Musician Sean Mccann Appearing at Market Hall in Peterborough Nov. 26 to Speak out about Addiction, Mental Health

By Jason Bain
Peterborough Examiner
November 19, 2016

http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/2016/11/19/musician-sean-mccann-appearing-at-market-hall-in-peterborough-nov-26-to-speak-out-about-addiction-mental-health

Tackle your issues head-on before you no longer can, urges Great Big Sea co-founder Sean McCann, who himself used music to overcome his own problems.

The former band member, who will perform and speak Nov. 26 at Market Hall as the final stop in his 2016 Road to Recovery Tour, is celebrating his fifth year of sobriety thanks to using the notes as medicine, as his own personal therapy.

"I guarantee I wouldn't have been able to do it without my guitar," he said earlier this week prior to a show in Calgary.

The former alcoholic once blamed the former energetic folk rock band, which wrote many songs about drinking, for leading him down a self-destructive path and into hard times. But he soon learned he was to blame, not the pieces the Newfoundlanders sang.

"It wasn't bad at all. I was just singing the wrong song," he said, adding how performing and sharing his story is what has really given him a sense of purpose. "This is what has propelled me to this moment in life."

McCann has been outspoken about his struggle with addiction as his way to deal with the trauma of childhood sexual abuse by his parish priest while growing up in St. John's.