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Youths get inside story on drugs, sexting at police forum by Michael Gregory Oakville Beaver Staff 5 | Thursday, December 18, 2014 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com A conversation about sexting made Oakville high school students anxiously squirm in their seats and fall silent as the topic turned to teen suicide and drug addiction. "The fun went out of drug use the day I got hooked. The fun went out of it the day I couldn't say no and I had everything," addiction counsellor and radio personality Mark Elliot told teens representing 11 schools who were attending last week's Oakville Youth Symposium. The inaugural event hosted by the Halton Regional Police Service and Optimist Club of Oakville brought together Elliot, Toronto Police Constable Laurie McCann and local peer mentor Korey McDermott. "You make the decision about whether or not you want to be right, or whether or not you want to be high," Elliot said. "If you think you might have a problem ­ reach out...I can't help anybody who doesn't want help." A prominent music journalist in the late 1970s and 80s, often doing drugs with the rich and famous, Elliot was eventually fired from his job by a boss he now credits with saving his life. "My self-esteem, hooked on cocaine, was in the little bag that I kept in my pocket," he told the attentive crowd. "I know I should have died. I know that it was because of someone who cared enough that I was able to make it to recovery." And while Elliot can say that his recovery more than 20 years later still rests on the decisions he makes from day to day, he can also say without hesitation that he's found a skillset in speaking to people about addiction. "There's something special about one addict working with another, which is that if you can be as hopeless and crazy as I am, or was, and I can do this, then you can do it too ­ you can make it," he said. Similarly, Korey McDermott has found renewal in helping The Halton Regional Police Service hosted the Oakville Youth Symposium at Halton Regional Police Headquarters last week. At left, Mark Elliot, host of News Talk 1010 CFRB radio's People Helping People, was a guest speaker as was Toronto Police Constable and social media expert Laurie McCann. | photos by Eric Riehl ­ Oakville Beaver (Follow on Twitter @halton_photog or facebook.com/HaltonPhotog) others overcome the mental health struggles that saw him expelled from school, be institutionalized on two occasions and attempt suicide at age 13. "I'm like a chemical reaction of my previous experiences," he said. "I live to serve...I find that my purpose in life is to speak to people, to really connect with them." He's now a community volunteer and peer mentor with POSSE -- a youth-driven harm reduction program in Halton -- and is enrolled in Sheridan College's social worker program. Elliot has been sober since 2011 and fostered an inner faith to manage life's challenges without the need to be medicated with antidepressants that left him feeling like a "pharmaceutical guinea pig. "Today whenever I feel like the world is on top of me, I know I have the ability to take responsibility for that," he said. "Freedom is the ability to choose the cage that I live in and I recognize that no matter what's going on, there's always a choice." Social media expert and Toronto Police Cst. Laurie McCann then tested the teens' knowledge of how much information they are unknowingly sharing with strangers on popular websites and apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. "It's not a totally secure thing when you think that picture just disappears," McCann said of Snapchat -- a photosharing app that allows users to temporarily receive media from others before it disappears off their phone. "It (the photo) has to go to a server that is owned by Snapchat. Your last 200 Snaps are saved on that server...so if we police officers need to get those photos ­ we can." The popular app has gained notoriety amongst users who use it to send and receive nude photos -- otherwise known as sexting. "It's all fun and games until it ends up on the Internet," McCann said. "If you take that pause (before sending) and you think, I don't know if I should, then you probably shouldn't." According to statistics gathered by U.S. clinical psychologist Dr. James Wellborn, and included as part of McCann's presentation, 60 per cent of teens who sent nude or semi-nude photos do see Always on p.14 THE GYM NAUTILUS Est. 1982 Convenient, clean, and friendly. We're Oakville's best kept secret! High quality weight training and Nautilus cardio equipment. Experienced and mature personal trainers. Carpeted, air conditioned with ample natural light from large windows. Free indoor parking. INJURED? I Can Help! 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