SON SHINE INN PROVIDES A SECOND CHANCE

Bob Cleveland wanted to die.

Slowly and deliberately, he began killing himself in 1972, the year he
returned from Vietnam and chased away the visions of war with heroin.

Years later, he was still alive -- and growing impatient.

So he sent more heroin coursing through his veins and finally, in
August 1999, he lay near death in a California hospital. He weighed
only 114 pounds; his skin, then pale and paper thin, seemed to melt
from his body.

Ultimately, though, his brush with death not only saved his life, but
the life of his younger brother, Scott. Today, as a nation gives
thanks for things big and small, Scott and Bob Cleveland are grateful
for something far more precious: another chance at a life once lost.

Theirs is a story of two young brothers who fell to a life of drugs
and despair. It's a story of one sister's perseverance, and of a
counselor who took a chance on two men he never met.

"I had lost all hope," Bob Cleveland recalled. "I thought it was too
late to start all over."

But here, at the Son Shine Inn, an old convent on Capitol Hill where
drug addicts come to find hope, Frederick Robinson will tell you it is
never too late.

Robinson was once addicted to drugs himself. He grew up near the old
convent, and spent a year in a treatment facility.

Now, as the director of the New Vision Drug Rehabilitation Program, he
helps others, such as the Cleveland brothers.

"When people come to us they're hopeless," Robinson said. "We try to
instill in them something they can't see or even imagine.

"There's a lot of tough love. They're used to giving up. We keep them
in the battle."

'A good night to die'

Scott Cleveland awoke in the hospital after surgery that morning and
saw the tubes snaking from his brother's body. Machines blipped and
blinked. Each time Bob Cleveland coughed, the lights on the machine
monitoring his heartbeat would sputter for a moment or two.

Their trip to the hospital culminated years of hard living -- and hard
luck.

Bob Cleveland will tell you that he had been arrested nearly a dozen
times for drunken driving. He will also tell you that on Christmas Eve
in 1981, he was overcome by despair and tried to kill himself.

He was sitting in the front seat of a California squad car. He was so
drunk he could hardly stand, so the sheriff didn't bother handcuffing
him. Bob tried to force the car off the road and into a telephone pole.

"It seemed like a good night to die," he recalled. "I had a hole in my
heart. Nothing could fill that hole. Not drugs, not alcohol, not nothing."

Scott, too, had lost hope.

He and his brother earned money by painting addresses on sidewalks. At
night, they slept in the Mojave Desert in sleeping bags.

But that day, in that California hospital room, Scott decided it was
time to change.

His mother flew from Federal Way to the California hospital to visit
with her sons. That same week, Bob and Scott's sister, Jayne DeHay,
began calling treatment facilities, seeking help.

Robinson remembers taking DeHay's call -- one of 100 she made. Because
Scott was taking methadone, a drug more potent than morphine that is
used to treat heroin addiction, Robinson was reluctant.

DeHay, though, was persuasive.

"Still, I never thought that Scott would get on the plane," Robinson
said.

But Scott did.

Handwriting on the wall

A few weeks later, Bob emerged from a coma. There, in his hospital
room, his eyes fell on a handwritten sign taped to the wall: "Don't
worry. You'll still not well enough to leave the hospital. Scott has
already stepped out. He's gaining weight and doing well. You're next."

In December 1999, two months after Scott entered the program, Bob's
sister placed another call to Robinson. Bob was now well enough to
leave the hospital, and DeHay wondered: Was there room for another
person at the Son Shine Inn?

Often, there is a waiting list. The facility, which relies entirely on
donations, can hold only 30 people at one time.

But this time, there was room, and soon, Bob joined
Scott.

Today, both attend South Central Community College. Bob wants to be a
preacher; Scott, a drug counselor.

There are, of course, dozens of other success stories at the Son Shine
Inn, operated by Seattle's Union Gospel Mission through the New Vision
program.

Consider, for a moment, the man left paralyzed and weakened from years
of drugs use. A judge made him an offer: the Son Shine Inn or jail. He
chose the Son Shine Inn and has been sober for two years.

Or the man once so strung out on drugs that he slept on Seattle's
streets, carrying all his possessions in a bag.

Today, he manages the center's kitchen, and is overseeing the
preparation of a Thanksgiving meal.

Not everyone who comes to the facility is homeless.

There are factory workers and preachers and city employees. Each comes
here with a simple goal: to escape the years of drug abuse.

One in four will succeed.

But these days, Bob and Scott's mother, Joan Holmes, doesn't talk
about statistics or failure rates or time lost with her two sons.

Instead, she focuses on the future.

"I always thought that if Bob and Scott got off drugs, I wouldn't be
alive to see it," Holmes said. "But everything has worked out in ways
we never expected.

"I'm just thrilled. It's amazing. Without a doubt, this will be our
best Thanksgiving ever."