Sitting in a circle amongst several other recovering addicts, Robert Hogan opened a Bible for the first time in his life. Instructed to flip to the book of Proverbs, Robert did so, but was quite unaware of the life-altering passage he was about to read.

It was just another morning at the Hope for Freedom Society’s house one. By 8:00 a.m., breakfast and chores were complete and the madness that is the early morning settled in downstairs for their daily prayer and Proverbs.

Each person in the circle read a line of the selected chapter and discussed what it meant to them and its importance in their lives. Robert sat with his Bible open; the pages gazing at him like an excited parent upon their son’s return. His turn came to read a line.

“The first shall be last.”

Before his next breath, he knew this house was exactly where he needed to be.
“This was the last place on my list but the first that accepted me and I knew at that moment this is where I needed to be,” Robert recollected. “I knew God was with me. He didn’t want me to go anywhere else.”

Three days before his first ever bible study, Robert’s residence had been a ‘crack-shack.’ After having spent 13 days in Cordova Detox, he had been flung back on the street with no place to live and little hope to hang on to. With the knowledge that the crack-shack had a phone, Robert embarked on his quest to remove the shackles of the street life.

Having been given a list of recovery houses, he began what he would eventually deem a fruitless journey of phone calls. After exhausting the list of potential secular houses, he nearly gave up.

“I had this list of recovery houses. I knew they were all Christian based houses and because I didn’t have God in my life I wasn’t open to that, so I wasn’t calling them. They might as well have not been on the list.”

Sitting in the crack-shack for two days, Robert survived clean and sober on pure will power. Finally he decided a Christian-based house was better than the harsh realities and temptations of the streets. After discovering the first two Christian houses were full, he made a last, desperate call to the Hope for Freedom Society.
“I called and the monitor, one of the clients, answered the phone. He gave me some hope. He actually talked to me and he didn’t just treat me like another junkie on the street. He gave me some hope, telling me that there was a bed available and because I was on the street and clean, he would see what he could do for me.”

He had hope. And hope is what sustained him through another night in the crack-shack.

The next morning, unbeknownst to him, God was moving people. God was bringing Robert home.

To be accepted into Hope for Freedom Society’s first house, Robert needed to be on welfare. Typically this task would be an all-day process elongated by long line-ups and unaccommodating people. But on this day, things were different.

He had to go to Revenue Canada on a Monday morning downtown. Anticipating what should have been a lengthy line-up ahead of him, Robert opened the door and discovered a completely empty waiting room. Surprised, but pleased, he quickly acquired the necessary documents and waltzed to the welfare office.

In another rarity, his welfare worker was standing at the window, almost waiting for his arrival. He gave him the papers and told his worker of his intentions of entering a recovery home. Unlike so many times before, the worker was unexpectedly helpful and seemed to genuinely care about Robert’s well-being.

“He asked if I had called [Hope for Freedom Society] and I said yea I had talked to someone the night before and they’d given me some hope. So he said, let’s see what I can do. So he called for me…[and] welfare doesn’t really like to help people. They’re busy people too [but] he phoned and…I got in.”

Despite growing up in a good family, it hadn’t taken long for Robert to discover the rough crowd.

“Looking at it now, I was in a downward spiral from the time I was eight. That was when I first committed a crime.”

He was involved in a gang and organized crime by age 13. Shortly after joining a gang, he was arrested for the first time.

“I spent a lot of my youth behind bars. I was trying to go to school. I guess everything looked good on the outside…but I was still a product of the gangs. It’s nothing to be proud of at all.”

While his high school peers were finishing school and preparing for post-secondary life, Robert was diving deeper into the lucrative world of drugs and crime. By 21, he had his own house paid off and was swimming in a cess pool of money.
“I had trucks and cars and all the fancy stuff. That fast money is appealing. Who doesn’t want to make a millions dollars in a year?”

But the luxurious life of climbing the organized crime ladder is marred by weak rungs. Robert soon fell from extravagance into a painful and life-changing reality check.

“I became a prisoner of my own house. I couldn’t continue to make money because the dope that I had, I wanted to use for myself. I didn’t want people to see me in the shape I was in, so the business slowed down. I spent $320,000 cash and I sold my house for another $385,000 in a three year period.”

With no money or possessions left, Robert found himself living on the street and addicted to crack-cocaine.

“The street life is really tough, especially when you’re used to luxury. It’s cold and wet and it’s tiring being out there. It takes a toll on your body. And I just looked at myself one day and thought, what have I done with my life? All I’ve done is bad with my life and I just wanted to change.”

With that thought in mind and determined to make something of his life, Robert checked into Cordova Detox and 15 days later, he was in Hope for Freedom Society’s house one. And within one day of entering the recovery house, he discovered the higher power that had been keeping him afloat this whole time.

That first day when he opened the Bible for this first time brought him into a new chapter of his life but one that has been far from easy and even farther from painless.

“[That first day] was tough. The withdrawals I was going through were pretty powerful. I wanted to go back to the street and I wanted to get high and I didn’t want to be [at the house]. I was pretty angry with myself because my mind was starting to clear up and I was starting to realize what I had done with my life.”

He hung on to every lending hand he could grasp and the hand that helped him most was God.

“A power greater than myself.”

Now began the arduous and painful process of recovery. The process that will live with Robert forever. Day after day, prayer and Proverbs were followed by counselling, reading and learning. The 12-step process of drug rehabilitation is used at the Hope for Freedom Society but Robert, like every other recovering addict, struggled with the lures of his past.

“I’ve relapsed three times since [entering the Hope for Freedom Society]. They were short relapses. I picked up and used dope three times. This is where I’m at. I’m learning to live without drugs, trying to make healthy choices and just get on with life.”

The temptation to go back to his former life is always there. His old friends still lurk and the potential for fast cash is always a possibility. For Robert, the gang life he entered when he was 13 still heckles, trying to bring him back. Only 62 days since his most recent relapse, Robert is doing all he can to avoid his past life while helping others follow the path to recovery.

“[The gang life] is not easy to shake. I don’t call those people anymore…but sometimes I’ll see them and they’ll try to draw me back in. I came into recovery last year in January and after going through these houses, I started to have my own self-will.”

His self-will helped him get so far, but after entering the house, he felt the overwhelming support group that surrounded him.

“The church was huge. I no longer have that hole in my heart. When I turned my life over to God, I started feeling good about myself. I have an inner peace with myself now. I no longer feel violent. I no longer feel I have to just do that whole grind I used to do. I just don’t want it anymore. It’s just gone. It’s a real different way for me to live.

“If I didn’t have the support of all the people in recovery, I’d probably be out there using dope still. Without their support, I’d be out there robbing and stealing and hurting people and I don’t want to be like that.”

Robert’s life is now a mere skeleton of what it was nineteen months ago when he first walked into the doors of the Hope for Freedom Society. At least once a week, he talks to the men in the initial recovery house and shares experience, strength and hope.

“People come in beat up, with no future. All they know is the street life and drugs and they really haven’t figured out how to change and look at life.”

From a day-to-day basis, Robert is back doing granite and marble work; something he did before drugs encircled his life.

He is still very involved in group recovery meetings and knows these are necessary to sustain a productive lifestyle. He also attends church twice a week at both Coquitlam Alliance and Northside Foursquare.

His story of recovery is one of motivation for addicts and deterrence for potential drug users and he hopes he can use that to prevent people from living the life he lived.

“I want to go and speak in schools about drug addiction. If I can help guide anybody from leading the life I led. If I can help just one person not go down that path, [I will have done my part]”