After sharing heartbreaking stories about the sexual abuse he suffered as a teenager, his battles to overcome drug and alcohol addiction and the day he put a loaded pistol in his mouth, former NHL star Theoren Fleury offered a simple message to students from Olds College and Olds High School.
"Asking for help is the greatest gift you can give to yourself.î
Speaking before an audience of roughly 300 people at the Ralph Klein Centre on March 13 as part of a mental health awareness event, Fleury, who helped the Calgary Flames capture the Stanley Cup in 1989, told the students that anyone battling addictions, depression or other mental health issues has to be honest with themselves and others before recovery and healing can begin.
"You're only as sick as your secrets,î he said, adding if a person is struggling but doesn't want help, there's nothing other people in that person's life can do.
Over the course of an hour, Fleury walked the gathering through his early life on the Prairies and in B.C., his parents' addictions with drugs and alcohol and his discovery of his love for hockey when he was five years old.
It was at the age of six, the gathering heard, when he joined an "amazingî hockey team in Manitoba that Fleury developed a work ethic that would one day allow him to reach his goal of playing in the NHL.
"That's where I learned the importance of winning,î he said, adding he was "willing to die in order to winî and anyone could accomplish any feat if they compete at their best every day.
But even as his dreams for hockey greatness were coming true, Fleury experienced a personal horror in his early teenage years when Graham James, then a scout for the Winnipeg Warriors, raped him 150 times over a period of two-and-a-half years.
Fleury said he was left with "real deep emotional scarsî from the abuse and he struggled with shame, guilt and anger.
When someone offered him beer at a high school party, Fleury said he became an "instant alcoholicî and even though he could play hockey at a high level thanks to thousands of hours of practice, he was only ever "half a person.î
His addictions eventually led to his expulsion from the NHL and Fleury said he pushed away most of the people in his life.
Despite numerous attempts to treat his addictions in New Mexico, he couldn't stay sober because, he said, he didn't really want to be sober.
"When you're not ready, you're not ready.î
At one point while living in Santa Fe, Fleury said he was doing lines of cocaine and drinking heavily and eventually put a gun in his mouth.
With the "gun rattling against my teeth,î he said, something snapped in his head, telling him he had never quit in his life and at that point, Fleury decided he wanted to live.
When his son Josh called and said "I need my dad back in my life,î Fleury decided to return to Calgary to rebuild relations with his family.
Yet he still struggled with substance abuse until, after a fight with a woman he was with, he ended up on his knees in a bathroom, having a conversation with God.
"I went up one side of God and down the other side of God. I called him every name in the book and I said listen, I know you'll only give me as much as I can handle, but I'm full.î
Fleury said he asked God to take away his obsession with drinking and drugs and then he went to bed.
The next morning, he said, he glanced in a mirror at himself for the first time in years, since he had been too ashamed before to look himself in the eyes.
As he stared, he felt that his prayers had been answered, and since that day, Sept. 18, 2005, Fleury has not had a drink or taken a drug.
He told the gathering he was finally able to overcome his addictions and depression by ultimately learning to become honest with himself.
"I believe the medication and the pills for mental illness is honesty,î Fleury said.
He added that anyone in the crowd struggling with mental illness isn't "weakî or "defective.î
"You just gotta get it out.î
And, Fleury said, once a person decides to get honest and release their damaging secrets, all they need is one friend who will listen and support them.
He ended his speech by advising those in attendance not to give up, even when they hit rock bottom, since anyone can turn their lives around.
"Don't quit before the miracle,î Fleury said.
The Olds College Student Association, which organized Fleury's talk, had asked the students and staff in attendance to consider any secrets they wanted to rid themselves of and write them down.
The gathering was then asked to put their slips of paper in a box following Fleury's speech and that box, which no one will open, will be burned in a ceremony on March 20.
"I believe the medication and the pills for mental illness is honesty." Theoren Fleury, former NHL star
