Chelsea Norris’ dreams of being a marine biologist or veterinarian are shattered.
The 22-year-old lives with memories of trying to suffocate her dog, wanting to hang herself, hooking her friends on drugs and attacking her mom.
But even with all the despair rooted in her crystal-meth addiction, she knows she’s one of the lucky ones.
She got out. She’s alive.
And, she has a message: “I hope what I went through will keep you guys from using.”
Three years ago, Norris shared her story in Death by Jib, a video produced by Peace Arch Community Services to show youth the realities of the drug and its impact.
Now, she’s using a face-to-face approach, working with White Rock RCMP in a program that has her recounting her experience in front of Grade 7s – students who are only a year or two younger than she was when she first tried crystal meth.
“They are kind of our future,” Norris said of why she got involved in the education program. “I’ve made some poor decisions over my years. I don’t want to see these kids do the same thing... go through all the same things I did.
“Even now, I’m still paying for it.”
The school effort, which started last year at Peace Arch and White Rock elementaries, aims “to prepare kids for Grade 8 (and) all the pressure (to try drugs),” school liaison Const. Glen Roberts said.
Earlier this month, Roberts appealed to Gioia Breda’s Grade 7s not to follow Norris’ path.
“She was just like you,” Roberts told the White Rock Elementary French Immersion students, as Norris waited beside him to tell her story. “It can happen to any of us. Nobody ever grows up and says, ‘I want to be a drug addict.’”
Norris told the pre-teens how a new group of friends she’d met in high school introduced her to meth, told her it would help her lose weight and boost her confidence.
Soon, the Semiahmoo Secondary student was lying to her mom, selling drugs to support her habit and lacing the drugs she was selling with crystal meth in the hopes of hooking new customers.
At a time when others were thinking of graduation, she wound up living with a drug dealer and found herself on the street. She came within a hair’s breadth of resorting to prostitution.
Norris got out largely because her mom, Jane McLeod, refused to give up on her. McLeod found a treatment bed for her daughter in Prince George, and happened to broach the opportunity to the youth at the right time – she was broke, alone, hungry and homesick, and she realized she wanted to quit.
Norris has been clean for five years now, but lives every day with the knowledge that if she gives in to her still-lingering cravings even once, her story will take a negative turn.
“I wouldn’t come back. I liked it too much,” she told the students.
The message hit home.
“I knew it was bad, but not that bad,” said Veronica Greven of crystal meth.
Greven, 12, said hearing directly from Norris “helped more” in realizing the horrendous impact doing drugs can have than watching a video on the problem.
Her classmate Mackenzie Satterfield agreed.
“I knew it could really affect your life but I didn’t know how much it could affect you, destroy your life,” he said. “To actually see someone that came back from it (after) everything that happened to her, I find it really amazing.”
Greven and Satterfield both said Norris’ talk combined with other drug awareness education they’ve had has boosted their confidence in their ability to say no to drugs as they look ahead to high school.
“I was kind of scared thinking of how I might get pressured,” Satterfield said. “I already know most ways to try and say no.”
Said Greven: “When I was little, I always thought, not me. I realize now every single person you know will get asked (to try drugs). You just have to come straight out and say no.”
Norris hopes to one day go back to school. She knows it won’t be easy, and that she’ll have to find different dreams. Problems with memory and the ability to stay focused – more side effects from her addiction – are an ongoing challenge.
“I’m kind of limited because I don’t want to set myself up for failure,” she said.
She works three jobs, largely to keep herself busy and avoid “hibernating,” that lonely place where she “hits the wall” and slips toward depression.
Norris knows she is making progress. The slim, pretty redhead can face her own reflection in the mirror now without cringing in disgust at her appearance; she knows she needs to focus on continuing to recover and she recognizes she may always struggle with feeling OK with who she is.
“Before, I was a little bit lost, I didn’t know my purpose,” she said, noting she tries to focus on working, preventing bad decisions and just being happy.
“It’s more accepting myself on the inside. I turned to substances because I didn’t like who I was on the inside and out. Probably, I’ll always kind of be like this (but) I’m getting better. What I want basically right now for myself is to respect and appreciate myself.”
Roberts described the road ahead of Norris as a tough one.
“She’s had to give up on (her dreams),” he said.
But she can still make a difference.
“Talking to these Grade 7s, if I can make an impression on them, scare them away from this... They have so much to offer.”
