Why street drugs can kill — the headline for a drug awareness clinic put on by OPP, Lakeshore Community Policing and Crime Stoppers.
James Lucier from LaSalle was the first to address the small crowd at the Atlas Tube Centre on Tuesday night.
The 24-year-old says he's a recovered addict after discovering drugs in his early teens. Lucier says he's now been sober for more than a year.
"For me I spent so long in the pain, suffering and torture of addiction that I never thought that I'd get out of it. I thought that I was alone. I thought that I was the only one with the problems I had," says Lucier. "So, to be able to come here and if one person can see the light from my experience, then I've done my job."
He hopes his story of being obsessed by drugs, leading him to one rehab stint after another can highlight the devastating power drugs can have on a person. "The disease of addiction can strike anyone," says Lucier. "I was raised very proper, right? It doesn't matter what socio-economic standard you come from, it doesn't matter financially how well off you are — if you're an addict, you're an addict."
Lucier along with friend Matt Brown are behind Spiritual Soldier apparel and hope to open a coffee shop on Windsor's Erie St., meant to support recovering addicts. He feels treatment can be a big help and hopes to be able to do the same for someone else looking for recovery. "From the first time I went into a treatment facility, it planted that seed and it ruined the high for me every time after that because I knew, I saw a glimpse of the life after addiction," says Lucier. "So, I mean I just was always trying to grab onto that; I never knew how until someone took me under their wing, someone who's been through what I've been through."
The clinic at the Atlas Tube Centre also included healthcare officials, police and leaders from Brentwood Recovery Home and the House of Sophrosyne as speakers.