“I binge drank through my pregnancy,” says Janet Christie, matter-of-factly. “I really loved drinking. I knew when I was pregnant that it wasn't good to drink. I was so ashamed. But I had no one to talk to about it.”
Sitting in a sunlit corner of Vancouver's Westin Bayshore Hotel, Christie has agreed to talk about being the birth mother of a child with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder on one condition: that she can continue folding brochures throughout the interview, small pamphlets advertising her services in training addiction recovery coaches. With that settled, she launches into the full story of getting sober 23 years ago. “I was one week sober, I'd found a recovery support group, and the phone rang. It was the police. They had caught my son, who was 12, in a crack shack. I didn't even think he played with matches! This was my introduction to recovery.” > > > > Read More
