My Story Becomes
The
Our House Story
Norm Sharkey, Author, Sanity365: Daily Help for Sane Living
The Story Continues . . .
On my return to Ottawa from Spera, I borrowed some money and bought a small gift
shop on Kilborn Avenue, The Serenity Shoppe. I went to Recovery meetings at night and would meet
teens who were trying to get clean but were not having much success.
Every few weeks, I would take a few
of them to Spera for a weekend so they could experience the Program there. We
would talk on the way home about the need for a "Spera" program in Ottawa, and
feel frustrated that it wasn't happening quick enough. There were three other
guys who were particularly eager to have a Residential program, so one day, they
put a rent deposit on an old row house apartment, called me to look at it, and
the next day, 14 February 1977, we moved in.
We shared the expenses four ways, and
went out to talk to addicts on the street at night. We offered anyone who was
interested a place to stay and help to get clean. In the summer of 1977, we
moved into a large brick house on James Street which my brother owned, and the
program really took off.
We had an average of twenty-five
residents and very few seriously eager to change. As a result for four or five
months we had a constant turnover of people. We were the first program for drug
recovery in Ottawa and also the first Co-ed residential program in Eastern
Ontario.
This was a hot topic in the Recovery
community, and many wild stories made their way back to 101 James Street!
Over the next three or four years,
our success rate began to climb as we developed The Our House "Recovery Values" and our
In-House staff gained more and more experience on the job.
Funding become a problem as
our staff got married and had their own responsibilities, so by the early
nineties, we discontinued our Residential Program.
We developed a training and
mentoring certification program for proven two-year-clean graduates of the
Our House program. After a course of study and on approval by the Board of
Directors, they can receive their OHC designation -Our
House Counselor.
This unique program trains addicts
who are finding their way clean for at least two years to be able to set up
meetings, and counsel others who will come to them for the proven Our House
Way of life. Several such satellite Our House programs
are in operation today right across Canada, and we are working daily
to expand this outreach.
Many of us have maintained contact
over the past ten years and often talk about another Residential Program, but
how to finance it was always the stopper.
We hope we may have found the
answer with the success of this book!
The citizens who are addicted, or
have family members or friends who are, and the "Main Man", will decide that, by
voting with their pocketbooks.
To order your copies of
Sanity365:
Daily Help for Sane Living
securely online,
click any 
link, including this one!
