THIS MAN HAS AN ARMY BEHIND HIM IN THE BATTLE WITH ADDICTION

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Brian.

So far, the 34-year-old is beating the odds. He's been sober for more
than two years and is working hard to make his lawn-care business a
success. He has a supportive wife and a baby on the way.

Brian Neumann is a long way from Hollywood, thankfully. But to
appreciate his successes, you must understand where he's been. It's an
ugly tale. It doesn't endear Brian to anyone. But he tells it because
he's finding his way back, because "I wanted to become something I
could be proud of," and because the Salvation Army program that helped
him can help others.

Until 2 1/2 years ago, Brian was a mess. He sold drugs. He drank
himself into oblivion regularly. He moved from Seattle to Southern
California and back, tending bar, looking for friends to con and
blaming everyone but himself for his problems.

The abuse started in junior high, when he was introduced to marijuana.
He became a regular at Seattle's nightclubs. After high school, he
joined the Air Force but lasted only a year before the service kicked
him out, he said, for, "among other things, alcohol and drugs."

Brian tried school, taking training to teach sign language. He married
a friend and tried to be a father to her child. He sobered up several
times, went through a 28-day treatment program, stopped selling drugs,
got divorced. But always, the fast life called him back.

Brian remembers many nights when he'd meet more than a dozen friends
at somebody's house. They'd take speed and then go to nightclubs and
dance all night. Afterward, he'd sleep for three days.

Those friends grew out of it, Brian said. "They weren't addicted; they
were experimenting."

Brian, however, was addicted. "I really liked speed," he said. But "it
was something I couldn't control, and I needed to admit I couldn't."

That took years. At one point, he was a director of a Boys and Girls
Club in California by day; he tended bar at night. But he couldn't be
a bartender and stay sober. And he couldn't be a waiter at a fancy
restaurant, one expected to know fine wines, because that sent him
back to the bottle.

After being fired from both jobs, Brian came back to Seattle. No
money. No job. No place to live. His family had long since tired of
his lies. He got a job bartending on Capitol Hill and sold drugs on
the side. He lost his job again and lived in his car for a while. But
while tending bar, he met a woman who believed he had potential, who
thought he could be something more than an addict.

Brian went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with drugs in his
pocket. Someone there told him about the Salvation Army's treatment
program -- a six-month rehabilitation program that offers drug and
alcohol treatment, room and board in exchange for work. Unlike other
treatment programs, it didn't require a bunch of money. Brian signed
up.

"I wanted to change my life as well as give her something," he said.
"I was ready to prove myself, with a little support."

The program taught Brian to work again. It taught him to live with
other people. It gave him hope. And it gave him something to be proud
of. Although 700 people a year start the program, only one in four
finishes.

"It gave me a place to practice being responsible," he said, "away
from the drugs and bad life, a place where I could achieve." When
Brian graduated two years ago, he began driving an army donation truck
and doing yard work on weekends.

The Salvation Army, which also provides housing for thousands of
homeless people, works with its rehabilitation graduates, trying to
keep them clean and help them become self-sufficient.

Brian is building his own landscaping business. He hires other
Salvation Army program graduates when he needs extra help. He hopes
eventually to go back to school to study design.

"I'm focusing on getting myself solid," he said. "I'm learning to
juggle jobs, schedule. My mind's been a mess for so long, it's
stressful. But if I say I'm going to do something, I do it. And I do
it till it's right."

He takes things a day at a time. He's planning his future. And he goes
back to the Salvation Army often, to remind himself how far he's come.