FED UP WITH HIS COCAINE ADDICTION, EX-POLITICIAN LIVES TO HELP OTHERS

It doesn't get much better than this.

Anyone who's sunk to rock bottom, weighted down by despair and drug
addiction, knows how difficult it is to get back up.

But resurfacing as a lifesaver for other people? Now that's an
achievement.

In 1987, Gary Robinson felt like he was on top of the world. At age
30, he enjoyed the distinction of being the youngest person ever
elected to Surrey municipal council. He remained in office for 12
years, seeing Surrey become a city and surviving its most raucous
years of civic politics. He travelled to China and Japan on city
business, and was instrumental in preserving Surrey Bend and seeing
ice rinks built in Whalley, Fleetwood and South Surrey. He also served
as chairman of the city's police committee and sat on its
environmental committee.

As a politician, he wasn't afraid to stick his neck out for what he
believed in. In 1997, he found himself and his family under police
protection after working to prevent a racist group from performing at
a local community hall.

He was a get-up-and-go kind of guy. Busy enough with council, he also
had a day job, did union work, coached and played recreational hockey,
and had a wife and two kids. As time wore on, he got tired. He'd tried
cocaine once in his 20s, but the next day vowed he'd never do it
again. Many years later, at the height of his success, he crossed
paths with crack cocaine, and found it helped him stay awake and eased
the pressure on his life.

It also damn near destroyed him.

"It went from staying awake to staying alive," he said, with the
solemnity of one who's just clawed his way out of an avalanche.

In 1998, he admitted he had a drug problem and didn't seek re-election
after his addiction was exposed. In 1999, he slipped into obscurity
but was back before the public eye in 2004 when he was hospitalized
with second- and third-degree burns to his body, having been doused
with rubbing alcohol and set on fire while sleeping off a drug binge
at Cedar Tree Village apartments. After seven weeks at Vancouver
General Hospital's burn unit, Robinson was checked into the Maple
Ridge Treatment Centre. But even being burned wasn't enough to shake
him free from his eight-year-long addiction.

He relapsed, and finally hit bottom last May.

"I'd had enough," he said. "It leads nowhere. I knew I didn't want to
do it anymore, and I walked out of a crack shack, crossed the street
and lay down in the grass."

He lay there for a couple of days. The shack seemed to be calling him.
All he had to do was get on his feet and walk back across the street.
But he didn't.

"I told myself, 'The only way I'm going to get out of this is to
realize where I am.'"

Fortunately, Robinson has a family that never gave up on him. His wife
Susan found an outfit called VisionQuest Recovery Society on the
Internet, and Robinson booked into one of its rehab houses in South
Surrey. He liked the program because it stressed absolute abstinence
and presented him with choices that ultimately put his recovery square
on his own shoulders.

In August, Robinson took over as manager of the program, which
recently relocated to a house in rural Port Kells.

Today, he's helping 11 guys who are trying to beat their cocaine
addictions through group classes and one-on-one counselling.

"There's nothing better to me than seeing a new guy come in off the
street," he said. "It's rewarding."

To a man, the residents described Robinson as a blessing in their
life.

"I've found Gary to be an excellent guide," said senior resident Jason
Cossarin, 30, of Coquitlam. "He's opened my eyes to a lot of things."

Bill Charlton, 47, who came to the program from the Sunshine Coast,
said Robinson made him realize that in the long run, it's harder to
keep using the drug than it is to kick it.

"He's got me focused in on what I need to do," Charlton
said.

Richard Clayton, 37, calls Robinson a "voice of reason. Gary's been a
big help to me."

Alex Bautista, 27, is fighting a crystal meth addiction.

"Without Gary, honestly, I'd probably be on the street right now," he
said. "If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here. If it wasn't for
Gary, I know I would have left."

The residents told the Now about one fellow who was threatening to
relapse. In response, Robinson drove him to Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside for a stroll through the alleys. Stepping around and over
dazed junkies, Robinson showed the young man his destiny if he bailed
out of the program. The fellow was wiser for the experience and stayed
with VisionQuest - "scared shitless," as Robinson later put it.

Having been in government and then hitting the skids himself, Robinson
has a unique perspective on drug addiction and a "much clearer desire
to be part of the solution."

His former fellow city councillor, Bruce Ralston, now NDP MLA for
Surrey-Whalley, and provincial NDP leader Carole James, have sought
his advice on related social issues.

Most drug addicts he knows want to quit, "but see no way
out."

"It's hard to get a job if you don't have an address or a phone
number" and are obsessing about the next high, he said.

A staggering number of people are desperate for help in Surrey, he
says. Closing recovery houses is not a solution, he added.

He conceded, however, that they should be regulated because some are
run by slumlords. "Crack houses without crack," he calls them.

Robinson noted he was fortunate not to have been in such a rehab
himself.

At age 50, Robinson has learned not to take life for granted. He's
also planning to run for Surrey council in the next civic election,
"if everything works out the way it should.

"We'll see where the road leads," he said with that coy politician's
grin of his.