Troubled Teens Resources

Teen crisis intervention is most affective when it is delivered from a person who has walked in the shoes that their teen audience is presently walking in. Former addicts intimately know the territory that a teen drug addict must navigate . They quickly recognize excuses and rationalizations because they have made them all themselves thousands of times.

Sometimes an ex-addict’s face and eyes tell a story that no other visage can communicate. No matter how unnecessary and useless the horrific pain caused by addiction may be, the hopelessness, fear and soul exhaustion felt by an addict is innervating and real. Troubled teenagers, broken by addiction, will instinctively recognize the signs.

“Mason used to be a heroin-addicted bank robber, which led to incarceration inside Milhaven Penitentiary, and a string of other Canadian and U.S. prisons.

“If I wasn’t using drugs I wouldn’t have turned to crime to feed the addiction.”

He survived 15 years in the joint, witnessing “all sorts of crap”– including murder.
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After he got out of prison, the Southern Ontario native managed to kick his drug habit and better understand the root of his addiction. He later studied to become a specialist in addictions recovery.”

Mason conducts ‘field trips’ that he calls “Kids on Skids”, touring teens at risk through neighborhoods that are ravaged by teen age drug abuse and crime.

“[The addicts] know the kids are down here for an education before it’s too late and they end up on the Downtown Eastside,” he says. “This is hard-core reality. It’s ugly back there.”

Some of the kids on the tour are as young as 11 years old. He hopes the tour will change their life trajectory.
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“Their eyes are open; they’ve seen it; they’ve smelled it and they’ve walked through it.”

(Source)