ADDICT WALKED AWAY FROM STREET LIFE

Now He Gets All The Rush He Needs Behind The Wheel Of His Mustang

These days, when Randy Miller wants to get high, he climbs in his
brand new retro-styled black Mustang and takes off.

"Who needs to do drugs? I get in my car, turn the tunes up and I get
high," says Miller. "It's beautiful. It's the best I've ever had it.
There's no way I can go back to drugs -- I have too much to lose."

The 52-year-old has money in the bank, works out at the gym during
the day, works the night shift as a longshoreman and watches movies
and football with his girlfriend and their chihuahua. It's a pretty
average life these days for a man whose life has been far from average.

Miller, the recipient of the Courage to Come Back Award in the
addiction category, made his unlikely debut in the public eye as a
subject in the 1999 National Film Board of Canada documentary Through
a Blue Lens.

The film, shot in part by a group of Vancouver police officers known
as the Odd Squad, followed a number of addicts through their daily
lives in the Downtown Eastside.

Miller's on-screen impression was a lasting one -- of a life wasted
by 13 years of cocaine and heroin addiction.

In one scene, unkempt and inarticulate, he writhes on the sidewalk,
moaning and jerking in the throes of drug psychosis.

"It took me a year to be able to watch that movie," he says. "It was
the most disgusting thing I've seen."

Today, Miller, looking like a well-groomed jock, has cops for friends
and flies on the RCMP jet to speaking engagements. He estimates he's
spoken to 50,000 Canadian school kids about the dangers of addiction.

He speaks straight from the heart, and the streets.

"I can just deal with reality. I'm not pulling no punches or nothing.
This is the way it is," he says.

"You've got to educate them about making the right choices. You can't
make them do anything. I don't preach to them."

Miller was known for his longevity on the streets. Not many go as
hard as he did for as long as he did and live to tell the story.

"What a way to get famous," he laughs. "I thought I was going to be a
hockey player, not a drug addict."

Indeed, as a teenager and junior hockey player, Miller had the eyes
of scouts on him throughout North America. He excelled at all sports,
was at the top of the social heap at New Westminster Secondary School
and his future was big and bright.

Then he found drugs.

"Things are going good and next thing you know you are addicted," Miller says.

He dropped out of school at 17, lived and did drugs on Granville
Street but cleaned up at 23. He married, got a welding trade and then
everything fell apart when he became addicted to painkillers after leg surgery.

"That was it," says Miller.

He slept on the street, manned his corner at Columbia and Hastings
streets and dealt drugs.

That was his life -- one without family, friends, love or emotion.

He thought his future would go one of two ways -- fatally overdosing
or slowly dying of AIDS.

"I never thought I'd clean up," says Miller.

Then the Odd Squad came into his life and arranged for a visit from
his long-lost brother and friends. That reunion set off a sequence of
events that has seen him free of his addictions for seven years.

"That's probably the first time in 13 years I dealt with a real
emotion. I started crying," Miller says.

He discovered he had three nephews who wanted to know him. And he was
free of the HIV virus.

He isn't sure why he survived.

"I'm fortunate to be here and fortunate enough to share my story to
educate people," he says.

For eight years, the Coast Mental Health Foundation's Courage to Come
Back Awards have honoured those who have shown inspiration and
courage in overcoming illness, adversity or injury. Awards are
presented May 4 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Visit www.coastfoundation.com.

'A Real Survivor'

Vancouver police Const. Al Arsenault, one of the officers behind Odd
Squad Productions, began filming Randy Miller in late 1997 for the
documentary Through A Blue Lens.

"He's a real survivor," says Arsenault.

"He was one of the worst drug addicts that I saw down there. He was
really hard core. He didn't have a place to sleep. He was riddled
with scabs and was dirty."

But Arsenault could always see the polite, decent and gentle man
behind the addiction.

"I'm extremely proud of him," he says. "He truly is deserving of this
award because he did come back against severe obstacles."