‘There is no shame’
Recovery Day Niagara is about breaking stigmas, education and sharing personal stories
As soon as he was gone, she ransacked their house.
She searched jacket pockets, drawers and all parts in between, breaking out into a sweat in a desperate, frenzied, panicked hunt to feed her addiction. She was like a bloodhound on a scent trail, sniffing for the stash of marijuana that her partner had hidden somewhere in their house.
As creative as he was at hiding it from her, she was better.
Once, she remembers detecting a waft of weed coming from a closet. Convinced she was close, she hauled out clothing, systematically checking nooks and crevices, when she discovered a hole in the wall. Excitedly, she reached her hand in and down, and felt the plastic bag resting on a cross beam.
She immediately smoked a joint. And for the better part of three years, Sandra Williams’ addiction to marijuana controlled her life.
At its worst, her life involved either getting high or sleeping. “Marijuana became an hourly obsession,” she says.
She lived in a small cul-de-sac and never lifted her head on the rare occasion she went outside for a walk because she thought if she made eye contact, people would know her secret. She isolated herself, avoided family events and “all the good stuff” including activities with her two kids because it interfered with her need to get high.
On Sunday, Sept. 16, she will be part of Recovery Day Niagara, a first annual event for the region with a mission to build awareness, challenge stigmas and celebrate the role recovery plays in improving life for people, families and communities.
At 52, Williams has been clean for 13 years.
She will be part of the Marketplace, a gathering of some 30 booths representing agencies, businesses and people in recovery who became entrepreneurs as a result of their personal journey. Williams resurrected her career as a pastry chef by making cakes to celebrate recovery anniversaries, and now has built her own business, Cakes by the Lake, creating customized cakes and sweets for birthdays and other special occasions.
Recovery Day, which runs from 1 to 4 p.m. at Merritt Park in Welland, will also feature several speakers in the amphitheatre, many who will share their personal stories of recovery. There will also be interactive demonstrations of yoga, improvisation and personal training, and people can create gratitude cards with the Willow Arts Community, an organization that supports artists with lived experiences of mental health and addictions.
Canadian Recovery Day began in 2012 and has spread across the country. In Niagara, a group of people who are in recovery or who have walked the journey with loved ones, is organizing the event.
One of them is Judith Rudoler, a project manager in public health. She is passionate about starting conversations about recovery, and readily shares her own personal story of addiction to alcohol. “Recovery is a lifetime commitment,” she says. “And I’m not interested in living in the shadows.” She has been sober for more than five years.
“There are people who are suffering and dying,” she says. “They’re not coming forward asking for help, for fear of losing their job, for fear of losing their reputation, for fear of being persecuted or being judged.”
She is dedicated to obliterating the stigma — putting a face to the disease of addiction and inspiring the hope of recovery.
“There is no shame,” she says. Society’s deeply-rooted condemnation of people for being the agents of their own predicament because they lack the fortitude to “Just say no”, is both wrong and destructive, she says. “Nobody chooses to live in pain.” The shame and secrecy can be just as debilitating as the disease itself, she adds.
Substance use and addiction is complicated. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, addiction is often a combination of several factors – biological, psychological and social. Some risk factors include: a person’s genes, the way their brain functions, previous experiences of trauma, cultural influences and social issues such as poverty.
Addiction is often described with
four Cs: craving; loss of control of either amount or frequency of use; compulsion to use and continued substance use despite negative consequences.
Williams’ story began after she was hit by a drunk driver 21 years ago.
She was a pastry chef at a bakery in Oakville. She was a single mother of two, confident and well known in the community. And then it ended.
After the accident, she lived with chronic pain — medication prescribed to her made her sick — and she was plagued by migraines so debilitating she’d often call in sick at work and spend the day in bed, vomiting into a pail.
Eventually, she quit the job she loved and applied for Canada Pension Plan disability benefits.
“I didn’t know who I was anymore,” she says.
“My whole being was Pastry Chef Sandra. And I totally lost myself.”
She had used marijuana recreationally
but turned to it more and more frequently to ease both her physical and emotional pain. In her words: “It made me numb.”
She fell into a depression and lost all faith in herself. “I hated who I was and I figured everyone else hated me too.” She felt useless and worthless.
As her substance use snowballed, her partner hid it from her.
Many times, she’d try to cut back, but could not. Each failure intensified her self-loathing. At her wits’ end, she fled to an emergency women’s shelter.
“I’m ruining everyone’s life,” she sobbed. “I don’t know where to go and I don’t have any money.”
The path to recovery was long. She began a 12-step program and started counselling. She blamed chronic pain and job loss on her substance use and rejected suggestions she was an addict. Until one meeting when a woman, through cascades of tears, shared her story. “If I could only be that vulnerable,” Williams thought. “And let people know how I feel inside.”
And then, she did. She started introducing herself at meetings: “I’m an addict named Sandra.” She agreed to have a mentor whom she’d call whenever she felt like smoking up. She worked on building relationships. She got honest and real with people — and herself.
These days, she is an addict, in recovery. She does not use the word “recovered” because that implies finality, and recovery is a lifetime journey, she says.
“I honour my clean time. I know this is special and if I don’t hold on and honour it, I may lose it.”
And part of recovery is helping others. Sharing her story. Sharing her hope. Some people in her life likely don’t know about her past. And yet, she embraces the opportunity to put a face on recovery. She hopes people will see her as the empowered woman she is.
“There is hope that life can be so different,” she says. “I love myself today and that took a long time to build.”