The Current - Canada's women's rugby team is ready to shock the world

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Coming off a shocking upset of New Zealand in last week's semifinals, Canada's women's rugby team gets set to take on England in the Finals tomorrow. Shireen Ahmed, a senior contributor with CBC Sports, talks about what makes this team so special, why women’s rugby is taking off, and so many people are supporting Team Canada — including actor Russell Crowe!

Hi there. Steve Patterson here, host of The Debaters. We're very excited to be celebrating our show's 20th anniversary, and we can't believe our years either. If you're a long-time fan, thanks for being a glutton for pun-ishment. If not, come laugh with us to all the topics you didn't even know were funny until we started arguing about them. Find us wherever you get your podcasts for extended episodes and special behind-the-scenes features you won't hear on any other airwaves. The debater's 20th anniversary season. Comedy worth arguing about. This is a CBC podcast.

I don't know. I just felt like I was getting into this. I don't want to say like a black hole, but I felt a bit like aimless in a way. I felt like life is happening to me. I don't make life happen. Ooh, I feel called out. This is Now or Never. I'm Ifi Chihuetelu. And I'm Trevor Deneen.

And you know what? I would bet other people listening to this are feeling called out because that feeling of just falling into a life that's just rolling along and not necessarily in the ways that you want to. I mean, I think it's relatable. But Darya, she is doing something about it. In January, she gave herself the challenge to completely transform her life in one year. Today is day 249. Last year, I felt very stuck in where I was physically.

I lived in London, and I felt like that didn't really serve me very well. I felt like I spent so much time at home just being unhappy with my life. So I basically booked one-way ticket and quit my job, and now I'm here four months later. Had you ever visited Toronto? No. Okay. I was calling you. I have no idea.

Never even been. Maybe they were telling me that I'll be here at CBC Studio. It was all for this interview. Moving to a new city was just step one of Darya's life transformation. What else is on her list? One, completely changing her body. Welcome to day 30 of starting over at 34. I finally managed to go to the gym.

Great success. Next up, figuring out her career and one day working for herself. Yesterday I met up with a new friend and we spent hours talking business. I left feeling so excited like my brain was buzzing. And finally, breaking her habit of staying at home and just staring at screens by challenging herself to get out. Yesterday, I wanted to do absolutely nothing. But my new friend invited me to go to CNN. Talk about diving into the deep end.

Even when I'm trying to do like one major change in my life, it seems like this impossible task. And I think that that happens to the best of us. We just kind of get stuck in our ways, whether it's holding onto a set of beliefs or flailing about in a relationship for years. You just get to the point where you're like, this is who I am, this is who I'm always going to be. But how do you get out of it?

Well, that is exactly what the people on the show today have figured out or are in the middle of trying to figure it out. How exactly do you go about making a complete, Pleat 180. I'm Ifichi Waitelu. And I'm Trevor Deneen. This is now or never. Okay, now back to Darya Kropop, who is 249 days into trying to change her life in a year.

When you were booking a one-way ticket to start your life over again, And what was going through your mind? So many things. Because, you know, I'm quite anxious person. So for me, I was, like, terrified of the entire, like, getting my work permit at the airport. If everything's going to go well. And then once that, you know, happened, I actually arrived and I got into my Airbnb. I was like, okay, now it actually begins.

Yeah. Now just to change my life. Yeah. Let's do it. Just a tiny little thing, you know. Well, take me to the moment when you first even decided that that was. a thing that you needed to do? I was a little bit depressive, I feel.

I was in therapy, so we had that a little bit under control, but I felt like London overwhelmed me. It was quite difficult to make friends. First of all, it's huge. And you meet some people, and they're like hour and a half away on public transport, and you never see them again. So I noticed that I was being less social than I'm used to. and I was at a job that wasn't really good for me.

And I applied for this work permit that was April last year. And then literally the same day, I quit that job. For three months, I was like, you know what? For my mental health, I'm just not going to be working, just going to focus on myself. I had a little bit of savings. And then when I decided to do this challenge, I was like, you know what? Let's do it for the plot. So you're now on day 249.

what are the updates? Like you had to set out some clear goals. How would you say you're doing? Right. Okay, let's do that. Yeah, this is your report card time. Yeah. I've lost weight. I actually weighed myself yesterday for the first time since March

because I didn't have a scale. I'm not where I wanted to be at this point, but I'm motivated. Like the move to Toronto helped so much because, you know, I just like picked myself up and put myself in a very new environment. So there's so many things for me to like see and do. And I've been super lucky because I have followers here in Toronto and they just message me and they ask me, oh, do you want to go for a coffee?

So I have like loads of friends now. And I'm basically meeting new people every week. And I'm like really excited about that because I know it's such a hard thing to like meet friends as an adult. So that's made it more accessible. Yeah. I mean so much of these are like external actions. Are you feeling changed like inside? 100%.

And I'm going to tell you, like all of this that what I achieved, you know what matters the most, that I've stuck with it. I've been posting my daily videos every day and I've never stuck with anything in my life. I picked things up, did like one, two, maybe three weeks. I forgot about it. I feel like discipline is act of self-love, honestly. And I feel now, I don't want to say invincible, but I feel like, you know what? I can freaking do it. Yeah.

I did this and it's not easy. So, you know what? I can stick with other things. Yeah. It sounds like worlds away from where you were feeling before. 100%. And that's not an easy thing to do because, you know, when you say I'm going to start life over at 35, like there's 35 years before that of having specific ways of doing things and patterns you were falling into.

Have there still been moments that you found yourself like, oh, You know, there's all Daria cropping up. Oh, yes, 100%. I think that because it was like this, my whole life, it's going to be like that. You know what I mean? Like, because I've never had a boyfriend. I will never have a boyfriend. So it's really hard for me to like snap out of that thinking.

And I'm trying to do that every day with like different like mindset techniques. I use like affirmation and I try to meditate. And I feel like that helps. But it's, you know, it's not like a montage in. like a romantic comedy when someone is like, oh, I'm going to change my life. And there's like this fun music. And it's just like everything's go as well. Yeah.

Every day you have to like choose to try. And I feel so many times. Yeah. Well, tell me about like what's been one of the hardest moments since you've made this decision to change everything. I think one of the hardest moment was so I have a baby niece and she turned one last weekend and I couldn't go because I don't have the money to go to Poland. Right. Yeah. I mean, that does make me think about the risks you're taking because as exciting as it is to think that like, can it change my life and be this other version, like there's sacrifices that come along with that. And also you're doing something that doesn't necessarily have guarantees that it's going to work out. Like what are some of the risks that you that are a part of this for you? Oh, financial for sure. Yeah. I'm basically just spending my savings. I don't come from like a very privileged background. My parents. cannot, like, bail me out of this.

I can move back home. And in that way, I'm very privileged because I have still my room there. And my mom, I was talking to her the other day. And she was like, I made so many pickles. If you come back, we can just eat pickles. We'll be fine. Pickles is the backup plan. Pickles is the backup plan.

Exactly. Well, why did you want to do this so publicly on social media? I mean, nothing is stopping you from saying, I want to have all these goals. And I don't want to be accountable to anyone else. and have them know that this is what I'm trying and maybe failing at or succeeding? I feel like there's like a lot of layers to it. One of it is accountability

because I felt like if I'm going to do it publicly, I'm going to be less likely to stop doing it because it's embarrassing. Yeah. Have there been downsides to sharing this moment of like transition and change with people? A little bit is just people having opinions about what I should be doing

and they need like thousand disclaimers because if I for example go out with friends and have a dinner then I have comments of like how are you able to afford that or like people say oh why are you not doing this I do this but I don't have to talk about it

in every video and people have expectations or like they say oh it's been seven months and nothing has changed that would hurt my feelings truly trying to change my life and someone's like seven months TikTok

yeah to be honest It made me laugh because I was like, do you want me to move to the moon now? Like, what's the next best thing that I can do? But sometimes what hurts my feelings, people say, oh, your videos now are like a bit of repetitive or like this is boring. But I'm like, you need to be more realistic about how the change looks like because I feel like there's so much content online being like,

change your life in 30 days, change your life in 90 days. And like the premise is that you can basically overhaul your life and change everything in that short amount of time. So people have very unrealistic expectations because the actual change takes a long time. And it's those, like, tiny actions that you do every day that make an impact. The last thing I wanted to do was to make this video. But here I am, because the truth is, consistency isn't about the days you want to shop up. It's about the days you really don't.

Even if it's messy, even if it's short, even if all I did today was exist and eat snacks in the office kitchen. This is my I didn't quit era. It's never going to be super entertaining. Like tomorrow's video is going to be great because, I mean, here. Very exciting of you in the studio. How will you know that you have transformed that you've done the like 180 turn on your life that you were hoping for?

I can say that I feel like I've kind of done it because I've changed on the inside. Maybe not all the things like externally, but I know I'm going to get there. Now I have the confidence in myself. And I think that internal change is like the most. important because the rest will follow yeah Trevor my conversation with Darya made it into her daily Instagram and TikTok updates did it really yeah we're part of helping her change her life well look at that no big deal we'll share it with you on our CBC now and ever Facebook and Instagram

Darya is choosing to change her life around, but you don't always get a choice around making a 180. Sometimes it's truly do or die. This is our little panhandling spot. Somebody else is there right now. We used to hang on that wall, hang out. See how I've seen. I piled all this rocks in there, and nobody could see me in there.

Like, I had the hill blocking me there. It was a nice spot. Being on the streets, it was a choice I made. The people that are out on the streets are the people I used to use with. People I lived with on the streets in encampments. And the gang members, I used to bang with, that's what they called it, right? I used to bang with it on the streets. They have to take a couple clutches out of us because they're,

where we don't look like the same person anymore. So they're like, oh my God, you know, how do you do it? You know, you shake hands and they're like, how did you do it? You know, then we tell them our story. It took a lot of work and a lot of love for Claudimir to change his life. You're going to hear more of his story later in the show. Today on Now or Never, people doing a complete 180 and not like as a fun skateboard trick, like turning, changing the trajectory of their lives.

And sometimes it takes someone else to point it out to you that a major shift has to happen in your life. And for Jordan Mann and his fiancé Emery Mayther, it was his Toronto Maple Leafs fandom that was becoming an emotional roller coaster that took them both on way too much of a ride. The very first time I went to Jordan's house, his family was watching the Leafs game, just cheering and then yelling at the TV, and that was the first time that I'm like, oh, this is a hockey family, and Jordan's a big fan of the Maple Leafs. I guess I didn't realize the extent of the fan that he was. In a sea of incredibly passionate Leafs fans, as we know out there, I was up there for. For sure. I had watched them since I was a kid.

My whole family, we'd go to my grandparents' house and watch Hockey Night in Canada. And hearing that horned theme song, it just, it still plays in my mind now and again. And it still gives me that nostalgic feeling of that was part of my childhood. It was a part of our family tradition to watch the Maple Leafs. It was very frustrating to be around Jordan when the team lost because I was a part of our family tradition to watch the Maple Leafs. I would come in and I'd be excited to watch this game just to hang out with Jordan and spend time with him. And so when they lost, it would just bring a heaviness to the room. There was a lot of frustration and ranting where I was just there for a good time.

And to Jordan, it's just, it's so much bigger than that for the Leafs to win or lose a game. So I guess after a loss, the night was never the same as before. There wasn't any hope anymore. There was just a loss and a devastation involved. So dramatic, but I get it. Everything she says is true. It does, it would take away from the rest of the night. It's just, there's a negative air in the apartment or the house.

You say it's dramatic, but you're kind of a dramatic person when it comes I have. I think sports in general, and that just, that comes with my competitiveness. I'm a competitive person. I love to win, and I love to give it all I got. I can lose when I know we gave it our all, and the other team played amazing as well. But if I know the team isn't doing all we can to really try, try our best, bring our best selves to the table, then I get frustrated. For Jordan, it's been frustrating to be a Maple Leafs fan for a long time. In 2013, when the team squandered away a four-goal lead in game seven against the Boston Bruins, Jordan burned his jersey.

I'm not proud of it by any means. Not at all, but it was tough. But the biggest turning point for Jordan's fandom was a few years ago, when Toronto choked again in the Stanley Cup playoffs and lost the Montreal Canadiens in the first. round. I think we finished top of the league that year and we were playing the bottom seed Canadians, Montreal Canadians, our rivals from the beginning of time. And we started out hot. It looked good. We went up three games to one. But once again, in Leif's fashion, they lost three games in a row to be eliminated from the first round of the playoffs yet again.

are head at the Winnipeg for the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. That was it for me. It was that series where I watched my team who I'd been cheering for for almost 25 years at that point. I just saw them just not look like they wanted to be there. It looked like they would have rather been on the golf course or even shooting a commercial for an insurance company. It's like when when your star plays, the millionaires that you play to play the game they love look like they'd rather do anything else than fight for the badge on their chest, then you kind of start to question, well, it seems like they don't care, then why do I care so much? And why do I put so much emotion

and passion into this team when they don't? So on the other side of it, I saw the Montreal Canadians, and they fought tooth and nail. They fought so hard every game, and you could see the passion in them you could see the drive to win and it was just like oh like those guys wanted it the other guys just they just gave up so unfortunately I made my choice and I decided to give up to my heart and my emotions just can't take this anymore and I think I can use my time and energy in a more constructive way that's more positive for myself in my life and for those around me Breaking up with the Leafs was hard. It's kind of breaking up with the hockey team is like breaking up with anything,

a friendship or relationship. It takes time to heal. And those emotions you feel off the bat, like it kind of hurts. You're saying goodbye to something you've known for a long time and we're comfortable with in it. And just having that pain in your heart of like giving up something you love, voluntarily because you know it's the best thing for you, it took time to get over it.

So my method of healing from that was just staying away. I didn't watch the rest of the playoffs that year. I didn't watch the entire season the next year. And at the same time, I still had a passion for the sport. So I kind of redirected my energy into playing it myself. I didn't grow up playing hockey. so when I decided to break up at the Maple Leafs and was had all that extra winter time and nights I would go out on the outdoor rinks and just start practicing myself and I would go out

probably five or six times a week and spend two or three hours in the beginning on my own just learning the basics it's really fun to challenge yourself in your mid-20s to to a task like playing hockey I had to learn how to skate backwards. I had to learn how to do crossovers. And from there, I just kept putting in the hours and putting in the hours to get to a point where I could bring a stick into it. And then I could go to rinks that had more active hockey going on and kind of try and participate in the shinny games that would go on. And it really like, it sparked my passion for hockey more than ever before.

I feel very neutral about the Toronto Maple Leafs these days. I can appreciate what the Maple Leafs did give me, and that was a connection with my family, a tradition. That part of it, I hold close to my heart and always will. I have been able to return and watch games, Maple Leaf games, as a neutral party. I'm no longer emotional about it. I watch it as a free agent of the hockey fandom.

and I can just let it go, which is something I couldn't do in the past. I love watching hockey with Jordan now because it just feels so light and it's always a good time and he's researching different facts about different hockey players on other teams. And I just feel like I'm learning something instead of him just yelling at the TV. My advice for these fans going into this current season is to come in with realistic expectations. look at the past seven years remember at the end of the day they're just a team they're the

ones making millions of dollars to not show up and you are the one left on the sidelines hoping that hoping and wishing that they would play better for you and and the the team that you love so if you're thinking about stepping away from the team give me a call we can we can stage a stage a Leafs fan intervention for you. I always put that offer up to my brother every year when I see him super disappointed when they inevitably get eliminated. So just give me a call. We'll help you through it. If you want to see photos of former Superfam Jordan with his brother at their first ever NHL game. You can check that out at CBC.ca slash now or never. And he also wrote a nice little article as well about his whole experience being a former super fan. Go to cbc.ca.ca. slash

now or never. Hey, I'm Gavin Crawford from the podcast, because news. It's a show where I ask comedians questions about the news of the week and they try their best not to answer correctly. This week we play a game called Two Truths and AI. Delve into some forgotten baseball slang as we cheer for the Jays, and I'll ask the panel, which entertainer is refusing to perform in America this year. Join me, Martha Chavez, Alice Moran, and Miguel Rivas,

three comedians who are not worried about getting yoinked off the air because they made fun of the president. Get Because News, wherever you get your podcast, which I'm presuming is here. I am Ifi Chihuahueh Tewu. And I'm Trevor Deneen. And today on Now or Never, there is nothing that has stayed. the same because we were talking to people who found themselves doing a complete 180

changing the course of their life at melanie chambers 50th birthday a few years ago she went all out she booked a venue hired a DJ and brought together her closest friends just felt so good on my 50th on the dance floor blue lights going across my face and my partners face, Paul. Here was someone that I was so crazy about. You know, we've been together already 10 years as partners and then a year as friends and then it just felt like the pinnacle, you know, like I felt like, okay, if I'm going to die, it can't get better than this. In the middle of all the music and the mayhem kind of cocked my head to a side and I just said, will you marry me? And he said yes.

Do you know that feeling, Trevor? When you're feeling so good, you just spontaneously propose. Yeah, in the middle of a club. I love it. I love it just being swept up by the mood. But this is not Melanie. Because for years, she vowed that she would never get married. If you'd asked her a few years ago what she thought of one day being someone's wife.

That's me choking. No. God, no. so how do you go from gagging at the thought of getting married to completely changing your mind about something as personal as marriage turns out it takes years the biggest thing that ever happened to me was my parents getting divorced at the time it was it was huge it was life changing it was horrible seeing the the two people that you loved most on the planet um really just separate in such a such a way

And then my mom really struggled as a single mom. She took on some odd jobs. I know that she thought that, you know, with marriage and it had been really ingrained in her, that when you get married and you get the house and the children, you know, that's the package. And she tied so much of her identity into getting married. And when it collapsed, I think she lost herself for a long time. I mean, at 13 and as a teenager, I never really understood, I just thought I was different. I was the only kid from a single parent household in my neighborhood.

And I felt on the periphery of things. And so the divorce just instilled in my mind that marriage was a crappy deal for women. I wore a lot of back. bridesmaids dresses they were they were just cookie cutter style weddings the the ones that I never wanted and then sure enough years later those friends got divorces and it was like a repeat of my mother's marriage in a way you know that the moms had they left the house and they had to struggle to get alimony or they took the kids on and I just like oh this is a crap deal for what no way uh-uh when i became a travel writer and would travel months on end

uh it it seemed like it would be impossible to to have a traditional marriage um you know i would go to certain countries and people were like well why you know where's your husband and and i the more that they asked that the more i kind of got angry and i'm like why what am i not enough What do you need to know? And then the partner I was with at the time, he thought that I traveled to escape. And the subtext of his comment was that I was broken. Paul Reynes changed my mind about a lot of things.

He's an engineer, so he has a certain kind of mind. And yet when I saw his house for the first time, he had the most eclectic art collection. He had books I'd never even heard of. Like he had so much feminist theory books. And I thought, wow, this guy. He just loves going and meeting people. And then he introduced me to techno and it's a place where people were wearing costumes. And I remember in my early 40s, you know, I'd never dressed up. You know, I had partners that thought it was silly and immature to dress up. And all of a sudden, I'm walking into these venues where people are just like, it's sparkly and it's boas. And I remember turning to him and saying, I can't believe

no one told me about places like this. I just, I came alive. And he early on said to me, Mel, you let your freak flag fly. And I just remember thinking, really? Like, you want to hear. all of it and he just he takes it all in and I never met anyone so sweet and kind and accepting of other people's differences. Turning 50 was big. Turning 50 was like the months leading up into 50. I make a lot of lists in my life. I have post-it notes everywhere and I don't know if I actually put marriage on the list, but it was it was in my head. It was something. I wanted to do. I knew we could make up how we wanted our wedding day to go. I knew we would make up the rules of our lives. And I just felt like I wasn't going to be suffocated or I just

knew I wouldn't feel like my mom had felt like it wasn't my identity. And this wasn't everything in the world to me. But this was a big part of me. He's a big part of me. And I, I wanted our friends to celebrate in it. You are my heart, my hero, my greatest joy. I'm profoundly grateful for this chapter in our lives, and I vow to love you deeply and truly for all that we are and all that we will become. Call, my boo, my moon and stars.

But before we begin, I have one word, mewage. In some ways my wedding day was traditional, My dad walked me down the aisle. I thought the idea of your father giving your way was icky. It just, should there be a dowry attached to this? Like, should Paul get some cows? I did. I just, it was so old-fashioned. And, you know, I was so stubborn at first. My dad and I didn't have a discussion about it. But I just, I knew that he would be proud that I was doing this thing. And yeah, it just felt right. You know, I found a burlesque dress with beads, and I had a red fascinator that was in my hair.

We celebrated at a Mexican restaurant in Kensington Market. My friends played techno music, and there was some Barbara Streisand thrown in there for, you know, the older people at the wedding. And we partied in until 4 in the morning and walked home when the sun was coming up. It felt like bits and pieces of me. It felt like Paul. Well, I had never had any desire to get married or be married. It was very easy to make Mel happy. I wasn't expected to feel any different about our relationship.

But I do, and it surprised me. There is something tangible to the marriage, and there's a permanence to it and acceptance that this is who I'm, with. And Mel is definitely a hero to me for sure. She's got her shit together. She knows how to take care of herself. She's independence and she's an inspiration to be for that. It does feel different. I just feel like I'm part of a pack now. I'm in the wolf pack. If I can quote the thing over it in my wedding, yeah. Melanie and Paul just celebrated their one year anniversary.

Very cool. Melanie wrote about her change of art for us and we'll share it with you on our website, cbc.ca slash now or never. Say barn to fish streetlings. Hi guys, what's going on? As Claudimir Bigotty walks up to an encampment under the bridge on the banks of the Red River in Winnipeg, he's surrounded by tents,

garbage bags, litter, shopping carts. It looks like the people that have been living here have been here for a very long time. It's a beautiful day underneath here. Underneath the bridge. But that changes today, because the people living here have just been, been housed by St. Bonifist Street Links, the charity organization that Claudimir works for,

and he's here to help them move. It's a big job. Wow. But just two short years ago, it was Claudimir who was living in an encampment just like this one. The people that are out on the streets are the people I used to use with. People I lived with on the streets in encampments. And the gang members, I used to bang with, that's what they called it, right? I used to bang with them on the streets.

They have to take a couple clutches at us because we don't look like the same person anymore. So they're like, oh my God, you know. How you do it? You shake hands. And they're like, how did you do it? You know, then we tell them our story. So you might be asking yourself,

how did Claudimir go from gang involved, addicted, and homeless to working, sober, and housed? And what does it take to really change? especially when life starts out hard. I lived a rough life growing up. I was roughly about seven or six years old when I had my first drink. My parents are both residential school survivors.

They were both alcoholics. It was like we didn't have a guardian. It was like we took care of ourselves. We never had food. in the house, right? So our clean clothes and survived on cornflicts and porridge. Like to this day, I don't, I hate that stuff because that's all I used to remember eating. Life started hard, but it just got harder. By his teens, Claudimir was living in Winnipeg. He followed his brothers into a gang. And at 18, he went to prison for stabbing an undercover police officer. The officer lived

thanks to a bullet-proof vest. But this began Claudimir's cycle in and out of jail. And his criminal file is as thick as a stack of books. I was always going to jail, and I'll only be out two months, a month, sometimes an hour, sometimes a day. And I go back in. I was an addict, so I had to do things to get my drug-in-choice. I would steal.

I would rob, I would sell drugs. I always had a place to stay, you know. I always had couches to sleep, a room that was given to me because of the things I did, you know. I knew how to make money. And it was a dishonest way. I didn't care. That's how all my friends lived.

And I was really good at it. I just, one day, I was so fed up. tired of doing all this uh this bad stuff doing what the gang members wanted you to do right I decided to live the way the people I met on the streets were living because they were there were kind people being on the streets it was a choice I made this is our little panhandling spot somebody else is there right now we used to hang on that wall hang out. See how I piled all this rocks in there

and nobody could see me in there. Like I had the hill blocking me there. It was a nice spot. This is the boulevard I used to panhandle on and when I was doing that I seen DJ coming from up there. First time I met Claude. He was on the boulevard and I was wondering

who that was because I never seen him around. before and so I asked Skinny Bird and he said that that was his cousin, Clodomir. Hey man, I told her him, I told him in his year, I ate. It's going to be my wife something man, you know. There was love at first sight, yeah. So I was like, oh, fresh meat. I was definitely interested in him the first time I met him. She's the one that showed me how to find the good bins, you know, the good bins and where the good butts are. That's funny. really suburban neighborhoods that I would have been because a lot of people throw away perfectly good things. At the time when I was in the problem, that would make me really happy

because I'd be like, yes, I got something I could sell today for my fix. So we had all these spots all over the city. Like there's, I don't think there's an alley that we've never gone down. This is a spot. Dejee built. This is our old camping ground. Oh, this, we had our doorway there. But that's, this was our spot. So, you know, I first met Claudimir Bigotty on the riverbanks. Dieter kind of, I could tell that she and Claude were kind of an item,

but she's the one that wore the pants. She's the one that carried the big stick, right? She would try to, you know, to sort of keep Claude in line. Hi, my name is Miriam Willis, and I'm the founder of the founder of and the executive director of St. Boniface Street Links and this lovely flagship program, Morbrook House. This just looks like any other house on the street. And when you walk through the door here, you just think you're in somebody's home, right? This de-institutionalizes recovery. For a lot of people, it's the first safe place they've maybe ever had. It's about creating a whole new

family, a supportive family, where you're kind of all in this together. Claude has always had a wonderful sense of humor. The transit shelter was their home. And then when our team would try to move them out to transit shelter, well, then they'd just move down the riverbank and build an encampment there. And we'd get them out of the encampment. And then they just choose some other place to build an encampment. And we literally played this game for years. We housed Claude and Deidre a couple of times. And both times, they trapped out their homes almost immediately. Claude was very, ah, I'm good, leave me alone. I'm kind of good out here.

You know, I got my friends. And so he just seemed to be easygoing, just kind of rolling with life on his terms. Anything that said alcohol on it, we sniffed dustblasters, we drank hairspray, We drank hand sanitizer. I wasn't on fentanyl yet that time, just meth and alcohol.

I shouldn't say just meth and alcohol. That's a different, that's a different rodeo. The fentanyl thing, like that stuff really, really wrecks you. It's the insanity, the insanity of the addiction. You know, there was a lot of times we didn't get along because we were too high. or there was we wouldn't get along because we were dope sick

and we needed to get high once the two of them began using fentanyl oh my gosh to watch that decline was hard to watch it was painful to watch and you just knew that neither one of them was likely going to

survive this that we always expected to hear that one or the other or both had overdose from fentanyl I mean, the amount of fentanyl they were using. It was horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. We just kept saying that it doesn't have to be this way. Like we're here. We're going to help you with this. We'll get you on Suboxin. We'll do whatever we need to do. It really, it doesn't need to be this way. He remembered that. And there came a point for Claudimir when I think he realized that death was the next doorway.

and I don't think that Cod wanted to die because if he died, then what happens to D-Dry? I know about some people getting permanently psychosis where they get stuck and don't come out of it, so I knew that in the back of my head and I didn't want that. As when I decided, you know, I got this stuff is killing me. So I decided to go and try and detox myself by going into an encampment and detoxing myself.

I thought that was the way to go, but then the psychosis just got even more intense. This is when I started seeing my wife being kidnapped in front of my eyes and broad daylight. I chased the figment of my imagination, and they were going into the building where I followed, but the doors were locked, And the doors were all made a glass.

I smashed it in there and I went in there and broke, I guess I broke into the place. And decided then and there, you know what, I am going crazy. So I just sat there and waited for the cops. Cops arrested me and I'm thinking this is the right choice to go get myself locked up. I was done.

I wanted change. I wanted family. I didn't want to be bad anymore. I didn't want to hurt anybody anymore. I wanted family. I wanted my daughters. I wanted my son back in my life. I wanted what everybody else wanted

that were doing great, you know, a job, a home, a bed to sleep on some stability. While I was in Headingley, I called, I called Marion. And he was ready to come to Marrick House now. And I think I said to him, you know, Claude, you didn't really need to commit a crime to come to Marburg House. The door has always been open here. They got me a room.

I got introduced to everybody that was in the treatment center. Those people became my best friends. It was still tough because those voices were still in my head. And there was times where I felt like I can't do it. my wife was still on the streets and I was I was worried so much about her you know I'd walk up to the end of the driveway and look down the alley I was I was numbing the emotions that I I like the things I never didn't tell anybody I missed my family I have a son and I missed a great deal of his life because of my

addictions and I noticed and throughout my adult life that there's many rock bottom, different levels of rock bottom. I was just really, like, I was tired of it, but I just, it was hard for me to make that first step to ask for help. I think I was, uh, three months into my sobriety. I have an uncle that, uh, conducts sweat lodges. He found out I was in morbid house, and he came get me one day and he says, you're coming to a sweat lodge with me. So he'd come get me every Sunday, you know, go to sweat lodge. And this is when I started praying really hard, putting tobacco down and asking, you know, create her to reach into Deidre's heart and, you know, tell her to, you know, sober up.

So let her know that I care, you know, and sure enough, I had one of those sweats when I was on my way back to Morbord House. I get a call. It was Deidra saying, okay, I'm ready, you know. I told him I was done. I told him I don't want to live like this anymore. And he told me, okay, we'll come to 604 tomorrow. That's the safe space. Marion and Michelle sat us both down on the couch,

and they gave Deidre heck, right? And if you want to sober up, we'll help you and we'll do everything we can to help you, but you guys got to do your own separate treatment. You guys might not want to get back together because you guys want different things. I couldn't really speak because I was crying and I'm thinking this is a lot to take in. I didn't really understand it at the time, but now I do. That's exactly what we had to do.

We had to concentrate it on ourselves while we were getting better. While I was in detox, I tried hard to get into treatment centers. It just felt different. I honestly, I still sometimes had little doubts, but the more than that, time went by, the more I felt free from, like, my old self. So the first time when my son came to see me in BHF, I was happy, and I was thinking, like, to myself, like, I want more of this. I want, I want this connection in my life again, like, and I don't want to go back to the way I used to be, and I don't want to let that control me anymore.

After months of some of the hardest work imaginable for both Claudimir and Deidre, they were ready for their own apartment together. Marion arranged for a second floor, one bedroom apartment on a tree-lined street, not far from the bus shack where they once lived. This is our balcony here, like we got the birdhouse and you had a couple of birdhouses here. I got the birdhouse from the thrift store down the street. What she learned from VHF, I think. was keeping your place clean because this place is spotless 24-7 it's always clean the

beds made you know clothes are folded the laundry doesn't get piled up what I love about my home um I like the area that it's in I like having a like a little balcony I like feeding the birds I like having my cat here I like being able to like cook I like being like to do my laundry I can't picture like not having a home I'm making a smoothie and first ingredient is berries and cherries.

She's amazing cooked this past summer I found out I was diabetic so now no more salt, no more sugar so everything in our fridge is all healthy food and now I'm eating right and lost 20 pounds

in the past since the summer Mmm. Yeah, they're really good. Whoever thought Claudimir would be drinking smoothies with protein power and yogurt and, you know, fresh berries. I never thought that. We all like to think that, wow, well, this is a unique story. It isn't, to be honest. You know, we all have tremendous capacity to change.

And that if we could show more of that commitment to others out there, If we could be take the time to hear them, not judge them, hear them, take baby steps with people, you know, try to meet those needs and stick with them through the long haul. Just don't give up. You just don't give up. So yeah, I'm graduating this year. I want to get into mental health and addictions. Like I want to be like a support worker. I want to be an example that like, hey, you know, you can change. Because I honestly felt like I was stuck like that. I honestly felt like I was going to die the way I was living before. And I didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Today, like I want to be that change. I want to set a good example that change is possible. You have to really want it. It's hard to do it on your own. You've got to be willing to ask for that help. When I was an active addiction, I didn't open up to anybody. anybody. I didn't talk to anybody. I didn't tell anybody my problems and and I used to numb that pain and I just want other people to know that there's other ways, there's positive ways

to deal with that dead. There's people out there that care. Claudemir is sober two years on October 23rd and Deidre is not far behind. And that song you were hearing right now, Stand by Me, that holds a special place in their hearts because it was their marriage song. They got married this August, surrounded by friends from street links and family, their kids were there, their parents were there, including Claudimir's parents who are now sober as well. We're going to share some photos of their special day. day over on our CBC now our Facebook and Instagram pages. Special thanks to our team

of producers. We all put the show together this week. Sarah Tate, Sam Rui Johannes, Bridget Forbes, Jessica Singer, and Moira Donovan. I'm Trevor Deneen. And I am Ipichi-chi-we-Telu. We'll see you next time. slash podcasts.