Mamer speaks out about battle with addiction
Mikaela Mamer courageously shared her story of addiction and recovery during the Swift Current United Way’s 2018 campaign kick off breakfast.
The theme of the May 16 kick off event was Rise Up Step Up and Speak Out About Addiction, with Mamer sharing some harrowing details of her road to addition and inspiring recovery story.
“I’m really passionate about bringing awareness to addiction, especially in my hometown. I think that it’s important to bring the awareness here and also this place has a special place in my heart,” Mamer said following her presentation last Wednesday at the Living Sky Casino Event Centre.
“I just feel like addiction is really stigmatized here. There’s not as much awareness. There’s not much in the media about it, and I just think that there needs to be more. It needs to be brought to light.”
In order to help remove the stigma surrounding addictions and drug use so society can better address the issue, she pulled no punches in describing her own descent into addictions.
She recalls that her first time trying alcohol was in Grade 7 at the age of 13, and she got blackout drunk.
Mamer admitted she liked the effects of alcohol, but she didn’t think it was turning into a problem because she was just partying with everybody else.
She was still able to remain a stand-out athlete through high school advancing to the national soccer championships in New Brunswick while playing for a Premier League Team in Saskatoon. She also competed in High School track. However that athletic success was masking her personal troubles.
“I had a head that was telling me I wasn’t good enough. That nobody liked me, that I needed to try harder, that I needed to be better and I always needed to be on top. With that, it was really hard to live with myself.”
She got sick in her Grade 12 year and couldn’t finish her senior season as a member of the Ardens soccer program. She was actually eyeing a chance to play at the university level, but it was then she started to delve into drugs.
“I kind of lost touch with a lot of my friends in Grade 12, and I felt very, very alone. And that’s when I started doing harder drugs. I got into ecstasy right after I turned 18, and from that moment on my life went downhill.”
in High School she used ecstasy on a regular basis for a couple of months, and just barely graduated.
It was because of drugs that her university future disappeared.
“When it came to that time, the thing that was the most important thing to me was drugs. Having to get high or having to continue drinking.”
After High School she got into legal issues as a result of drinking and using drugs daily, and she was sent to a court ordered treatment centre. And, after 28 days treatment, she didn’t take it serious and got drunk the day she got out.
Shortly after she was supposed to be at a treatment facility in Toronto for a year, but she was there for only two nights.
“Everything inside me just felt like using. It had such a hold on me. I could just not stop using.”
It was then she started taking cocaine while continuing to drink on a regular basis.
“I was living a very, very sad life. And I was a very, very sad person. I was a very angry person, I would blow at any time. I felt like there is no way that I’m ever be able to get out of this.”
She then began to smoke crack cocaine, and part of her accepted that this was her life and she did not see a way out.
Fortunately, she did find a way out.
“I remember there was this moment where I was out using with my friends, where I looked at myself in the mirror and I said ‘you’re better than that.’”
“And it was kind of like a breaking point for me. I could continue on and you’re going to die, or you can change your life.”
awakening inside, self hatred subsided for a little bit, could finally see light at the end of the tunnel.
She contacted a Swift Current friend who went to a drug treatment centre on Vancouver Island, and when reaching out to him, he put things into perspective for her.
“I made the choice that no matter what happens, I’m going to stay clean and sober.”
“They gave me the ability to work through some of the stuff that was holding me back, and they opened doors for me to start looking at things that were holding me down.
“Luckily for me, I had a lot of people in my corner and people supporting me and loving me through it all.”
She has shared her personal story to a wide audience after losing a pair of friends to opioids.
In her first year of recovery, when she was nine months sober, she went to Vancouver with a best friend from treatment. Unknown to her, he picked up drugs, and during that one time relapse he died of a drug overdose.
She was in a two-year relationship with her boyfriend who struggled with his recovery and was in and out of treatments. He died of a drug overdose on January 2, 2016 the night Mamer turned 25.
“When it happened I decided to turn my pain into something positive. So I got into recovery advocacy, I got into public speaking, and I got out into the world and I started sharing my story.
She ended up travelling to Ottawa with former BC Premier Christy Clark for a chance to speak with Health Ministers on how drug addition impacted her personally.
She continues to share the story of how drugs impact not just the person using but their entire family.
“We need to bring it out. We need to talk about it. Because if we don’t talk about it just stays hidden. And that doesn’t do any favours for anybody.”
She admits that it is often therapeutic talking about her recovery.
“Its really changed my life. If it helps just one person then it’s worth it to get up and to talk about things that are really vulnerable and really hard for me.”
She has gone on to complete an Addictions Care Worker Program from Mcmaster University, and she will be featured in a documentary which will debut at the fourth annual Swift Current United Way Foundation of Hope Gala on November 3.
“The message that I’m trying to tell people is that this is a disease. It is a sickness and it’s not something that people can just quit. It’s not that easy.”
“Getting clean and being in a treatment centre is actually really easy. Getting out of the treatment centre and staying clean through all of life’s circumstances is really challenging.”