I’’m An Addict: In Bits And Pieces

As a high school sophomore, she was a straight A student who excelled in athletics. By the following year, she was a crack addict, broken in body and spirit. Today, Shamin is a University graduate who shares her story of hope and healing with women and youth in group homes and community centers. Raised by a single mother who worked around the clock to make ends meet, Shamin was vulnerable to multiple sexual abuses as a child and ended up living on the streets and sexually exploited from the age of 15. As an adult, she continued on in the sex trade, became ensnared in abusive relationships, buried her pain in addictions, and lost her children to local child protection agencies. Through the love and guidance of others, and her growing relationship with Christ, Shamin embarked on a journey of courage, honesty and healing - learning to resist the negative labels others had prescribed to her and beginning to define herself against all odds. The first of the I'm An Addict Trilogy, I'm an Addict In Bits and Pieces, begins to describe the brave story of one woman's journey.

Shamin is an honors graduate of the Bachelor of Social Work program at the University of Manitoba. She is also mother of three, poet, author and songwriter who shares her life experiences with the hope that her story will help to break down the walls of marginalization and social isolation that have kept the voices of so many women and children with stories like hers silenced behind shame. Shamin tells her story with bittersweet eloquence, her pain and strength complimenting one another in a unique way and evoking emotion and self-reflection in the lives of survivors, service providers and society as a whole. She recognizes that her journey is not over and she embraces the healing process, recognizing that there is purpose in her pain even as she continues to discover her voice and learn to walk in her truth.