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The Faces of Youth Addiction

Nathalie – Saved from the streets

There are about 9,000 teens in Ottawa using drugs, half of them on a regular basis. Youth addiction often leads to prostitution, petty theft and other crimes.

Nathalie is one of these teens. But she’s more than a statistic; she’s a girl with a troubled past who’s trying to move on.

After Nathalie’s parents divorced when she was seven, her mother started a new relationship with someone who was emotionally abusive. At 12, she was raped by a friend of her brother. Because she had been drinking, no one believed her story — not the police, not her family and not her friends.

“I turned to drugs,” says Nathalie. “They were my friend — or so I thought. Trouble is, I just got deeper into dope, and I was hanging out with the worst kind of people who lured me into prostitution and supplied with me drugs.”

Yet something inside of Nathalie wouldn’t let her completely destroy herself. She reached out to a treatment centre for francophone teens who, like her, are battling addiction issues. Through a United Way Ottawa-funded program, she was able to finish high school and has her sights set on becoming a veterinary technician.

Nathalie loves animals and volunteers with the SPCA. She does horseback riding and enjoys spending time with her family when she’s not working.

For the most part, Nathalie has stayed sober and clean since early this year. While she has relapsed a couple of times, she gets really upset with herself when she does. “I was fed up with the life I was living and the risks I was taking,” she says, and “that past life brings up so many negative feelings.”

“I wanted the help, so I got it,” she says. “If I didn’t, my life would have been ruined and I would probably be living on the streets right now.”