KICKING THE HABIT -- HARD

Mission Helps Addicts 'Graft Onto A New Set Of Values'

'The cocaine," says John Sabourin, "ran the show."

Some show. When the curtain fell, he was, in his words, a dead man
walking.

Here he was last fall, age 33, never having held a real job his whole
life, living on the streets of Ottawa, scuttling from shelter to
shelter, every day high and low.

To keep himself supplied with crack, he was the "doorman" at a
crackhouse, controlling the human traffic while keeping the twitchy
ones in line with the odd knuckle sandwich.

He was six-foot-two, weighed maybe 140 pounds. He was dirty, paranoid,
prone to hallucinations. His kidney was damaged, his liver wonky. He
had a blister on his thumb from constantly sparking a lighter. He had
burns on his lip.

He had a Grade 9 education. He had a violent streak. He had no
future.

"Honestly, I was almost dead. There was no way I could stop on my
own."

This past Wednesday was a good day for Mr. Sabourin. Not only was he
clean, he was being honoured. It was graduation day.

He was among two grads from the Ottawa Mission's LifeHouse program, in
which addicts spend five months living at the downtown shelter as they
learn to recover from their addiction.

Mr. Sabourin wore a dark-blue, double-breasted suit with a white shirt
and tie. A broad-shouldered man (now 210 pounds), he buried his hands
in his pant pockets, feet set in a confident stance, and spoke to a
crowd of 50 or so.

"I mean, who wants to die, right?" he asked, memorably.

The Ottawa Mission is not a posh, $1,000-a-day treatment centre. It is
an old, cramped site on Waller Street where the care is free and the
crowd has a hard, gnarled look.

Mr. Sabourin's older sister spoke about the family's troubled history,
her own recovery, her pride in John's accomplishment. And, to
applause, she hugged him, long and hard. Then he kissed his diploma,
handed to him in a glass frame.

It is the reason, said executive director Diane Morrison a moment
later, that she always cries on graduation day.

"This is what keeps us going. There is no other reason."

Much has been said and written about the perceived crisis of drug
addiction in the city, the army of 3,000 to 5,000 street-drug users.
Rarely seen or celebrated are the single victories.

Addiction services manager Troy Thompson points out that the Mission
runs a day program that is open to anyone who walks in off the street
- -- providing they're not high or in a violent mood -- and an evening
version.

It is a myth, he reminds, that Ottawa is a city without treatment
options.

The day program is a gateway to an in-house, 30-day stabilization
stay, which leads to LifeHouse. So far, it has had 39 graduates.

The Mission says one of the uncommon aspects of LifeHouse, which has
several hours of daily programming, is the attempt to deal with the
underlying "trauma" at the root of addiction.

This could involve abuse during childhood, for instance, or issues
about anger and self-worth.

Mr. Sabourin grew up in Carlsbad Springs and in the Ritchie Street
area, one of eight children. Drug and alcohol abuse was common in his
extended family.

He says he was never taught about the value of higher education or the
importance of a solid sense of morality. If you could cheat and steal
to get something, you did.

He began drinking at 14 and tried cocaine about a year later. He had a
long youth record and spent some time in a youth rehabilitation
centre. It didn't take.

Soon, he was onto crack cocaine.

"Most people wake up in the morning and maybe start thinking about
their job. Well, my job was to find drugs. Crack took away my family,
my friends, my home, and left me on the street."

When Mr. Sabourin sees an addict on the street, he sees something many
don't.

"I see a loss of identity. That person has a story and a history that
brought them to this point.

"You know, no person ever grows up thinking, 'Gee, I hope when I'm 25
or 26, I'm begging on the street, trying to buy crack'."

The program helped him delve into issues of self-respect and the loss
of dignity, his use of violence to solve problems, his lack of trust.

"I had to graft onto a new set of values."

He has now moved into a so-called second-stage residence, a transition
that aims to re-integrate addicts into the community.

He imagines one day he could be an actor, possibly playing a heavy --
a "bad guy" -- in a movie. More modestly, he has thought about working
in construction or landscaping.

Faith in a higher power sustains him.

"It's my main pillar. It helps me know, that with hope and with faith,
life is worth living."