When I was 14 years old, I had my first sip of alcohol. I was hanging out with a friend and thought it would make me look cool. By 16, I was smoking weed every day. I told myself I didn’t have a problem – it just helped me have fun and relax.<\/p>\r\n
By 17, I was in psychosis, smoking whenever I got the chance throughout the day. It became my favourite hobby. I quickly started relying on it, believing I couldn’t have fun without using. I tried stopping for three months to get a surgery I needed, but I failed every time.<\/p>\r\n
I moved out of my mom’s house and into a friend’s home where drugs were used daily, and where my friend was being abused. They taught me that all of this was normal – that weed was just a plant to help you relax and have fun. I believed them, and it completely changed my mindset. I was convinced I would smoke weed for the rest of my life and eventually move on to harder drugs.<\/p>\r\n
Later, I moved into a group home, but I was eventually kicked out because of my drug use and behaviour. I started couch surfing again and, once I had nowhere else to go, I finally accepted that Portage was my last option.<\/p>\r\n
When I arrived at Portage, I never planned on staying sober. I told myself I would at least keep using marijuana to “calm myself down,” when in reality it never calmed me – it only made me more anxious, unreliable, and impulsive. I didn’t recognize the person I became under the influence.<\/p>\r\n
At first, I didn’t like the program. I thought nothing could change me. I had looked the place up online and assumed it was just like every other rehab that didn’t actually work. But now that I’ve lived it, I can tell you with 100% certainty: Portage works<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n Portage helped me get sober by teaching me how to live a healthy, substance\u2011free lifestyle – how to take care of myself and others. Now that I’m sober, I see a real change in myself. I’ve reunited with my family. They have the old me back – and most importantly, I recognize the person in the mirror again<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n I have my old hobbies back. I graduated high school, and I’m looking for jobs. I even have a new friend group that I met at Portage, and they live in my city. I will always be grateful for Portage.<\/p>\r\n Congrats on 30 years Portage Atlantic!<\/strong><\/p>\r\n – Riley, alumni, Youth Centre at Cassidy Lake, New Brunswick<\/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":" When I was 14 years old, I had my first sip of alcohol. I was hanging out with a friend and thought it would make me look cool. By 16, I was smoking weed every day. I told myself I didn’t have a problem – it just helped me have fun and relax. By 17,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":48942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[364],"tags":[175,359,384],"class_list":["post-49072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-testimonial","tag-adolescents","tag-portage-atlantic","tag-portage-atlantic-30-years"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49072","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\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49072"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49076,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49072\/revisions\/49076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}RELATED CONTENT<\/h3>\r\n