MONTREAL – It’s a big day for Madeleine Morin. She, is graduating today.
“I’m feeling pretty proud, it’s a really big day for me, it’s like graduating high school,” said Morin, a Portage drug rehabilitation centre graduate.
“Instead I’m graduating my positive lifestyle.”
Hers is no ordinary graduation. Morin’s milestone? She’s been drug-free for two years.
Morin is one of this year’s 176 graduates from the Portage drug rehabilitation program, something Morin says has turned her life around.
“I heard birds singing and it wasn’t the same sound as before,” said Morin. “Everything was more like… More pretty, more positive,” she said with a wide-brimmed smile.
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Sarah Desrosiers-Legault is graduating from the six-month program.
For her, this moment is all about honouring courage and perseverance.
“It’s a recognition of how hard I’ve worked to get here, it just brings on a lot of gratitude,” said Desrosiers-Legault.
“Realizing that I am able to do this it kind of reminds me of where I was before and where I am today.”
“Where she had fallen, I didn’t see any way out,” said her father Karl Legault. “I’m so glad and so grateful that Portage was there to be able to offer her this program.”
The ceremony, conducted at the Theatre De Maisonneuve at Place des Arts, is not only a celebration of what has been achieved, it’s also a reminder of what can be done.
In the audience, there were also those still battling with addiction.
“For them, it gives them a sense that yes, I can make it, I can achieve, I can do this next year, I’ll be the one on stage” said Seychelles Harding, Portage’s director of communications.
It’s a stage that lays the foundation, for students like Morin, to build their dreams on.
Morin’s already planning her next graduation.
“I want to go to CEGEP, go into special education,” she said, full of enthusiasm. “I want to help people that have drug addiction see life like I do right now.”
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