“I told him that I loved him and that, if he was ready to surrender, he could start all over.”

Elizabeth Mabie
Spur Ottawa Correspondent

It began with a church service. Having recently come to Ottawa and wanting to spend time with his sister, Jonathan Langille accompanied her to Union City Church. Once there, however, Langille was suddenly overcome with emotion.

“I cried the whole service, tears streaming down my face,” Langille says. “I don’t know if it was the fact that I had been awake for two days previous and was coming down off of dope, but it probably wasn’t.”

Langille had come to Ottawa looking for a fresh start. He was not intent on treating his drug addiction, but desperately wanted to escape the life he had built couch surfing around Lake Simcoe. That Sunday morning, however, Langille heard about Jericho Road’s recovery program and decided to seek them out.

“Jon came to Jericho Road a very angry person—so angry at the world and at God,” says Kevin Williams, Jericho Road’s Director of Addiction Services. “He made it to Jericho and lasted about a day or two before he was asked to leave due to his outbursts of defiance and rage.”

Feeling alone and unwelcomed, Langille turned towards activities where he felt accepted.

“I had a lot of resentment towards the Church,” explains Langille. “I was angry, too. Angry at the world, myself, and my circumstance.”

Langille’s substance abuse was sparked by trauma he endured as a youth. At age 9, his family moved to Holt, Ontario, a small town south of Lake Simcoe. As the new kid in school, Langille was a prime target for bullying. Several years later, he realized he was same-sex attracted, which sparked more bullying from his peers and disapproval from his church community. Feeling alone and unwelcomed, Langille turned towards activities where he felt accepted. He began with marijuana, leading to heavy drinking, and eventually cocaine, ecstasy, and crystal meth.

In his late teens and 20s, Langille made attempts to treat his addiction. His family supported him, paying for counselling and therapy, but he fell back into old habits. Eventually, his family had to show tough love and kicked him out, refusing to allow drugs in their homes.

Despite this, they never abandoned him. In December, 2017, his sister, Alexandra Marcellus, came to his rescue. Langille was stranded in Montreal and, since Marcellus lived in Ottawa, she picked him up and drove him to their parents’ home. A week later, the two of them returned to Ottawa together.

“Seeing the compassion and understanding of the staff at Jericho gave me an opportunity to let my guards down and let them in.”

“I dropped him off in front of the Mission,” says Marcellus. “I cried the whole way home after that, but I knew that he couldn’t stay with me, because I couldn’t give him the help he needed.”

It was the following Sunday that Langille accepted Marcellus’ invitation to church.

After getting kicked out of Jericho Road, Langille turned back to drugs and soon developed an infection. Williams happened to see Langille one day, on his way to work, and drove him to the hospital.

“I told him that I loved him and that, if he was ready to surrender, he could start all over and begin his recovery journey,” Williams says. “He chose to surrender and it was a glorious day.”

Langille returned to Jericho Road and began the nine-month recovery process. Through that time, he not only got sober, but learned to value himself and the people around him.

“My daily prayer is that God give me the strength to act in such a way that others can see God in me.”

“I learned to overcome my resentment against the Church and the harm I felt I was caused simply because of who I am,” says Langille. “Seeing the compassion and understanding of the staff at Jericho gave me an opportunity to let my guards down and let them in.”

Langille goes on to say, “Leaving behind selfishness and entering a state of community has been a major lesson in my recovery. Addiction was all about me, but recovery has to be about what I can do to serve others.”

Langille graduated from Jericho Road’s program and now works for them as an office assistant. He’s active in the community, volunteering with local shelters and programs, as well as sponsoring recovering addicts.

“My daily prayer is that I request to see God in everything I do, and that God give me the strength to act in such a way that others can see God in me,” says Langille.

Marcellus says her brother’s transformation is “the result of many people praying, over about 15 years. I know that his journey isn’t finished yet, but God has been so good through all of this.”