Coming Back to Life

CAMH Connexions

Winter 2005-06

The pain is clearly etched on Paulette Walker's face as she describes the many times she asked God to help her stop the yearning and hunger she had acquired for crack cocaine — a hunger that ran so deep it drove her into situations that still bring tears to her eyes. It is hard to imagine that this confident, happy woman with the beauty queen smile and the fabulous soups (which she now whips up at CAMH's Russell Street site cafeteria) was once so addicted that she ended up in a crack house for two weeks abandoning her child and family in order to get high.

For Paulette, those times seem long ago — a distant memory, never to be forgotten, but to build on as she makes her way towards a healthier lifestyle. Today, thanks to the help she received at CAMH through the Drug Treatment Court Program — a voluntary treatment program for people addicted to cocaine or heroin who have been charged with drug offences — she no longer sees herself as someone addicted to crack, but as a winner. In fact, she quit using drugs during the program and has remained drug free to this day.

Paulette Walker

"I would not be alive today without the Drug Treatment Court Program. If I had gone back to jail — I would have completed my sentence, been released, then gone right back to the street again looking for crack," says Paulette. "This program saved my life."

Paulette knows it is a huge victory-one which has been both recognized and celebrated at last year's CAMH Courage to Come Back Awards . The Courage to Come Back Awards are given to people who have overcome an addiction or mental illness and now use their experiences to help others.

To Paulette, awards mean nothing if she doesn't give something back. That is why she has chosen to speak out and tell her story in the hope of preventing what happened to her from happening to someone else. "That is why I agreed to tell my story — first at the United Nations, then in CAMH's Transforming Lives awareness campaign. I wouldn't want anyone else to experience what I experienced, and if only one person stops using drugs because they hear my story, then it has been worth it."

Had Paulette been refused treatment until she was prepared to commit to abstinence before she was ready, her story may have been different. A harm reduction approach starts where people are at and helps them to move into treatment. The success of this approach is seen in research and in the stories of many people like Paulette.

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