​Major Theme: Recovery is Learning
Message: Never Give Up
Takeaway: Inspiration

​

Introduction – Education Through Experience

Hello, my name is Frances Stone. I am a Canadian Certified Addictions Counsellor with the lived experience of over ten years of sobriety, mothering three children into young adults and building a career in the addiction recovery field. I have had the opportunity to enjoy many creative ways to help others such as self-publishing my creative nonfiction memoir, “A Reflection of Love – A Different Kind of Love Story,” co-creating a radio show called Talk Recovery Vancouver, and founding a nonprofit organization with the mission to engage, educate and empower mothers in recovery from the effects of drug and alcohol misuse by increasing access to community, education and resources that decrease intergenerational trauma, develop recovery capital and support the maintenance of long-term recovery. I have also worked as a support worker in treatment centres, mental health facilities and as a CCAC Counsellor in private practice and public institutions.

​

I am grateful for the opportunity to pursue higher education by striving to complete the Bachelor’s Degree in Adult Education at the University of the Fraser Valley. My hope is to utilize my education and experience to build my private counselling practice in creating an online addiction recovery platform that educates, inspires and connects clients, learners, and stakeholders in the addiction recovery field through my coaching, counselling and consulting services.

Through my lived experience as a mother that has overcome addiction, mental illness, trauma and poverty, I am passionate about creating inspirational and educational opportunities to empower the mothers in the TWC Family Recovery Services community. My hope is to help inspire mothers experiencing similar challenges to focus on a growth mindset to create a life of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment from adversity. Most importantly, I hope to inspire people who struggle with addiction and mental health to focus on learning, and never ever, ever give up on themselves and their right to recover.

​

As an experiential learner, I am grateful for my life lessons, and their wisdom. Every struggle, adversity and obstacle has helped me learn, grow and transform into the person I am today – my authentic self. My passion is to help others do the same. 

​

This is my story…

​

Early Learning – The School of Family and Survival

Informal Education Through Family and Faith

I was born with a job. The first thing I learned in life was that my job was to save my stubborn Irish father’s life from alcoholism after he lost his three children before me due to his drinking. He needed me to be perfect. My job as my Indigenous Catholic mother’s eleventh child after a shameful divorce was simple – she needed me to be worth the effort.

By three years old, when my birth failed to change their lives in all the ways they had hoped, I was left with an emotionally distant mother and no father to validate my existence. Their shared dream of a second chance at life and love with my birth, had died with my father’s return to alcoholism. I internalized their disappointment as my responsibility, wondering “What did I do wrong?” but nobody talked about the past, their feelings or anything but Jesus, tasks and to do’s.

 

This unresolved thought process created an unconscious belief system within me that to receive any form of love, attention, validation or approval, I needed to work hard and be a good girl, which would in turn create the foundation for a life of intimate partner violence, workaholism and burnout. Addiction, in its varied forms, became the way out of the disappointment that no matter how hard I worked to be perfect and worth it, I could never be enough to change the past, or save anyone but myself.​

​

The Beginning of Control

My early home life was quiet, boring and simple. Growing up, my mother was a strong, stoic and hard-working woman that was involved in her community. She served in leadership positions at her Catholic Church, in her garden club and as the matriarch in our family. I learned about my mother’s faith, the Bible and Jesus’ teachings through church, catechism and a program for teen girls, Calvinettes. Mostly, I learned that it was important to be good, but now how to be good, and that God loved me like my own father, from very far away.

All my brothers and sisters left home when my mother married my father, except for me, my older sister and our mom. My mother valued community service, volunteerism and helping others, so I did too. I volunteered at school as a receptionist, tutor, and babysitter for my brothers and sisters. I would also work Saturdays as a cashier for my handsome, successful older brother Mike at his pet food business. All these positions taught me administrative, organizational and customer service skills. Work made me feel proud of myself, a feeling I truly enjoyed.

​

Everything changed when Mike got in a motorcycle accident and returned home with a heroin habit developed through an addiction to prescription pain pills. He lost his business, marriage and the admiration and respect of his family. It wasn’t right, but neither was how his addiction brought people, places and things into my world that completed changed my life. I hated him for it. The safety my mother had created in the absence of my father was destroyed. I silently resented that she was willing to help my brother with his addiction, but not my father with his alcoholism. Of course, we never talked about that, or anything. My mother and sister coped by retreating into their own worlds, and I focussed on the one thing I could control: hard work as a way out of this life and into a better one.

​

Adolescence – Achieving Goals

Working for Identity

When I entered high school, I gave up on my family. When my oldest sister introduced me as her half-sister, a title I had never considered to be my own, I felt rejected, manipulated and betrayed. I said nothing. I simply stopped babysitting for my family and decided to change my life by focusing my ambition on becoming popular in high school. I had seen the movies. I knew the formula. I would need to lose weight, get cool clothes, a decent haircut and learn how to make friends. To do that, I would need money.

​

We always had enough, but nothing extra. If you wanted anything extra in our family, you had to work for it. I had always worked for free, but I needed to figure out how to get paid. I invested in my myself by earning my St. John’s babysitter’s certificate and was hired as a sub-contractor for a national babysitting network. Then, I noticed my brother Mike had a wall of boxes of carnival inspired candy poles. It was old stock from his pet food store that he used to give away to the kids. I took one to school, and people wanted to buy them. My entrepreneur mindset was born with the opportunity for a potential win-win for my brother’s imposition in my life. We made a deal. I made a lot of money, and a lot friends.

​

I started baking birthday cakes and hosting parties at my house every weekend. I saw the power creating friendships through hosting events and celebrating others. My mother would let me have parties in exchange for cleaning the entire house top to bottom – a massive undertaking, but well worth it. People wanted to be my friend. In one year of high school, I felt empowered by my ability to impact change in my life through creativity, resourcefulness and hard work. But there was a hidden cost to popularity, peer pressure.

​

Learning Hard Lessons

I thought I was smarter than addiction. That what happened to my brother, would never happen to me. In Grade Nine, I started to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and experiment with drugs with all my friends. My new friends and I started our own business, a successful shoplifting ring. I used my entrepreneurial skills to manage the team. I argued with my mother about God. My father stopped visiting me. My family said I was a spoiled brat. I didn’t care. I was popular.

​

After years of working hard without receiving one “good job” or “I’m proud of you” I stopped seeking their approval. I would never be good enough, and I didn’t care anymore. I learned friends, money and a common purpose felt better than I ever did in my life. This began a journey of giving up my true self, in exchange for no longer feeling alone and unloved. At the time, it seemed like a fair trade.

​

Adulthood – Learning Through Motherhood and Crisis

The Education of Personal Responsibility

I never wore a cap and gown. After high school ended, I moved in with my older sister and her family to attend a semester school to receive my graduation. I loved being a part of a normal family. I had my first boyfriend, and first real job at McDonald’s, leading to a job as a waitress. For a little while, I was happy. Then I started partying again, and it all fell apart. My boyfriend broke up with me; my friends left me and my father died. I moved back to my mother’s house and stayed in my pyjamas and a deep depression, for months. Then one day, my brother Allan offered to help me get a job where he worked, at Canada Safeway. I said yes. Once again, work gave me hope for a better life.

​

During my 20-year career at Safeway, I worked in the floral, bakery and front-end customer service departments. I attended cashier school, customer service school, and union school. I enjoyed working in the bakery and floral departments because I could be creative, with the autonomy to organize my time and tasks, while being a part of the pivotal moments of people’s lives. I also organized the front-end department, which was busy, challenging and rewarding. I enjoyed being a Shop Steward, learning about union rights, and how to support and advocate for my fellow employees because I loved my job, especially the people. They felt like family. I made great money, bought my first car, a little yellow convertible, and moved into my first place. For ten years, I felt lucky to work there. Until life changed again.

​

Turning Point

Becoming pregnant at 25 years old was a pivotal moment in my life. It was the first time in my life I faced the question of who I am and what I believe. The relationship was not stable, so keeping my child was not a logical or practical choice. It was a leap of faith, and my first step towards a belief in someone other than myself.

​

I did what I thought was the right thing and moved in with the father. I had no idea how much my faith would be tested and strengthened through this relationship. I kept seeking God and working hard to be perfect, worth it and good enough, so I could create the family for my child, that I always wanted for myself. I didn’t even know I wanted a family, until I became a mother. But if I was going to do anything, I was going to try my best. I wouldn’t give up like my mom. I would work hard and achieve my goal. That’s what I told myself until one night, he went too far, and I couldn’t stay. My mind refused to think or feel, but my body woke up the next day and left him. The hardest lesson of my life was to accept that the only way to change the past, was to learn from it, and let it go.

​

Motherhood as a Mirror

I moved back to my mother’s house, then with a family member. I worked part-time at Safeway and started attending Sprott Shaw Community College to become a Legal Secretary and Administrative Assistant. I didn’t even know how to type, but I could learn. I could learn anything, even how to be a perfect single mother. I didn’t want to be a party girl. I wanted to be a good mom, like mine – but better. I read lots of books. My house was always clean and organized. Being responsible for my son’s life gave me a sense of purpose and value I had never experienced. I knew people would judge us, and I wanted to prove them wrong. I had never been more determined to succeed in my life.

​

I worked hard at school, work, organizing, cleaning and managing my son. I was always stressed and busy. I didn’t know this was because I could not stand thinking, feeling or being alone. I never talked about the trauma I experienced in that relationship or tried to understand why I was there. I didn’t want to think about the past. I wanted to erase it. I never talked about my feelings. I only knew how to control or numb them through working, organizing, or escaping with substances.

​

Addiction Recovery – A Catalyst for Growth

The Problem

I began a double life of going to bars alone. This is when my drinking started to scare me, because it was the opposite of who I wanted to be, but I couldn’t stand being alone. I moved closer to my two sisters and tried to reconnect with family, but I just couldn’t. I didn’t feel like myself, so I needed to work harder. I started doing stand-up comedy. I loved it. It was the first time in my life that I learned how to express what I was thinking and feeling.

 

If I was funny, I could say anything, and people would listen to me and validate my thoughts, feelings, and ideas with their laughter. I felt seen. I felt hope. Desperation brought me the gift of knowing that if I could find the courage to speak, people would listen. Until that moment, I didn’t know that about myself. It made me think about what I wanted to say, but I didn’t know. The feeling of finding my voice and being understood was a much better feeling than what I got from drugs and alcohol. I chased it.

​

I started sharing my son’s time 50/50 with his father, so I could pursue my career in comedy. I loved comedy, but not seeing my three-year-old son for a whole week did not feel like success. I had run out of ideas of ways to fix my life. School didn’t work. Comedy didn’t work. I still had my union job, but now I struggled with customer service because of my trauma response to conflict. I felt like I had become a different person. Nothing worked to fix me. I was more than broke, I felt broken. I wanted to give up. What was the point? I had run out of ideas, and had no direction. I was all alone. My life felt hopeless. I began to drink too much. I felt like a failure. I hated myself. This was my bottom.

​

The Solution

I started going to a self-help group called “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. Every morning, I started to write three pages of semi-conscious writing. I got out of my head, stopped trying to fix everything and got into my heart and felt my feelings. That was the hard work I needed to do. As I did, I felt freedom. I had a spiritual experience of feeling loved by God.  Seems so simple, but that feeling that I wasn’t alone gave me the power to feel my feelings and change my life.

I felt inspired to write my story, and that began my sobriety journey. I tried to understand and follow this love feeling and followed the rules of my Catholic God back to my traumatic relationship, thinking submission to a life of feeling unloved, was God’s will for my life.

​

We had two more children eleven months apart. I thought I ruined my life, but it was the beginning of a new life. I always wanted to succeed, but I never wanted to learn how to change. No matter what obstacle I faced, I never felt alone or hopeless again. Whatever happened, I always knew a loving God was with me and on my side. All my shame at being imperfect was replaced with curiosity and a desire to learn about God and recovery. As my mind, heart and life changed, I wanted to help others. The world seemed a new and exciting place, full of possibilities. But I still struggled with fully committing to a life of sobriety, and I didn’t yet know why.

​

Vocational Education – Becoming the Professional Helper

Recovery Work

In 2009, my mother helped me financially self-publish my memoir, A Reflection of Love – A Different Kind of Love Story, about motherhood and the spiritual experience that inspired me to try to change my life. I learned about the process of writing, editing, publishing and marketing a book. Through her actions, I also learned that my mother believed in my dreams, even if she never said it out loud. We all show our love in different ways.

​

In 2013, I held my mother’s hand as she left this world. I promised her she didn’t need to worry. I would fully commit to my sobriety. We would be okay. My world stopped, but I had to go on. I needed to take responsibility for my life, my children, and my sobriety on a whole new level. My mother was not going to save us anymore. I pursued my dreams like my life depended on it. I started volunteering for Vancouver Co-Op Radio and pitched an idea for a radio show about addiction recovery. Within a few months, Talk Recovery Vancouver, a show about mental health and addiction issues, debuted on Vancouver Co-Op Radio with Last Door Recovery Society. 

​

Becoming a voice on the radio opened doors to advocate for single parents. I was excited about the opportunity to share my personal lived experience as a single mother of three children experiencing poverty and outlining ways the government could help through First Call BC’s: Child Poverty Report Card. For the first time, my life made sense.

Next, I was approached to be Vice-President of The Single Mother’s Alliance of BC (SMA), a non-profit organization with a goal of advocating to stop the claw back of child support payments from single parents on social assistance. Through this experience, I learned about the power of politics, storytelling and advocacy. In 2015, this policy ended in British Columbia, which set a precedent across Canada for single parents receiving social assistance – everywhere except Alberta, Canada.

 

Canada Safeway offered a buyout and I decided to risk going to Vancouver College of Counsellor Training (VCCT) to be an Addictions Counsellor. After one year, I graduated from VCCT and became a Client Care Worker at Westminster House Society, a women’s addiction recovery program in New Westminster, BC. 

​

During this time, I started a Facebook group called “Mother’s Recovery Tribe” (MRT) to connect mothers in recovery from addiction, mental illness, trauma and poverty with each other to increase access to support and resources, and advocate for change. At this time, our family decided that it was in the best interest of our three children that they move in their father. Without children to mother full-time, I poured all my love and attention into turning the MRT Facebook group into a non-profit organization.

​

In 2018, I became Board President of Mother’s Recovery Tribe Society. It felt like a dream come true.

​

Work. Work. Work.

I began working at Coast Mental Health’s Recovery & Rehabilitation Program at səmiq̓ʷəʔelə on the Riverview lands in Coquitlam, BC. I was responsible for the delivery of gender specific, trauma-informed care for people who may have or had experienced homelessness; severe addictions, mental illness, trauma, family, cultural and /or community disconnection, involvement with the criminal justice system, physical health and behavioral issues.

​

Due to COVID-19 and the overdose crisis, MRT began providing daily Zoom meetings to support its members with relapse prevention. I stepped down as Board President and became Executive Director of MRT. I applied for grants, and we received funding from Red Cross Canada to provide relapse prevention programs for our members. Through these programs, our MRT membership grew by 43% and we wanted to help fathers too, so MRT became Family Recovery Society of Canada. Our goal was to help support the whole family in recovery to know they are not alone, there is hope, and recovery is possible.

​

One of the programs provided, “Relapse Prevention From an Indigenous Perspective” reconnected me to my Indigenous identity. Because of my transformative experience within this program, I was the first person in my family to be approved for Indigenous status, and many more have followed. Being acknowledged as Indigenous has been a healing, transformational experience for my entire family. I have learned so much about our Okanagan Syilx culture, community and sovereignty. I attend Chief and Council meetings regularly and met a hundred cousins for the first time last summer. One day, I hope to own a home in our community. I believe it will be on our land that I will reunite with my mother’s spirit.

I was accepted to serve as a member of the Public Advisory Group (PAG) for the səmiq̓ʷəʔelə / Riverview Comprehensive Community Planning Process. We were collaborating on a vision for a place of excellence in mental health and addiction care on the historic grounds

 

Unfortunately, from this experience I learned about the power of bureaucracy and red tape. I hope this vision will move forward one day.  

​

In 2022, I stepped down from my role as Executive Director of MRT and accepted a position at The Salvation Army’s Harbour Light, a men’s treatment centre in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, BC.

​

In my role, I created programing, facilitated daily groups, and provided 1:1 counselling. I loved teaching and returned to post-secondary education at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) to pursue a degree in Adult Education.

In June 2024, Family Recovery Society voted to merge with TWC (Together We Can Addiction & Recovery Education Centre) and became “Family Recovery Services.” I am grateful to remain a passionate volunteer for the mission of creating services, supports, resources and community for parents to break the intergenerational cycles of addiction, mental illness, poverty and abuse in their families.

​

Today, I see my past struggles as the foundation for the learning and success of my future. In my work, my strongest asset is my lived experience. Through recovery, I have learned to create a life that I don’t seek to escape through addiction. My passion is to help others experience the same empowerment through inspiration and education.

​

With my education, my hope is to move into a teaching role to “help the helpers” while I build an online addiction recovery platform through YouTube to market my coaching, counselling and consulting services. I also want to create a podcast to talk about how current events impact those advocating for change within the system. My greatest hope is to utilize my education & experience to help others who are struggling to achieve and maintain sobriety and mental health to change their lives, and the lives of their children. If I do that, I will consider myself and my work to have been a success.