1. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br />Canadian Centre for Abuse Awareness<br />Southwestern Ontario Office<br />38 King Street East<br />PO Box 66614<br />Stoney Creek, ON<br />Glenn Allan, Director<br />905-594-1581<br />Glenn Allan found his voice and is living out loud. Now it’s Southwestern Ontario’s time to do the same.<br />Hamilton, ON – April 7, 2010 – For Glenn Allan, living out loud means finding your voice and taking a stand against physical, sexual and emotional abuse and substance addiction. His weekly call-in television show, Living Clean, is a platform for creating moments: moments of clarity, moments of compassion and empathy, and moments of truth. Rather than thinking of it as a television program that reaches an audience of more than 3.8 million viewers, Allan sees Living Clean as a service geared towards individuals in Southwestern Ontario who are dealing with addiction, abuse or mental illness issues. It is a service that helps individuals to find their voice, reach out for help, work on their addictions and the underlying reasons for their addictions, while also regaining and maintaining their self worth and dignity. <br />(more)<br />In addition to Living Clean’s overall objective of providing information, encouragement, support and accessible community resources to viewers, it also provides its audience with a host who has been in their shoes. A survivor of childhood sexual assault and a recovering addict himself, Allan knows that “discovering that someone else has or is experiencing a similar addiction or health concern often helps viewers identify and not feel so alone. In many cases it puts individuals at ease and allows them the opportunity to open up & seek assistance”. <br />This is an essential first step in the process of finding a voice, moving beyond personal trauma and living clean. <br />As an adult, Allan, like many victims of abuse, turned to drugs and alcohol to help him forget the years of sexual abuse that he endured at the hands of his sports coach. With incredibly limited resources available to male victims of abuse, it is no wonder that Allan’s addiction eventually spiralled out of control. “Throughout my addiction, friends and family constantly told me that I was going to die”. And that was exactly what Allan wanted. “For me, all hope was gone. During that time I was also diagnosed with sleep apnea and I would go to sleep every night and lie on my back in hopes that I’d die. But then I got it”. What Allan got was the realization that he was worth something and that he needed to find his voice, talk about what happened to him as a child, and locate the assistance that he needed in order to move forward. “Recovery is life or death, which is important to remember, but it doesn’t have to be doom and gloom. This is one of the many things that [Living Clean’s] viewers need to know. It is difficult, but it is fun too. In recovery is where I learned to laugh again”. <br />(more)<br />For Allan, the key to helping his viewers is to ensure that resources are made available to the individuals who need them, at the moment that they are ready to use them. This is why he is so passionate about Living Clean. “Often times our guest speakers are recovering addicts and/or survivors of abuse or mental illness. They show that it is possible to make it through. Our guest speakers are the ones who provide hope to viewers who are suffering”. <br />The show itself is a conduit that helps its audience to identify with the guest speakers, find their voice and talk about their issues and hopefully connect with the resources that will help them move forward in a positive manner. “If Living Clean can help someone finally ‘get it’, then that is a true sign of success”. Unable to really describe the process of getting it himself, Allan emphatically insists that Aerosmith’s song “Amazing” says it all. “Whenever I see someone who finally knows that that things will be ok, when I see that they get it, I go home and play “Amazing” over and over and over again. “It’s Amazing—With the blink of an eye you finally see the light—It's Amazing—When the moment arrives that you know you'll be alright”. A humble man, Allan erroneously views his role in this overall process as a relatively minor one. “I’m not the star of the [television] show. The real stars are the people that call into the show. They are the ones starting to get it and that is what’s important. I’ve already had that moment; that moment when everything clicked and became clear and I understood”. The callers are the people who’ve found their voice and have started to make a change. But thanks to Allan and Living Clean, individuals from across Southwestern Ontario now have a platform on which to live out loud. <br />(-30-)<br />