High school students here were sent a powerful message about the dangers of drug addiction from a young man who walked the halls of their school only a few years ago.
Harriston native Chad Snider, a Toronto Film School student, presented a screening of his film entitled A Done Deal at Norwell District Secondary School on April 10. The showing of the film, based on Snider’s own experiences as a former meth addict and drug runner, was part of an annual assembly organized by the Norwell Drug Awareness Committee.
Filmed partly in and around Harriston, A Done Deal is a gritty drama about a young man who becomes a drug runner after losing his job as a bartender for being high at work.
The film culminates in a scene in which the main character, played by Snider, is sent, armed with a gun, to collect money owed a drug dealer. The scene ends in a fatal exchange of gunfire, a situation Snider feels he may have avoided in real life only through a quirk of fate.
Snider and another man were indeed armed and on their way to collect some cash, “but before we left the apartment, the shotgun went off and I felt the bullet go right up behind my back.
“I was so close to losing my life. It was so surreal and so disorienting,” Snider recalls. Snider and his associates “drove away as fast as we could,” but he returned three days later to face reality.
Evicted from his apartment, Snider went to the local police station and admitted to his part in the incident.
Then he was faced with the humiliating task of “telling my parents I was incompetent and not capable of looking after my life.”
As his parents helped him pack up his apartment, two police officers arrived and arrested and handcuffed him.
“I didn’t want to be cuffed in front of my parents,” he told the students, following the film screening.
Snider was taken to the Stratford jail, where he was “searched, clothed in orange and put in a cell.”
After a court appearance the next day, Snider’s parents bailed him out.
During the ride home, he recalls, “I was so mad about everything I’d done in my life and what I’d become.”
Snider was ultimately sentenced to 18 months of house arrest.
“I was so happy not to be going back to jail. But the next day, when the people showed up with my black box and my ankle bracelet, I knew that all my freedoms were going to be taken away.”
With plenty of time to think, Snider came to the realization his life had to change.
“I couldn’t stay here any more,” he said, adding that he realized he had to pursue his passion for performing.
“I realized the only thing I ever enjoyed was being on stage or working with my father on a film set,” said Snider, whose previous experience includes acting in local Theatre Norwell and Grey Wellington Theatre Guild productions. His father, Richard Snider is a film and industry set designer.
Although he had auditioned for film schools in the past, Snider said “this time failure was not an option after all I’d been through. This time, I went to an audition and I made it.”
While Snider’s story is on track for a happy ending, he had trouble pinpointing the beginning of his troubles.
“I can’t give you a good reason why I started doing drugs in the first place,” he told the students. “I wasn’t happy with my life. I didn’t have good enough influences. I didn’t know myself well enough to say no.”
What he does know is, once it began, his addiction became all consuming.
“The drug life is a 24-7 job,” he stated, noting he soon required drugs to give him the confidence to do anything.
He fell into dealing because it provided, “a social life, spending money and an unlimited supply of confidence.”
However, the lifestyle came with consequences.
“I would stay up for days and days, using and abusing. It got to the point I didn’t know who I was without meth and I couldn’t do anything unless I was high.”
While A Done Deal is Snider’s graduation project from the Toronto Film School, it’s also his way of helping others avoid following the same self-destructive path.
“I’d like to use it to inspire you all to make better choices in your life than I did. I’d like to inspire you to believe in yourself and follow your dreams. Don’t let bullies beat you down or friends influence you. Live for yourself,” he urged.
Brenda Atkin, of Homewood Community Addition Services addressed the students following Snider’s presentation, noting his story was “a tough act to follow.”
“It’s huge because it’s a personal story and it does something to show what happens when we do this type of thing, where it leads.”
She said Drug Awareness Committee presentations “aren’t about us telling you to just say no, because we know that doesn’t work.
“We know some of you may already be using and some of you may be thinking about using. We just want to give you some good information and let you know there are people right here in your school you can talk to if you’re worried about yourself or someone else.”
