'I thought I drank like everybody else': Recovery Day brings stories of hope to Toronto

Under the banner of Sober in the 6ix, Recovery Day in Toronto on Saturday featured music, performances and stories of hope.

Two medical professionals talked about addiction, and there were demonstrations of how to administer Naxolone, a "life-saving" medication used to block the effects of opioids.

Annie McCullough, a former DJ originally from Toronto, has helped found Recovery Day Canada, an event that aims to offer solutions to people with active addictions. She started drinking when she was 14, drank for 23 years, and stopped in August 2008.

Nine years ago, McCullough blacked out from drinking. She came from a family where drinking was common, but she knew "normal people" didn't black out. The experience frightened her and that "point of reckoning" prompted her to begin her recovery from addiction.

Recovery is about 'finding who you really are'

"For me, denial was a huge component of it," McCullough told CBC Radio's Here and Now on Friday. 

"There was nobody talking about addiction in my family, even though I grew up in a home that had a lot of alcoholism in it. And because of that, I didn't actually know I had a problem.

"I thought that I drank like everybody else, until I blacked out one night, realizing that normal people, people without a drinking problem, do not black out from drinking. That was enough to scare me and get me into recovery."

"There's so much more to recovery than just giving up that substance. It's about finding and discovering who you really are," she said.

Event aims to offer solutions

Econoline Crush, a band, performed. Lead singer Trevor Hurst is in recovery and works as a nurse helping a Manitoba First Nation fight addictions.

The day is not just about raising awareness of recovery, but also giving people a chance to talk it about openly, she said. 

"For a very long time, people have remained silent about their recovery. What we try to do with Recovery Day, and events like it across the country, is show people that there is hope. There is a possibility of recovering from this disease. There isn't a cure, but there is a solution," she said. 

McCullough said there is a huge stigma around addiction as well as around recovery, despite all the work that has been done to raise awareness about mental health and mental illness. 

"It's almost as hard to say that you need help, as it is to be able to raise your hand and say, 'I'm a person in long-term recovery,'" she said.

And anonymity, as in Alcoholics Anonymous, doesn't mean keeping quiet about recovery, she said. 

"The message really needs to get out — hope and recovery is possible."