Richard's Story

Hi, my name is Richard Callahan, and this is my story about my life before addiction, during my addiction and into my recovery. Addiction is an allergy of the body and the obsession of the mind and once we take the first drink or drug we cannot stop.

I hope that my story hits home with some of you and shows you that if I can do it, anything is possible.

My life starts unfortunately like most people that have struggled with addiction. I grew up in an alcoholic and drug-addicted family. My single mother was an alcoholic and drug addict and tried really hard to give us a good life. Throughout my childhood, she did her best to make sure me and my brother got to do what other kids our age did. Eventually, after numerous failed relationships, she met a sober man who would be our stepfather. At first, things went great and he tried to teach us to be men. Shortly after, things got bad for me and my brother. 

My mother got sober and got a job as a cook and worked on an army base and was away for weeks at a time. At this point, sexual abuse began. I am not sure if my brother was abused as well, but once this started, my life took a path over which I had no control.

I started to act out at home and at school as well. Finally, Mom had enough of me and kicked me out, I was 12 years old at the time. After two years in foster care, my alcoholic father travelled to Manitoba to bring me back home to Calgary. At that time, he lived with his wife and her kids. My father has struggled with drinking his whole life. Staying with his wife did not last more than a month, so my father and I moved to our own place in Ogden. A month later he and his wife ended up back together and I was not welcomed back. Through all this, I had to keep the abuse to myself and didn’t tell anyone until I was 18. I remained in the place my father had gotten for us for two years until my mom and brother came back to Calgary. 

Living on my own, I ended up quitting school at the age of 12 and started smoking weed. I was living alone, and I had to start work with an uncle roofing. He thought that paying me $4.00 per hour would make me change my mind about quitting school and make me want to go back and get my education. He was wrong, I got a real job as an ironworker at the early age of 14 and I kept that job most of my adult life. Doing all kinds of different drugs and being in and out of jail with my brother between the ages of 12 to 18, my first child Tyler was born. Life was going so bad that I finally broke down and told my family about the abuse that happened to me as a young child.  

I ended my relationship with girlfriend #1, when she cheated on me with my best friend and ended up marrying her best friend. She was a stripper and I thought that my life was going to get better, but I was so wrong. I was introduced to ecstasy and my life fell apart even further after I got married. I was 210 lbs. at the time and five years later, I went from doing 1 pill a day to 26 pills a day and weighed 140 lbs. 

Back when I was 15 years old, my dad stayed with me and my girlfriend at the time from October to April every year until his death in 2005. During the spring and summer seasons he would stay at our family campground working. On June 29, 2005, I received a phone call from my dad telling me to come and get him, because of the flood, and it was too dangerous for him to be there any longer.

Now I will reverse three weeks to when the floods started in Okotoks. During the first flood, STARS Air Ambulance had to rescue 98 campers from our campground. My dad came home for two days and then we both returned to the campground that next week. We were trying to retrieve 500 lb. propane tanks that had been washed away from the campers the week prior, and I got too close to where the river had cut through our campground and was washed away downstream. Luckily, I was able to grab on to some trees that saved my life. One week later I got the call from dad saying it was no longer safe for anyone to be out there.

I took my youngest son Declan with me and headed out to get dad. I was five minutes away when I got another call from dad saying that he wanted me to stop and grab him a 6-pack of Lucky beer, so I did. When I arrived, I was five minutes too late.

My father, uncle and another camper had taken the backhoe to assist ATCO Gas locate a broken gas main when they tried crossing the river where it had cut through the property. The water was too high and was moving so fast that it had thrown the backhoe on its side.

It was too late. The fast-moving water had pulled him out of the backhoe, and he was washed away. It wasn’t until five days later that I went there with a good friend and not 20 minutes after we got there I walked past my father buried up to his shoulders. I didn’t see him at first, and up until that moment I had a bad feeling I was going to find him. I turned my head and there he was.

For the next year, my life went to shit, I don’t think I was clean one day.

From that day on, I would drown my problems in drugs and alcohol.

Then I met the love of my life. We were still using for a bit, until one day we were on our way home and it was snowing, we were pulling up to my house and we slid into my stepdad's truck that day we both decided to stop completely. That day I not only gave up using, I gave up all my using friends.

My life had become 100% better, for 7 years I concentrated on work, my girlfriend and my kids. Eventually, my relationship came to a bad end. Throughout the good times, I built my life up so I would never have to work again. When I ended that relationship, I had no one, I started neglecting what had meant the world to me.

I lost contact with that girlfriend and my family and throughout that time with her, I did not take the time to find new clean friends. I thought, “who needed clean friends anyway, I had a clean girlfriend?”

That was the biggest mistake I made because the only friends I had were the ones I left hanging when I got clean, so naturally I went back to those bad friends. 

8 years after my father died, I completely fucked everything up and was right back to where I was before. I was in and out of jail hooked on drugs and making one horrible decision after the other.

Because of my addiction, I ended up spending almost 5 of the last 8 years in jail. I ended up back there last year. Broken and needing help to get out of my situation while I was now in jail, I had to humble myself to ask my POET officer (prolific offender engagement team) for help. I had well over 200+ convictions and was facing yet another 267 more charges. Constable Jenna, my POET officer told me to trust her and not to go for bail until I had a few months clean. In jail, with her help, we came up with a great recovery plan to take to the judge. I applied to every treatment centre in Calgary and eventually Sunrise Healing Lodge accepted me. I worked so hard to make my bail plan with my lawyer and my POET officer.

Without the help of the ex-wife and my first son on being my surety this plan would never have happened. I was released on August 12, 2021 to Sunrise. I was doing great there, until I decided to revert my will.

Now that is the opposite of what the twelve steps teach us.

When I live in my will, when I take the rains, I royally fuck everything up. I was kicked out of Sunrise because the center had run out of milk for breakfast, and I knew that everyone would be grumpy not having milk for their cereal, so I took it upon myself to rectify that. Fuck was I wrong. The center is strict on this rule of no client donations. I ordered milk via UberEats.  I told the staff what I had done, and they were mad that I broke the rules. They gave me a chance to cancel the order and I did, but nevertheless it showed up regardless.

That morning I was discharged from the program, and breached my bail conditions. I called my probation officer as well as my POET officer and my lawyer and none of them believed that something as simple as that could have gotten me kicked out. It took more convincing to those three, then to the judge who let me out in the first place. With nowhere to go, I had to go to my ex-wife’s house to be sure she and my son were still on my side, and once again I was at square one. I applied to every treatment center again. Now the whole time I was at Sunrise, I was faced with my probation officer having no faith in me. She would phone the center every day requesting that I be drug tested. She told the treatment center that I was not to be trusted and that I would lie to her. I was furious. Here I am trying my hardest to show everyone that I am not that person! I was in addiction! I asked one of the counsellors if she could keep me informed of what was going on with my probation officer. What she told me was that I have to stop living in my will, I have to start living in the will of my Higher Power. She asked me if I would read page 417 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, so I did. I humbled myself when I read it and what it says is acceptance is the key to all my prayers. I have to accept that people, places and things are not in my control. The only thing I have control of is what I can do today to start my day for tomorrow. Though my probation and my POET officer only know me through my addiction, I have to humble myself. They're always going to think of me through my addiction. Unfortunately, they don't know my whole story and I have to prove myself. Fortunately, my POET officer and my probation officer gave me a second chance. I then got into Simon House Recovery Center. I was there for 90 days. It had its ups and downs. I had conflict with a couple of the staff, but every time something bad happened, I kept remembering what my counsellor at Sunrise told me, “read page 417 and read it lots.” Acceptance is the key to all my prayers because when a person, place or thing is not exactly how I want it, I can make it so that I can control the outcome of my treatment plan. I excelled extremely well and the only thing I did wrong was every time I got homework I completed it the exact same day because one of my character defects is I don't have patience… many of us addicts don’t have patience. We want things right now. I graduated from Simon House on December 3rd, 2021.

I am now an alumni of Simon House. I found a Home group I regularly frequent the crystal meth anonymous meetings. I do service work. I speak to people at treatment centers and I speak to people at detox centers. I'm constantly trying to get back what I had before, by giving back what was so freely given to me, by completing this treatment program. 

While I was in jail facing 267 charges, the prosecutor offered me three years in prison. If I didn't take the deal they were going to give me five years. When I talked to my POET officer I told her this situation. I told her I could take this deal and be out in six months and be done parole by the summer of 2022. I have no conditions and have nothing to be accountable for, but I told her I trust you, and I trust what you're telling me. For me I think the best thing to do would be get out on bail, go to treatment and do the best I possibly can through my program and through Indigenous Court, although it will drag on for a long time, I probably won't complete the program at Indigenous Court until the end of December of 2022. Now I've taken on a great responsibility by doing this and even if I completed my program with Indigenous Court by December, I'm still facing a conditional sentence at best. It could be two years, it could be four years. Now one would think, “why would someone do something like this?” Well, I lived on my own will for all my life and I fucked my life up. Now I live on God's will or my Higher Power. I give back what was freely given to me through recovery.

This all started in April of 2021, if everything goes perfect I will be clear in 2025. The gifts of recovery have been amazing. I am now getting my family back in my life. I'm going to school. I'm working with others in addiction. I'm sponsoring people walking through the 12-steps. I may not have a lot of things right now, in terms of monetary value or materials, but what I do have is peace of mind that I live a sober life, and that I'm trying to better myself for my family, my kids and I. Without the help of Simon House I never would have gotten this opportunity. Every day I praise my lawyer, my probation officer and my POET officer for all the help they've given me. What they say to me is, “Richard we didn't do this, you did this,” and they congratulate me. 

My story will never end, I'm an addict and I will always be an addict, but now I'm recovering and life is way better. I hope my story can steer you in the direction of your own sobriety. If I can get my life back through going to treatment and the 12 steps, anyone can do it. Life is possible sober. I read a quote that says “be the person someone looks at to believe recovery is possible.” That's all I ask of everybody who wants help, because if we can show other people that recovery is possible, eventually we are going to curb the disease of addiction. I'd like to thank everyone who has been in my journey of recovery because without them, I would never have been able to help myself. No one can promise you tomorrow, anything can happen, but if we live just for today, tomorrow will come, and tomorrow we will be sober. Thank you for reading my story and I hope it was able to help. I give gratitude for my recovery to everyone that was in my journey and everyone that would be following behind in their journey.

Thank you, Simon House. Thank you, Sunrise Healing Lodge. Thank you, Becky, my probation officer. Thank you, Jenna, my POET officer. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you, Tyler, my son. Thank you, Ryan, my brother. Thank you, Joanne, my mother. Thank you, Tessa, my love, her mother Christa, and everyone else that has been on this journey with me, without you I would have been on this journey alone. Thank you, Tammy, and thank you Shannon. Thank you, Tweak, my dog. Thank you, Kelly, my cat. Thank you to everyone that is struggling. Thank you everyone, because it is true that without you all, I would not be where I am today.