RECOVERING ADDICT LENDS A HAND

Greg Kononow rides his bicycle to Marchese Pharmacy on James North every
day. The woman behind the counter has three big pitchers of juice ready --
grape, peach and orange. Greg always chooses the orange. Into that goes
115 milligrams of methadone. For most people, that cocktail would be
deadly. For Greg, who has built up a tolerance to drugs, it just controls
the cravings of addiction.

I found Greg on my front porch the other night. He was standing there,
ballcap scrunched way down, pad and pen in hand.

I'm good at sending sales people away quickly. I always try to do it
politely, because long ago I did sales myself. It's a tough grind. But
whatever could this guy be selling? I listened.

He said he was an addict. He pulled out his health card. As rough as he
looked on my porch, he looked rougher in the photo on that card. He said it
was taken before he came to Hamilton, not quite a year ago. He was 108
pounds then. He's since gained 60 pounds.

He said he lives in a place on Aberdeen Avenue, managed by the Good
Shepherd Centre. And that he is on a methadone program. He was going door
to door asking for money. With that money, he said, he was buying food for
homeless people.

A dodgy story. But this man under the cap seemed so vulnerable, so earnest.
I gave him three loonies. He then ripped a strip of paper from his pad,
wrote down his name, address and phone number. "I do that for everybody,"
he said. "If you know someone who needs help, call me."

I did call a couple of days later, then went to see him. I asked how his
front-door campaign had worked out. Greg said he had gone out several
nights. On his best night, he got $37. He said that three times he took the
money and went downtown. He went to Giant Tiger and bought a case of Pepsi
on sale.

Then he went to Pizza Pizza, King and John, and bought two extra-large
pepperoni pizzas. He took them across the street to Gore Park and passed
out slices to people he believes are homeless. They wondered what he was
doing, but ate the pizza.

Greg lives in a plain, grey room. There are three things on the wall -- an
appointment slip from his probation officer (a couple of years ago, he
stole a prescription pad and forged some scrips), a picture of roses that
his mother put up and a card with dogs on it from his 12-year-old niece. It
says: "Dear Uncle Greg: I miss you so much. How are you doing? I'm fine.
School is going great. I am very proud of you. I love you."

Greg, 38, is from Ajax. His father worked for GM. His mother, a widow,
phones nearly every day at noon.

Greg used to play hockey. A coach abused him when he was 10 and he quit a
few years after that. Greg also golfed a lot. He picked up garbage at the
Annandale course and they let him play free. He won some tournaments.

He left Ajax High early. He didn't fit. "I've always kind of been a loner.
I've always thought people were looking at me as an ugly duckling.

"It seemed I always had to buy my friends. At the pool hall, I was the one
who ended up paying for the pool, the pop, the cigarettes."

At his first job, on the line at a fastener factory, he found the way to
join in was to go out with his co-workers and drink as much as they did.
But he was only 16. Marijuana and hash were next. The long spiral was
under way. He moved on to cocaine and pills.

When he was 22, through connections, he was able to get on as a janitor
with Toronto city hall. Technically, he's still with the city, though it's
five years since he reported for work. He submits a doctor's note every 28
days.

After a cocaine purchase in 1987, the police chased him into the Christie
subway station and he smashed his ankle at the bottom of the escalator.
Ever since, he has walked with a limp.

That got him addicted to pain killers. He graduated to Dilaudid, often used
by addicts when they can't get heroin.

"It's euphoria," says Greg. "You have no pain. You feel on top of the
world. The shyness is gone. If the prime minister was sitting beside you,
you'd be talking to him."

But he was turning into a vegetable. His family, which had always been
there for him, was backing off. Greg had hit bottom.

At the Pinewood Detox centre in Oshawa, he heard about the Mission Services
Suntrac recovery program in Hamilton. He arrived here late last year and
has been on methadone all that time.

The methadone does not provide a high, but it does prevent withdrawal. So
Greg makes that daily trip to the drugstore. He likes the place. He knows
everybody's name and they know his.

He stands at the counter and is handed a styrofoam cup. He drinks down his
methadone-and-juice in front of the pharmacist. That is the rule.

They give him another cup of straight juice to chase away the bitter taste.
One for the road -- and a long road it is.