Clr. Natalie Harris Opens Up About Her Struggles with Addiction

For the fifth installment of Life Stories, host Christine Nayler, co-founder of Ryan’s Hope, sat down with Barrie Ward 6 councillor and mental health advocate Natalie Harris at a conference room of Gilbert Centre, a non-profit supporting people living with and affected by HIV and the individuals and families from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) communities.

Nayler, who provides support for people facing addiction, asked Harris about the stigma surrounding the addiction that “people have a stereotype or an image of what a person that uses drugs looks like. And typically that image that people have in their head is someone that's uneducated, that's homeless, that's using drugs in a back alley somewhere. And you yourself struggled with substance use issues, and you don't fit that stereotype.”

Harris, who worked as an advanced care paramedic, said “substance use and addiction is a disease that affects anyone, and I really didn't think in my life that that would affect me.” 

In 2012, Harris suffered from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to her work as a paramedic. “I was really using alcohol, eventually to numb pain that was coming from an undiagnosed PTSD at that time from calls I did as a paramedic. And so I was starting to have a lot of nightmares and night terrors,” she told Nayler. 

Harris also talked about the impact of addiction on her family. “I was just so concerned as to why this is going on, I would even yell myself awake. And my daughter was in the next room, and she heard me and she even heard me sleepwalking. And I don't remember that, obviously.” 

Nayler and Harris both talked about peer pressure to drink alcohol, a gateway to hard drugs. 

“Alcohol is the sneaky one because it's so accepted by society,” Harris said. 

 “It's almost like something's wrong with you if you don't use right,” Nayler responded. 

Watch the first part of the interview.