ADDICT HELPS STUDENTS 'GET REAL'

Senior students at Assumption College got a wakeup call Thursday
morning.

It came from motivational speaker Paul Christie, a recovering
alcoholic and drug addict who "turned his life around" in 1999 and now
travels across Ontario delivering his message at schools.

His "Get Real" presentation detailed a struggle with addiction that
started in Grade 8 and e next 30 years of his life, including jail
time and attempted suicide.

"His stories are real," said Assumption principal John
Burroughs.

"It's his life. He does not preach to the kids. He basically says,
'This is what happened to me, so you have a choice to make.'"

Burroughs first heard Christie speak four years ago when he was
principal at Holy Trinity Catholic High School in Simcoe. He said was
so impressed that he thought Assumption students could benefit from
Christie's message.

Burroughs said that he sees students being exposed to recreational
drugs. He hopes that Christie's message encourages students to make
informed lifestyle choices.

"There are some people in our society who are trying to capitalize
financially on our kids by selling them this stuff."

Christie launched right into his presentation, cautioning students
that he wasn't glorifying the use of drugs and that his talk might get
graphic.

"Some principals want me to do a presentation, but ask me to tone it
down a little bit," Christie said. "But you can't. Its real life and
you can't tone it down."

Christie's journey started when he smoked marijuana in Grade 8. His
grades dropping and he failed.

When he entered high school, he began experimenting with alcohol, and
soon became an alcoholic. He would blackout, he told the students, and
not remember what happened.

He told the students about a time in Grade 9, just before Christmas,
when he attended a party with friends and went on to break into nearby
houses. He woke up the next morning at home, with no recollection of
the events from the night before.

He didn't remember that he and his friends had started a fire in two
of the empty homes and both had burned to the ground. Police waited
until Christie turned 16 to arrest him on two counts of arson and two
counts of breaking and entering. He was sentenced to 20 months in a
psychiatric hospital, but was transferred after two weeks to the
Guelph Correctional Centre.

Before he was arrested, he had been using cocaine and heroin, too. He
would bring syringes to school and shoot up in the bathrooms. While he
was in jail, he would use the money given him by family members to buy
more drugs.

Once released, he only spiral downwards, turning to armed robbery to
feed his growing addiction. He was arrested one night in Niagara Falls
for armed robbery of a strip club but escaped from jail by tricking
the police officers.

He told the students about how he bit a hole through his tongue and
pretended to be seriously ill, so police would take him to the
hospital. Once there, he feigned being unconscious until they
transferred him to a hospital in Buffalo, N.Y. He then waited for
doctors to release him, since the Canadian police were out of their
jurisdiction.

He was given $3,000 from his dad and he took a bus to California and
lived there for almost 20 years, using any kind of drug he could get
his hands on: cocaine, crystal meth, crack, heroin.

The story he tells the students is almost unbelievable:

- -He was beaten and robbed in California and left with nothing more
than the clothes on his back and the Bible he now carries in his pocket.

- -He described the Christmas he thought would be his last, and the
lengths he went to make it the best for his young son before trying to
hang himself.

- -He used the veins in his neck and forehead to shoot up when the veins
in his arms collapsed.

- -He saw people try to trade their children for crack.

- -And he once traded his girlfriend for hit of crack.

But Christie has the scars to prove his stories true. He bares his
entire life in the hopes that he can make a difference in people's
lives.

"I'm disgusted with myself," he told students. "I am ashamed of my
past, but there's nothing I can do about it, but possibly save one of
you here today. And if that happens, I've done my job. "

Christie's decision to get clean stemmed from the birth of his son,
Jesse, and his desire to be a better father. He said it wasn't easy.
But now he enjoys a close relationship with Jesse, who is 16.

He credited a conversation with Jesse as the reason he began speaking
to students.

"My son asked me, 'Dad what do I do if someone offers me drugs '. And
it was like a light just went on, and I said ..., 'You say you're not
going to waste your life on drugs. ' And then I just ended up going to
one school, and the rest came on board."

Students said they came away from Christie's presentation
informed.

"It was good to get a real experience," said student Dan Gallo. "We
watch a lot of TV shows, like Intervention, but once you actually see
it in real life, it really opens your eyes."

Thailer Haines, another student, agreed.

"It was really amazing that we were able to see someone, who actually
lived through that, tell us, 'This is how the real life is,'" Haines
said.

"Don't mess it up like [Christie] did. But he cleaned it up, so that's
good."

A second presentation was given to students in Grades 9 and 10 on the
twin themes of bullying and substance abuse.

Christie said he has received more than 7,000 e-mails over the last
six years from students and parents thanking him for sharing his story.