'I WAS JUST REALLY LUCKY,' RECOVERING ADDICT, 19, SAYS

Waitress Credits Her Success To Absence Of Coercion: 'It's All About
Willingness'

Larisa Blanchette has the rosy, cherub-like skin of a Renaissance innocent.
Her dyed blond hair and soft, cautious voice contribute to an image that is
betrayed only when she begins telling the story of her young life.

It's a story that starts innocently enough, when Larisa talks about her
early teen years in a small rural town.

But when she utters the words "drug use" and "homophobia" in the same
sentence, it becomes clear the 19-year-old's story is not going to be a
happy one.

Larisa knew she was gay at an early age, but tried desperately to change
her identity.

"I realized who I was when I was about 12 and I didn't like it," she said.
"So I decided to change my behaviour and try to pretend I was somebody else."

But the bullies in her hometown were unrelenting.

"I got spat on, had food thrown at me. I couldn't really leave the house
feeling safe," Larisa said. "I'd go to the 7-11 and people would stalk me
and scream at me from across the parking lot."

By Grade 9 Larisa was so miserable at her school that she decided to try an
alternative school where she said about half the students identified
themselves as gay or lesbian.

She was happy there for awhile, but was still denying her sexuality and
getting bullied by older kids from the regular high school when she hung
out with her new friends.

"We got followed by people in trucks, chased by trucks, we went to the fair
and had about 10 guys come after us with broken beer bottles saying they
were going to kill us," she said. "It was constant."

Around the same time, Larisa began smoking pot with her friends and was
jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend, trying to prove to herself and those
around her that she wasn't gay.

The internal conflict and bullying led to increased drug use and Larisa
started going to raves.

"I started doing rave drugs -- ecstasy and things like that," she said. "A
lot of the stuff I did was laced and I didn't know it. You know, it's a
pretty typical story.

"One thing led to another and I started doing [crystal] meth."

Larisa made it through Grade 10 despite her increasing meth use, an
overdose experience and her frequent trips downtown, but when it was time
to return to school for Grade 11, Larisa decided she didn't want to go.

"I was supposed to go back to regular high school, but the week before I
was supposed to start, I was at a rave in Abbotsford and decided not to go
back to school."

Instead of going to classes, Larisa started doing enough meth to keep her
awake for four or five days at a time. She was spending more time on the
streets of downtown Vancouver than with her parents and began showing
physical signs of her drug use.

"My skin was bad. I was getting scabs all over my legs and I couldn't
figure out what it was from," she said.

"I was grinding my teeth a lot and my face was all swollen."

Most of her downtown friends were also gay and some of them were
prostituting themselves to pay for their drugs and food. Larisa could see
where she was heading, but didn't take a break from the drugs or the
streets until a good friend ended up in detox.

"He had really lost it, you know, overdosing and really wanting help, but
not getting it and being really neglected by the foster care system," she said.

"He wound up in detox and that really gave me a wake-up call because I was
really the only person who knew him and would go see him."

She went to visit him every day for two weeks and realized she didn't want
to follow in his footsteps.

"All I know was I was like, 'I can't do this any more' and stopped," she
said. "I didn't know what to do with my life. I wasn't going to school. I
wasn't working. I was just totally clueless."

A vivid dream about a former teacher kicked her into action though, and
Larisa marched back the local high school to see if she could return to
classes.

This was in March of what was supposed to be Grade 11 for Larisa. The
school enrolled her in a correspondence program and she managed to finish a
course every month so that she could enter Grade 12 in September.

She stayed clean throughout those months, partially by meditating and
partially because a long bus strike kept her away from certain downtown
temptations.

In June, she mustered the strength to come out to her parents and later
that summer, she was comfortable enough to attend a gay and lesbian
conference for teenagers.

Keeping herself as busy as possible, Larisa started a gay-straight alliance
at her high school and dived into what she thought was a new life as a
confident, ambitious, gay youth.

But when the Christmas holidays arrived that year and Larisa was forced to
relax, she fell back to substance abuse to cover feelings she didn't want
to acknowledge. She was drinking heavily every day and continued even when
she went back to school in January.

"I just drank through the whole holiday and I didn't stop and I got myself
into quite a state by March and had to drop out."

She started returning to her downtown life for days at a time and, with the
old friends came the old drugs and habits.

"I had no idea I had a problem," she said.

"I was in this really bad state of being really depressed and I didn't know
what was going on with me and then somebody suggested I get help, so I went
into detox."

Scared by past experiences with therapists and doctors, Larisa was hesitant
to go beyond detox and into treatment, but got herself onto the waiting
list at Peak House, a downtown residential rehabilitation home.

She also put herself on the waiting list for an outpatient program for
youth in New Westminster.

Thirty days after her "clean date," Larisa began noticing physical and
psychological differences to herself.

"It was scary as hell," she said. "I remember how weird it was getting my
senses back. Everything was so much brighter and louder and it was amazing."

"I got the light back in my eyes and I wasn't pale and shaking all the time."

But with her new-found health, Larisa also had to deal with the emotions
that she had been suppressing with drugs for so many years.

"That's where the tricky part comes with people who try to get clean on
their own," she said.

"You haven't had genuine emotions for who knows how long and you don't even
know what to do with it. I thought I was sick."

Larisa was admitted to the day program in New Westminster two months after
she got clean and then waited about another two months before she was
admitted to Peak House.

Once she was there, she said she had been sober long enough that she didn't
have the urge to bolt.

For two months, Larisa met regularly with a therapist, sat through group
and family counselling-sessions and learned to cope with her emotions.

Nine months after graduating from the program, Larisa said she would not
have been successful if she had been forced into treatment.

"It's all about willingness. You just have to be at that point," she said.
"I'm amazed that anyone walks into treatment. I don't know where that point
comes from. I know for me, I was just really lucky."

Larisa is now working as a waitress, volunteering as a gay youth advocate,
and works one night a week with Mom's Agape Street Ministry, which hands
out food to the homeless in downtown Vancouver.

During those late-night tours of the streets she used to frequent, Larisa
often sees the friends she used to use with. Keeping those contacts is part
of the reason she volunteers with the ministry.

"It's really hard to leave your friends behind when you get clean," she
said. "When I see them, I just give them my love and hope that they're safe
out there."