In March, 2017 FAR requested urgent action from the Federal and Ontario Ministers of Health regarding youth addictions and the opioid overdose epidemic. We have not yet received a response.
By: A sibling/caregiver/nurse My parents are retired. They worked their whole lives to provide for their children, including drives to Disney Worldat March break in a Ford caravan, summertime camps, and all of the day to day demands of looking after three children......
By: Kat E If you told me 3 years ago that I would be riding the wave of cannabis induced psychosis with my teenage son J, I would look at you with complete bewilderment. Even though I’ve worked in the mental health & addiction field for years, I wasn’t...
My son Nicholas My beautiful boy was perfect in every way but one. His brain was broken. I knew it from day one and I was ready to do anything to help him, anything I could. As it turned out, that was going to be nowhere near enough to save him. A mother’s heart...
By: Joanne Helm On a very cold day this year, I came home from work, sat on my bed with tears in my eyes, and asked God: why me? Believe it or not a voice in my head boomed out: why not you Joanne? Like many of you, I took my child’s mental illness,...
By: A Toronto Mother We started noticing a change in our son at 14. The checkboxes for mental health red flags we are instructed to look for in our children were all there: School refusal? Check. Self-isolation? Check. Excessive sleeping? Check. Decline in...
By: Kathryn Eve When I was a teen, I developed a real problem with alcohol and drugs right out of the gate. My experience with addiction was fast and furious. It quickly went from being fun to just problems. Of course, I didn’t see my substance use that way. I...
Hi! My name is Tyler, and I am in long term recovery from alcoholism and addiction. This is a significantly shortened rendition of this wild ride I like to call life. But before we get into all of that, let’s start at the top. I grew up in two loving households...
Five years ago I decided it was time to find recovery and take my life back. Five years ago today I took what money I had and used it for gas instead of dope like I originally planned to do. I drove 2.5 hours away from where I was quickly dying. It sure wasn’t...
My birth mother was only 16 when she found out she was pregnant so she had me and gave me up for adoption. I was adopted into an Irish Catholic family in Toronto where both my parents were alcoholics. It was an unpredictable, chaotic and dysfunctional home. There was...
I am a mother, daughter, sister, niece, aunt, and a proud living example that recovery from addiction is possible. My name is Tania, and I am grateful to be in recovery from alcoholism. Only 11 short years ago, I was too ill to hold a job, or have any meaningful...