\"> Share on Facebook <\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?mini=true&amp;url=https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/?p=43921&amp;fl_builder&amp;title=Portage+gave+us+our+son+back\"> Share on Linkedin <\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After our son overdosed, we knew he needed help &#8211; and fast &#8211; only we had no idea how to get it. We felt like we were flailing and spiraling all at the same time, so we did what most lost people do: we took to Google. Turns out, we&#8217;ve never been so thankful for&#8230;  <a href=\"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/portage-gave-us-our-son-back\/\" class=\"more-link\" title=\"Read Portage gave us our son back\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":43917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[364],"tags":[175,285,359],"class_list":["post-43921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-testimonial","tag-adolescents","tag-family","tag-portage-atlantic"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43921","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=43921"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46190,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43921\/revisions\/46190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}