Pubdate: Sat, 20 May 2006 Source: Daily Press, The (CN ON) Copyright: 2006 Daily Press (CN ON) Contact: http://www.timminspress.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1001 Author: Chelsey Romain Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth) FORMER ADDICT SHARES HIS STORY WITH HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS Paul Christie's life sounds like something right out of a movie, but he'll be the first to assure you he has lived through every painful moment of it. A now recovering alcoholic and drug addict, that's the exact message Christie put out to students of O'Gorman High School and O'Gorman Intermediate Catholic School before they headed off for their May Run activities. Organized by the head of O'Gorman's Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving, Christie was brought into the school Friday to give a last-minute warning of the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse but more importantly. how the addiction can sneak up on you. Christie said he was only in Grade 7 when he was offered his first marijuana joint and it all escalated from there. Since then Christie said he has been stabbed, shot and spent time in jail. "My whole life was just filled with that," said Christie. "Jail, out, jail, out, drugs, jail." Years later, Christie said he found himself in prison after being found guilty on charges stemming from two houses being burnt to the ground. While Christie says he can't remember actually lighting the houses on fire because he blacked out from drinking too much, he figures he must have done it. "By any means I am not proud of what happened to me," said Christie. "I'm ashamed and disgusted." After stints in prison and failed promises to turn his life around, Christie says he turned to robbery in order to feed his drug habit, which again turned into jail time in the Niagara Falls area. "Addicts don't have anything," said Christie. "If my parents bought me a watch for Christmas it would be gone in two days." But Christie said he managed to escape prison by faking a sickness which landed him in a hospital in Buffalo where he says he escaped to California. "For the next 10 years I was living on the streets of California like an animal, I even remember eating out of garbage cans," explained Christie. "That's the life I traded for drugs." In 1998, Christie explained how life just didn't seem worth it anymore. "I thought it would be easier to die than to fight this disease," said Christie. After abandoning his son at Christmas for a bag of cocaine brought to him by a neighbour, Christie attempted to end his life. "I was a typical crack head, we can't do anything but smoke crack," said Christie of his failed suicide. But on September 23, 1999 Christie said he walked by a mirror and finally saw the monster he had become. In the following days, weeks and months he went through detox and then a rehabilitation program and now proudly admits to being clean and sober for six years. "It's always there," said Christie of the devil on his shoulder he calls addiction. "I just know how to fight him now. I'm stronger now." For the last couple of years, Christie and his friend Al Fournia, also a former alcoholic and drug addict and now sober eight years, have travelled to at least 100 schools in the province to get their message out to students. "It's an effective presentation because what Paul talks about hits home with them," said Fournia. "He's not a police officer or a medical personnel, he's just a guy who was a cool kid and made some wrong choices." Christie said his love for his own son helped him come up with the idea to tour around the Ontario, when his son asked him what to do if someone offered him drugs. "I do this because I have an 11-year-old son who gives me the strength I need," said Christie, adding that he told his son about his past after he read about it on the front page of a newspaper. "If I can stop just one kid from sticking a needle in his arm, then it has all been worth it." - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman