During their grade 11 year, a few members of Excelsior had the opportunity to go to an anti drug and gang forum in Surrey. There were numerous speakers who discussed their struggles with drugs and gangs and how they overcame them to be where they are today. The speakers discussed their stories and how their lack of support in their youth affected them even as adults, and how youth need to be given opportunities to succeed. Our community needs to unite to make a difference. BC has the highest number of overdoses and gang problems in Canada, and this isn't how it should be. Speakers at the forum discussed their stories and how they are making a difference in their communities today.
The first speaker, Rob Sidhu, is currently a recovering cocaine addict. He discussed his struggle with addiction and how he lost everything important in his life due to it. Mr. Sidhu had a tough childhood. His parents were quite strict, and what mattered most to them were getting good grades and getting a high-paying job. Having dyslexia and ADHD caused it to be more difficult for him to focus in school, and he struggled. As a teen, he was afraid to tell his parents that he was struggling because of his mental health issues. He would constantly lie to his parents to get them to leave him alone. Due to this atmosphere of loneliness at home, Mr. Sidhu always felt like he was on the outside. He felt as though he didn’t fit in, and would do whatever it took to belong somewhere, no matter who it was with. Although he dropped out of highschool at the age of 16, Mr. Sidhu still became successful through hard work. He began an oil company in Alberta, which is currently worth over 5 billion dollars. He also married and had a daughter. Still, Mr. Sidhu had that empty feeling that stuck with him from his childhood, so one day when he was offered drugs at work, he felt as though he was obliged to say yes. He already felt left out, and he didn’t want to be criticized by his colleagues. After trying cocaine that one time, he became addicted. He couldn’t stop, and it became the most important thing in his life. He felt as if he couldn’t function without cocaine. Due to his addiction, he lost his wife, his daughter, and his entire company. His addiction left him with nothing. He said that if he could, he would go back and not try drugs that one time. If he had someone to talk to that he trusted, and didn’t have so much pressure from his parents as a child, he wouldn’t have ever felt as though he was forced to say yes. This sense of ‘not belonging’ affects so many youth in our society today, and far too often they feel as if joining with the wrong people or doing drugs are their only solution. The second speaker was another ex-addict. He was addicted for ten years, and ironically enough, now he’s an addiction counsellor. What stood out from his speech was when he said “addiction doesn’t always have to do with drugs”. He brought up the point that we can be addicted to other things, or have habits that are like addictions. It can be something like lying, which he believes is taught to us. Like Rob Sidhu, he didn’t have much of a sense of identity. His father was never there for him, and his family constantly pressured him to do things that he didn’t want to. Although he didn’t want to make the career and life choices he was pressured into making, he quietly followed what his family and society wanted him to do so that he could fit in and be accepted. He also brought up the fact that there is so much negative stigma around drugs and addicts. When his family found out he was struggling with addiction, instead of trying to help him recover, they pushed him away. They ignored his calls for help and didn’t listen to what he had to say. Because of this, he began to rely on the drugs to numb his emotions, relieve stress and be happy when nobody would accept or help him. Due to everything going on, he joined a gang. While in that gang, he said it used to be that everyone was friends with each other and knew each other, so it was less dangerous than gangs are today. Nowadays, it’s different because you don’t know who’s in the gangs, so it’s easier painful to hurt someone or get “revenge” for something without feeling bad, because they're a stranger. He brought up the idea that in schools, although there is already counselling, they should educate children so that they know that they always have people to rely on, and that they are never alone. He talked about how we should steer away from the negative stigma and mentality that mental health issues aren’t really there and that people can just “get over it.” From this forum, we learned about how ignoring the issues we have can lead to serious consequences, so we need to steer away from having this negative mentality and address what is going on in the lives of so many youth before they have to face the same issues that many of the speakers unfortunately had to face due to the fact that they didn’t have the support system they needed. |