Seek Help
Receive Love
Heal Within
Our hearts are a door to everything. . .
By Kathleen
Teaching Sewing
at John Volken Academy
A Door To Everything Society was so thankful to discover the therapeutic community in Surrey that John Volken (former owner of United Furniture Warehouse) has created for drug and alcohol recovery for young people.
Meeting the students at John Volken Academy has been a delight
and teaching them sewing has been amazing!
With much gratitude to Ingeborg from Bowen Island,
the students now have an industrial sewing machine to work on.
Thank you, Ingeborg!
Spa Day for Students
from John Volken Academy —
West Coast Wishes Artisan Collective
Shear Bliss Hair Studios
& A Door To Everything Society
West Coast Wishes, artisan collective, 120-1425 Marine Drive, West Vancouver
A Door To Everything Society in collaboration West Coast Wishes Artisan Collective, 120-1425 Marine Drive and Shear Bliss Hair Studios, 155-1425 Marine Drive in Ambleside, West Vancouver provided a fun day of hair cuts and manicures for the female students from John Volken Academy, August 12th, 2018.
Shear Bliss Hair Studios, 155-1425 Marine Drive in Ambleside, West Vancouver
West Coast Wishes,
Artisan Colletive in Ambleside,
West Vancouver!
West Coast Wishes is an exciting new venture created by Linda Marshall, board member of A Door To Everything Society and long-time event planner, formerly of Whistler. This new venue is in the heart of Ambleside at 120-1425 Marine Drive, West Vancouver, British Columbia.
Linda offers wedding and celebration planning, decor rentals, balloon installations and welcomes inquiries for custom decor & floral designs to suit any party or corporate event.
West Coast Wishes is also an amazing gathering place
for local artisans to showcase, market their wares.
John Volken Academy:
Therapeutic Community
for Drug and Alcohol Addiction
In 2014, John Volken, founder of the John Volken Academy was awarded the Dalai Lama Humanitarian Award in recognition of his outstanding work creating three therapeutic communities for drug and alcohol addiction recovery.
He has constructed academies in Surrey, BC, Canada, in Seattle, Washington, and Phoenix, Arizona with his own wealth.
Each academy has conjoined work environments for the participants to have on-the-job training.
Recently, A Door To Everything Society had the honour of touring the John Volken Academy in Surrey, BC, as well as the 60,000-square-foot work environment for the students, Price Pro, a retail outlet selling groceries, household goods, and furniture.
We were really impressed with the incredible dedication and care that has gone into this academy for ones who are struggling with issues of addiction.
The Compassion Road:
Depression, Suicide and Hope
Lately and not so lately, well-known people who we call celebrities, are committing suicide. . .
As one who has struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts for much of my life, and fear of talking about it, I’m finally coming to see that speaking up could lighten the load.
My heavy load, when I’m in the throes of an ‘episode,’ is I want to end my life, I want to give up. Everything appears futile.
I spiral into a place of despair, hopelessness — repeated unloving mind statements about my self — patterns that feel very hard to overcome.
I’m far far far away from my heart and the peace, Love, joy that is present there. I can’t stop reliving past trauma with fear of the future. I dissociate from my joyful everyday self.
My thought patterns are of sorrow, hatred, limitation, fear, control, that huge sense of futility.
Usually I hide this behaviour, somehow get through it, and don’t talk about it because of the shame I feel.
Lately, though, I’ve spoken a little more, slowly coming out of my cave of darkness, with a great deal of Divine Help.
How to Talk to Our Kids About Fentanyl
It’s important to talk to kids about drugs and alcohol when they’re young. A University of Alberta expert recommends starting to talk about the subject with kids as young as seven years old.
Start with these three messages. Then focus on the delivery.
By Lesley Young, March 29th, 2018
https://www.folio.ca/how-to-talk-to-your-kids-about-fentanyl
There’s no magic pill for talking to your kids about drugs—a conversation that is more important than ever given all kinds of street drugs are being laced with fentanyl, a new deadly entry to the market.
“Sometimes parents don’t talk to their kids about drugs because they believe they’ve taught them to make good choices. For other parents, there’s ignorance about the risk, especially when it comes to fentanyl,” said Troy Janzen, an educational psychologist at UAlberta. “They don’t know the opioid is everywhere, and that the amount of two grains of sand can kill you.”
Of the 343 people who died from fentanyl overdoses in Alberta in 2016, roughly 10 per cent were under the age of 19. The overall number of overdose deaths in all categories is likely higher but currently unknown due to data backlogs, said Elaine Hyshka, an assistant professor and addiction specialist with UAlberta’s School of Public Health.
She said talking to your kids about drug use, and establishing strong bonds with them, are an important determinant in whether the children will ultimately engage in risky behaviours like drug use.
With that in mind, here are three things to focus on while talking to your kids.
A Poem by Janine:
I Wrote This for YOU
I wrote this for YOU
By my SElf
What if……
I am living heaven on earth right now
What if……
My heart was exploding with love for All that IS
Right now
What if……I knew what I felt to be true
What if……
Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s
Opiate Epidemic
http://www.samquinones.com/books/dreamland/
In 1929, in the blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a company built a swimming pool the size of a football field; named Dreamland, it became the vital centre of the community.
Now, addiction has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America — addiction like no other the country has ever faced.
How that happened is the riveting story of Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic.
Acclaimed journalist Sam Quinones weaves together two riveting tales of capitalism run amok whose unintentional collision has been a catastrophic opiate epidemic.
The unfettered prescribing of pain medications during the 1990s reached its peak in Purdue Pharma’s campaign to market OxyContin, its new, expensive — extremely addictive — miracle painkiller.
Meanwhile, a massive influx of black tar heroin — cheap, potent, and originating from one small county, Xalisco, Nayarit, on Mexico’s west coast and independent of any drug cartel — assaulted small town and mid-sized cities across the country, driven by a brilliant, almost unbeatable marketing and distribution system.
The Forgiveness Road:
Facing into Pain
In British Columbia, Canada, 1422 people died from drug overdose, in 2017.
“According to the B.C. Coroners Service, of those victims, 82 per cent were men, 88 per cent were alone in a residence at the time of death, and over half were 30 to 49 years of age and Fentanyl was detected in 81 per cent of the total fatalities.” (1)
Mostly men are dying alone in B.C.
What does that say about our society?
Stigma, connected to drug addiction, is forcing men to do drugs alone, not reach out for help?
Sorrow, anger, fear. . . not understanding the correlation between healing and feeling. . . facing into the pain. . . not numbing with drugs. . .?
Drug Trafficking Facts
Extreme drug abuse, addiction to pain, is prevalent around the world.
Worth billions in illegal trade, the major drugs – methamphetamines (meth), cocaine and heroin – have been wreaking havoc individually and collectively for years.
Another narcotic, fentanyl, about 100 time more toxic than morphine, is being mixed with cocaine and heroin, imported, and sold illegally with tragic consequences.
Here are some facts about fentanyl according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police website (1):
“Fentanyl has been mixed with other drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
“It has been used in tablets made to look like prescription drugs.
“Overdoses have occurred where individuals were not aware they were consuming fentanyl.
“It is odourless and tasteless, and therefore hard to detect.
“It is often found in powder, pill, liquid and blotter form.
“2 milligrams of pure fentanyl (the size of about 4 grains of salt) is enough to kill the average adult.
“Unintentional exposure to pure fentanyl – touching or inhaling – can cause serious harm including death.
“Fentanyl-related deaths have been increasing in Canada.” (1)