Growing up in the Boundary Road area of East Vancouver and North Burnaby, I can easily relate my experiences as a teenager to the youth of today and talk about how I overcame challenges and ultimately made better decisions. I was not the greatest kid growing up, my friends were several years older than me, and I was always trying to prove myself to them. I grew up in an area where there was lots of crime, drugs and opportunity for a young man to get into a lot of trouble, I made some very poor decisions when I was young.
My family life was very dysfunctional, addiction had sunk its claws into my parents many years before I was even born. Several police responses a year to my home for domestic complaints was the norm, and I only assumed every family had these same issues. When I started high school the Ministry of Child Protection Services took control of my life, and separated my family, that was the first time I could see the opportunities that were available to me, like a cloud was lifted. That was the moment when I found the strength to accept that I was responsible for my own actions. I stopped getting into trouble, I started boxing, playing hockey, lacrosse and football and my grades went through the roof and I started working really hard on who I wanted to be, and on becoming a better person. Those teenage years were tough for sure, lots of challenges, but there was so much growth and I can clearly see how my path was shaped looking back now that I am an adult. Once I broke away from the peer pressures of that group I had referred to as my friends, I was able to focus on sport and a whole new set of healthy challenges .
You are a product of your past, but it does not define who you are or where life will take you! That is one of the powerful messages I share with teens; the life and the opportunity that is right in front of them and how they can start striving for what they want and who they want to be. You can go around feeling sorry for yourself, or you can make a plan and wake up every morning and start your day feeling positive about yourself. You can chose to feel like a victim, or you wake up feeling excited about what each day has to offer. It was hard work to stop feeling sorry for myself and my past certainly did have a strong influence on me now that I look back. However, through sport and understanding how to become unattached from that negative life, I was able to move on.
CHANGE IS A CHOICE
I was very fortunate to have landed my boyhood dream job and became a Fire Fighter. It took a lot of work to get there but it was like “winning the lottery” for me and my family in the end. My experience as a first-responder gave me EVEN more insight into the challenges youth face today and I look to relay the outcomes of poor decisions made by young people which I have responded to as a Fire Fighter. Understanding and admitting that I have depression was very difficult, but walking out onto a stage and talking about my journey is therapeutic. I aim to interact with my audiences in a way that points them in the right direction and pushes them to a new way of thinking when it comes to depression and anxiety. I am also a father, my daughter just graduated from high school and my son just graduated from university. Both kids have given me new perspectives on the stresses our kids experience and why someone might choose to use party drugs or other illicit substances to cope. I use those skills I have developed as a father and a first-responder to coach and mentor kids in schools through discussions that engage teens in discussing decision-making when it comes to drugs and driving.
Working in one of western Canada’s busiest Fire Departments unfortunately presents some very tragic outcomes when it comes to seeing incidents involving teenagers. I have a choice to block them out of my mind and move on, or share those experiences and try to prevent just one more from happening again. That is my goal; to make a small difference with a kid who has not tried party or illicit drugs, and explain the dangers cannabis and alcohol abuse. How to show someone what to do when their friend has overdosed, or is so intoxicated that they cannot maintain their own airway. Friends are everything in a teen’s life. I encourage kids to take a good look at their friends; I ask them to assess where they are in life and also give them some skills to be able to deal with an emergency situation and more importantly the knowledge for them to protect themselves and their friends from the dangers of drugs and alcohol.
TRUE FRIENDSHIP IS NOT ABOUT BEING THERE WHEN IT’S CONVENIENT, IT’S ABOUT BEING THERE WHEN IT’S NOT !
I would love the opportunity to book my presentation and to speak to your Managers, School or Organization, please contact me on my main page, or send comments on my Testimony page for inclusion on this site. I look forward to hearing from you.
MEET STEVE’S FAMILY at traveltheworld.ca a website he made detailing their 1 year adventure through over 40 countries in 2005.
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