Chilliwack – SEPTEMBER 17 OBITUARY – George Pound – A Life of Recovery, Service and Second Chances (from his Daughter Kimberley Rae)
When George Pound died on August 31, 2026, at the age of 78, the Fraser Valley recovery community lost a much-respected elder. The memories shared afterward revealed the reach of a life spent helping others.
Long before Chilliwack, however, there was another chapter to George’s story.
In the 1980s, George and his wife, Judy, were raising five children. George was an alcoholic. As the consequences of his drinking increasingly affected his wife and children, Judy did her best to hold their family together until she finally reached a breaking point.
Judy gave George an ultimatum: commit to Alcoholics Anonymous and attend 90 meetings in 90 days, or she was leaving.
George chose AA.
With the support of the program and the recovery community rallying around him, he gave up drinking, became deeply involved in AA, and was approaching nearly two decades of sobriety when, unfortunately, George was introduced to what would become another addiction: gambling.
The gambling developed into a serious addiction, and eventually George returned to alcohol as well. The life George and Judy had fought so hard to hold together unraveled. His marriage ended, he lost his home, and his wife and children moved to Calgary.
George found himself facing addiction and loss all over again.
But George was a fighter, and fight he did.
He eventually found his way back to recovery and began rebuilding his life in Chilliwack. This time, he would remain sober for the rest of his life.
George had been given a second chance, and he used it to help others find theirs.
Perhaps that was part of what made him so effective with people struggling with addiction. George knew alcoholism, relapse and recovery from the inside. He lived all three. He had experienced loss. He had experienced rock bottom, and he knew what it meant to find his way back.
As George rebuilt his own life in Chilliwack, recovery became more than something he was doing for himself. It became a way for him to serve others.
That commitment continued through the Chilliwack Alano Club. It was there that George met a man who would become a lifelong friend. When his friend later decided to open Teskey Road Recovery House, he brought George on board to manage it.
George would spend approximately a decade managing the recovery house, supporting people working to establish sobriety, regain stability and begin again.
His involvement with the Alano Club eventually moved into leadership. George was repeatedly re-elected as president, ultimately serving 12 years in the role.
In December 2025, while George was serving as its long-term president, the Chilliwack Alano Club was recognized in Canada’s House of Commons as it marked 40 years of service to the community. It was a meaningful milestone for an organization to which George had devoted so much of his life.
But George’s legacy is perhaps better measured in people than years.
Following his death, George was described as an anchor within the recovery community. Some spoke of his humour. Others remembered his strong arms wrapped around them when they were falling apart. Others spoke of his gentle, quiet wisdom – his ability to listen, to understand and somehow know when something needed to be said.
One man who lived at Teskey Road Recovery House described George as becoming like a father to him. He recalled many funny stories from their years together, along with the lessons George had taught him: how to read people, how to truly listen, and perhaps most importantly, how to know when to speak and when simply to be quiet. Reflecting on the impact George had made on so many lives, he said: “He helped so many of us get our lives back. Including mine.”
Helping people wasn’t something George reserved for his work in recovery. It was simply part of who he was. If somebody needed help and George thought there was something he could do, he wanted to do it.
That instinct followed him everywhere. He worked weekends managing a seniors’ apartment complex, where with kindness he supported and looked out for the residents who became tremendously fond of him.
George was also funny, stubborn, sensitive, mischievous and, it must be noted, a champion cribbage player! He loved bargain hunting and gardening.
Behind the Alano Club, George tended a garden filled with vegetables, tomatoes and flowers. Most of what he grew was given back to the club and the community.
George seemed happiest when he was caring for others, and many of those he cared for he had met through the Chilliwack Alano Club. It became far more than a place he attended. It was his community, his recovery family and, in many ways, his home.
Throughout his life, George had been a son, a brother, a husband, a dad and a grandfather. But he had also been a friend, a mentor and an inspiration – a man who touched and changed lives through his understanding of alcoholism, relapse and recovery.
Over the course of his life, George accumulated almost four decades of sobriety. But perhaps the most remarkable part of those years was what he chose to do with the second chance he had fought so hard to find.
He spent it helping other people find theirs.
For decades, George kept showing up. And for many people, it mattered.
SEPTEMBER 2 ORIGINAL STORY – While there is little information available at press time, FVN learned on Monday August 31, that the long time President of the Chilliwack Alano Club, George Pound, passed away.
FVN’s Don Lehn is a past vice-president of the Alano Club and was told of Pound’s passing from his neighbour.
Pound was well known in the recovery community. Not just with the Chilliwack Alano, but also the Langley Alano and Tesky Recovery House , which no longer operates.
Pound has had a few medical issues over the years but that never seemed to stop him or slow him down.
FVN has reached out to the Chilliwack Alano Club for a statement.
