Alumni of the Month Blair P

My name is Blair and I am an addict,

It took me 15 years of active addiction to admit to myself that I had a life threatening disease.  I didn’t want to believe it at first.  My life was a complete mess. My favorite pastime was hurting those who love me and causing destruction to whoever I came in contact with, any job that I held and those in my family.  I didn’t care….. I just wanted ONE MORE! “Then I will stop I said”.

I grew up with what every kid dreams of; a loving family, friends, playing sports, I had hobbies.  But I was also picked on, the brunt of many jokes, ridiculed and beat up.  I was beat up almost every day from Grade 7 till the end of Grade 9.  I was angry and alone.

I started hanging out with people younger than me and started breaking the law.  I would move cities in hopes of a new beginnings at every new stop, but so did my addiction.  He had plans for me.  I was in Kelowna in 1999 and my Mom and Dad helped me come home to go to school and work in the family business.  I did great in school and I was also taking drugs while in school.  It was 2005 when I first admitted to my parents that I had a problem.  I went to treatment and used every weekend.  I lost my job at my parent’s tugboat/watertaxi company and relocated to Calgary.  Addiction, crime, homelessness were the three words that were my profession my beliefs of myself were that of; alone, scared and dead.
It was late October 2006 and my parents had tract me down through a private investigator (I had been in Calgary Remand for 4 1/2 months prior).  They called me at the homeless shelter and said they were coming over to take me out to dinner.

I looked into the mirror at myself and began to cry.  “Look at myself, look at what I have done to myself”.  My parents and I had that meeting and they had some letters from home.  Needless to say they bought me a bus ticket back home.  One way of course.  If I showed up at the bus station I wanted help and if I didn’t well don’t call us anymore.  It was October 23, 2006 and I got on that bus.  I got into Vancouver and my parents were there to greet me along with my childhood friend Nik.  The next day was to be the defining moment of my life.

It was October 24, 2006. My first day clean! I made a phone call and talked with Dan M. of the Last Door.  He said to come by tomorrow and check us out.  I remember the next day my parents dropped me off and we had our parting hug at the base of the house stairs knowing that in time this house, the guys were going to help change me.  I reached the top of the stairs and a giant of a man grabbed me and said “My name is Pete Q, welcome home. I looked behind and saw my parents crying, smiling and walking toward their car.  From this day forth the transformation began.

For the next six months I worked Last Door’s Program like my life depended on it.  Cause it did.  My sponsor Pete, guided me through and the boys in the house with their energy showed me a new way of life.  So many memories were created at Last Door, the Door Slam, the many dances and fundraisers, the Lions playoff game (and Galers’ 60,000 person wave), groups, amends, coffee’s, movies on Tuesday’s at the old Uptown theatre, meetings, clean time , all of this was huge in me finding myself.  Over time it got easier taking more clean time as the years wore on.

I left the door in November of 2007.  By March of 2008 I owned my own condo on 12th and Queens, had a full time job and a steady girlfriend.  This clean life really works!  Little did I know it was only beginning.

Over the next four years so much has changed.  My parent s hired me back at the family business.  I have gone back to school twice for Addictions Counsellor and Operating a Marine vessel.  I met my wife in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous and we own a townhome in Surrey with our 7 month old daughter.  I learned to play the bagpipes three years ago and had played in a military pipe band for two and a half years and finally today after two years of dedication and persistence and working my program and the program of NA, I am a proud member of the Canadian Armed Forces.  I was in Montreal for 14 weeks of basic training and am now posted in Borden, Ontario for the next 18 months.  I have been through deaths of Grandparents, loss of jobs and family emergencies, but I have always used the tools I learnt from the Last Door.

I owe my life to the program and to the boys past, present and future of the Last Door!!
A special thanks to Dave P. and Micheal P. whose powerful groups made me the man I am today.

THANKS LAST DOOR!!!