The Legacy of Abuse Podcast

In part 2 of this episode, Coy joins us to talk addiction, recovery, and the deeply inconvenient reality that staying sober actually requires effort every single day. No inspirational mountain-top guru nonsense, just a raw conversation about screwing up, climbing back out of it, and trying not to light your own life on fire again before breakfast.

Trauma and addiction go hand in hand. It's one thing to survive a traumatic childhood. It's another thing entirely to survive adulthood when nobody hands you a manual for how to cope with the damage afterward.

Resources:

intherooms.com

aasask.org

alsaskrsc-na.org

Provincial Wait List: 1-844-440-4494

St. Joseph's Addiction Recovery Centre Admissions Line: 1-306-421-5227

https://siscc.ca/ is a survivor-led community for people who attended private, independent, or faith-based schools and may be looking for connection and peer support. If you've participated in survivor support groups or are looking to connect with others who understand, SISCC is a valuable place to start.

Join the Class Action: https://scharfsteinlaw.com/class-action/

Website and Socials: https://www.legacyofabuse.com/

Contact Us: [email protected]

In this episode, Coy joins us to talk addiction, recovery, and the deeply inconvenient reality that staying sober actually requires effort every single day. No inspirational mountain-top guru nonsense, just a raw conversation about screwing up, climbing back out of it, and trying not to light your own life on fire again before breakfast.

Trauma and addiction go hand in hand. It's one thing to survive a traumatic childhood. It's another thing entirely to survive adulthood when nobody hands you a manual for how to cope with the damage afterward.

Resources:

intherooms.com

aasask.org

alsaskrsc-na.org

Provincial Wait List: 1-844-440-4494

St. Joseph's Addiction Recovery Centre Admissions Line: 1-306-421-5227

https://siscc.ca/ is a survivor-led community for people who attended private, independent, or faith-based schools and may be looking for connection and peer support. If you've participated in survivor support groups or are looking to connect with others who understand, SISCC is a valuable place to start.

Join the Class Action: https://scharfsteinlaw.com/class-action/

Website and Socials: https://www.legacyofabuse.com/

Contact Us: [email protected]

Not everything that glitters is gold. People often wonder: How does someone end up at Christian Centre anyway? In this episode, we sit down with a former parent and congregant, Jackie, who once brought her family into the church and enrolled her children in the school. She shares her firsthand experience as an adult navigating the community, what initially attracted her, and what she learned after getting a closer look behind the curtain.

https://siscc.ca/ is a survivor-led community for people who attended private, independent, or faith-based schools and may be looking for connection and peer support. If you've participated in survivor support groups or are looking to connect with others who understand, SISCC is a valuable place to start.

Join the Class Action: https://scharfsteinlaw.com/class-action/

Website and Socials: https://www.legacyofabuse.com/

Contact Us: [email protected]

In this episode, we speak with Jude and Mike, a couple whose journey through three high‑control Christian communities began with the charismatic Light of the World movement and led them into the covenant‑based structure of People of Praise. They describe communal living, financial surrender, strict headship hierarchies, and the pressure to shape every major life decision - dating, housing, work - around spiritual authority.

Their story reveals how seemingly vibrant renewal movements can slide into systems of control, shunning, and expectations of obedience. As Jude and Mike recount the move of more than 100 members to Saskatoon and the painful realization that the community they joined didn't want them, listeners see early patterns that would later intensify inside Saskatoon Christian Center.

https://siscc.ca/ is a survivor-led community for people who attended private, independent, or faith-based schools and may be looking for connection and peer support. If you've participated in survivor support groups or are looking to connect with others who understand, SISCC is a valuable place to start.

Join the Class Action: https://scharfsteinlaw.com/class-action/

Website and Socials: https://www.legacyofabuse.com/

Contact Us: [email protected]

This week we're diving into the wild story of Donald Howard, the man behind Accelerated Christian Education, also known as the curriculum that tried to teach generations of kids that dinosaurs and humans hung out together like it was a prehistoric group project.

We break down the doctrine, the beliefs, and the very creative version of science and history baked into the program that spread through Christian schools around the world. Then we ask the obvious question: what actually happened to the guy who built the whole thing? Because when you start pulling on that thread, the story gets… let's just say biblically messy.

https://siscc.ca/ is a survivor-led community for people who attended private, independent, or faith-based schools and may be looking for connection and peer support. If you've participated in survivor support groups or are looking to connect with others who understand, SISCC is a valuable place to start.

Join the Class Action: https://scharfsteinlaw.com/class-action/

Website and Socials: https://www.legacyofabuse.com/

Contact Us: [email protected]

Alumni packed their cars and headed to Regina for their day in court as our stayed civil action was argued before the Court of Appeal. Our legal team: Grant Scharfstein, Samuel Edmondson, Michael Scharfstein, and Christine Libner, faced counsel for the church and the government.

During the hearing, the Chief Justices of the Court of Appeal characterized the rationale for staying the civil suit due to a supposed "change in the litigation landscape" as "abstract theory and speculation".

Tune in as we share our ongoing saga with the legal system.

https://siscc.ca/ is a survivor-led community for people who attended private, independent, or faith-based schools and may be looking for connection and peer support. If you've participated in survivor support groups or are looking to connect with others who understand, SISCC is a valuable place to start.

Join the Class Action: https://scharfsteinlaw.com/class-action/

Website and Socials: https://www.legacyofabuse.com/

Contact Us: [email protected]

After decades of referring politely to what was called the volleyball incident, justice finally set the record straight. It was not an "incident." It was an assault on the volleyball team.

For years, euphemisms softened the story. Language blurred responsibility. Memory did the careful tiptoe that institutions often prefer. In this episode, we unpack how the truth was buried in plain sight, and what it means when a long-whispered reality is finally spoken out loud. This is about accountability, about survivors, and about a last minute guilty plea.

https://siscc.ca/ is a survivor-led community for people who attended private, independent, or faith-based schools and may be looking for connection and peer support. If you've participated in survivor support groups or are looking to connect with others who understand, SISCC is a valuable place to start.

Join the Class Action: https://scharfsteinlaw.com/class-action/

Website and Socials: https://www.legacyofabuse.com/

Contact Us: [email protected]

This week's episode is unhinged in the most revealing way. We're talking to an alum who was pregnant in high school at the school, because apparently "Christian education" meant shame with a side of silence. And in a plot twist absolutely no one should be surprised by, the woman the church advised her parents to send her to, you know, as a "solution" for a problematic child, was just convicted in criminal court for child abuse.

Turns out when an institution treats kids like liabilities instead of humans, the call is coming from inside the church.

https://siscc.ca/ is a survivor-led community for people who attended private, independent, or faith-based schools and may be looking for connection and peer support. If you've participated in survivor support groups or are looking to connect with others who understand, SISCC is a valuable place to start.

Join the Class Action: https://scharfsteinlaw.com/class-action/

Website and Socials: https://www.legacyofabuse.com/

Contact Us: [email protected]

Today's episode is a little different than usual, because instead of a guest, we're featuring our very own cease-and-desist letter. Yes, we were legally threatened by a former leader at our old church who quietly moved away, rebranded themselves, and started their own church. We read you parts of the letter, break it down, and discuss: so tune in if you want a good laugh. Apparently accountability didn't make the relocation move.

https://siscc.ca/ is a survivor-led community for people who attended private, independent, or faith-based schools and may be looking for connection and peer support. If you've participated in survivor support groups or are looking to connect with others who understand, SISCC is a valuable place to start.

Join the Class Action: https://scharfsteinlaw.com/class-action/

Website and Socials: https://www.legacyofabuse.com/

Contact Us: [email protected]

This week on the podcast, we dive into the long-overdue sentencing of John Olubobokun: the former private Christian school director who racked up nine counts of assault with a weapon while insisting he "operates by God's law, not man's law." Spoiler alert: man's law absolutely had its turn, and it came with a sentencing decision he couldn't pray his way out of. This is also the same guy who told the courtroom, "Only God can judge me," right before learning that judges, in fact, judge for a living.

And if that isn't enough, we also get into the shocking incident that went down before court even started, because of course there had to be pre-show drama. Tune in as we break down the chaos, the courtroom energy, and the karma finally catching up.

https://siscc.ca/ is a survivor-led community for people who attended private, independent, or faith-based schools and may be looking for connection and peer support. If you've participated in survivor support groups or are looking to connect with others who understand, SISCC is a valuable place to start.

Join the Class Action: https://scharfsteinlaw.com/class-action/

Website and Socials: https://www.legacyofabuse.com/

Contact Us: [email protected]