Benjamin
Elora, Ontario
Community Box: Addictions Edition
Featured Creator, March 2020
The individual featured is a youth leader between the age of 14-18 overcoming addiction at Portage Ontario. For his privacy, his face will not appear in any photographs and his name has been substituted with Benjamin.
Benjamin’s Story
Throughout my addiction, I was a very two-faced person. There was high me and there was sober me.
“High me was the happy-go-lucky person that could do anything, and the other me would be depressed and not wanting to live.”
My friends would see both the good and bad side of me
and eventually they’d get tired of me.
It’s a disease. Addiction is a disease. If someone has an illness, you’re not going to get mad at them and take them out of your life.
When it comes to addiction, it has such a bad reputation and all of a sudden we can’t be friends anymore.
“People think we’re terrible people and we’re going to do everything we can to destroy their lives. But what we’re really doing is destroying our own lives.”
I lost a portion of my life. Just like that it’s gone, and there’s nothing I can do to get it back.
The hardest part about addiction is knowing that something can take over at any moment, even out of a surprise. Relapse could happen anytime. It just happens and they’re back to where they used to be.
There are points where you hit rock bottom and your mental health goes really bad.
I wasn’t worried about it much, but that’s because I wasn’t thinking at the same time. You’re just a different person when you’re addicted.
“You use drugs to get over thoughts of doubt or worry. It’s a trap because you don’t want to get out of your own head, but you also don’t realize how damaging those thoughts are.”
I’m trying not to look too far into the future.
I find I start thinking too much and I get this feeling since I don’t really know what’s going to happen. But it’s hard to go forward when you’re just looking in the past.
If you keep on looking back, you’re going to trip. If you look too far in the future, it’s defeating because it’s a lot of emotions. Looking into the future oddly relates to my past and I start overthinking things.
I’m starting school again this year and I haven’t been to school in 8 months.
I’ve been working on producing and audio engineering. I would love to be famous for making music. I could put my emotions and creativity into it and it’s almost therapeutic to me. It’s in my hands and I can do whatever and make whatever.
“I love expressing myself in forms other than words.”
I have a tag that says “Just for today”.
What that means for me is that you can think about all the bad stuff, or you could work on yourself just for today, and make those bad things that you’re thinking into good things today.
In recovery, you’re making a positive future for yourself, instead of dwelling and not doing anything. After going through the program here at Portage, I can think of going through life without drugs and I can think about doing life sober.
For anyone living with addictions, honestly, a lot of what you’re thinking is just mind alterations of what’s going on. In my addiction, I couldn’t think of a life without drugs.
“There’s always time to turn around. You’re never too deep to the point where you can’t go back and start recovery. You can get out of those mind patterns.”
I’m really happy people stuck with me.
I know one person who has stuck with me this entire time. They did stop talking to me for a while, but when they heard I was sent to a psych ward and rehab, they came back. You can’t fix someone, but you can help. Most addicts just need someone to be there for them.
I feel grateful for my family being there. I wasn’t there for them for all of these years, and they still care for me. I was too far into doing drugs and every time they would try to make time for me, I would tell them off and do my own thing and hide.
“Just knowing the persistence and resilience towards me that after everything has happened, that they can still love me. It makes me so happy that they still care.”
I designed a sweater that represents my experience with addictions.
I was very two faced. There was the non-sober side of me, and the sober side of me.
The non-sober side of me was a dark person who just pushed everyone away and did whatever to get drugs. The sober me, entering recovery, feels like I’m crawling into a new body.
“The design is about taking off the mask. You have the dark, addiction side of you, but that’s only a mask covering what’s really on the inside - a caring loving person on the inside who is part of our community.”
The Community Box:
Addictions Edition
ABOUT
Our fifth Community Box was created by two youth leaders (ages 14-18) overcoming addictions at Portage Ontario, a youth rehabilitation centre in Elora.
Portage Ontario
To learn more about Portage and what they do, please click here.
PROFIT SHARING
Instead of our proceeds going directly to the Creator, the profits will instead be shared with the Portage Community as part of a leadership fund to use on a fun activity!
EMPOWER OUR CREATORS
Click the button below to purchase his Community Box!
The Community Box:
We partnered with two teenagers from Portage Ontario, a live-in rehabilitation centre for youth ages 14-18, to design a Crewneck Sweater that is both meaningful and personal to their journeys with substance addictions.
The sweaters are 100% Combed Ring Spun (meaning they feel incredibly soft), ethically manufactured by Just Like Hero, and embroidered locally in Waterloo, Ontario. The sweaters are perfect for a weekend outfit, and can also be stylized to suit almost any social occasion.
The fit is unisex, and we recommend ordering a size smaller if you are stuck between two sizes! Sizing chart can be found here.
Creators:
Tobias and Benjamin are the two youth creators behind this sweater. The design is a reminder to our community that ‘Addicts are People too’.
Empowerment:
Creators are typically paid $50 for their time, earn 5%-12% from every sale, and 50% of net profits.
Since our two Creators are currently living in rehab at Portage Ontario, their portions of the profit share will instead be donated to Portage for use as a leadership fund for their entire community.
Click here to learn more about the Addictions Box.