ROCK BOTTOM AND BACK

Kenny Saunders agrees, if you're a junkie, you have to hit rock
bottom before you can climb back up.

After years as one of Maple Ridge's legions of homeless, eking out
an existence in the bush on the fringes of downtown, Kenny now has a
home, a job and has kicked his crystal-meth habit.

Instead of chasing a chemical high, he now gets high "doing
Christ-like things instead of getting a false sense of euphoria from
the drug."

But it took years to plunge to the depths and then to resurface.

Outside the Salvation Army's Caring Place on 222nd Street, Kenny
recalls his decades of alcohol, pot and cocaine use, part of a
lifestyle of working hard during the week, partying harder on weekends.

It wasn't until 1987 that he met his nemesis.

Crystal meth wasn't popular then and wasn't even being produced in
Canada, he recalls. Instead, it was being smuggled in from the U.S.
to "a select few."

He kept using crystal meth and other drugs, still able to function
in the work world, until about 2000, when it all caught up to him.

"You think everything's going OK, but it's not," he said.

"I guess I didn't make it to work a few times. My employment got
terminated and from there, I just ended up on the street."

It's that simple.

"When you don't get to sleep for three or four days at a time, it's
kind of hard to get to work."

You lose your job, your paycheque, your home. You become one of the
homeless, sleeping on benches, lining up at the Salvation Army or
trying to find shelter under plastic sheets.

Despite its deadly effects on the brain, crystal meth is almost a
tailor-made product for someone on the street, offering cheap, long
highs. Kenny says $20 to $50 can get you high all day. Compared to
crack cocaine, which gives a brief, orgasmic-type of rush, crystal
meth provides ongoing euphoria.

"It's just the sort of thing you get started on and you want to keep going.

"It makes you kind of lose track of time.

"It fks a lot of people up - not just physically,
but psychologically as well."

To pay for it, Kenny became one of the many binners in downtown
Maple Ridge, rummaging through garbage containers. Any odd item
could be sold for some change, which would go to making the daily quota.

Collecting empty pop bottles and beer cans, and sometimes the odd
job, also kept the cash coming in.

On average, about $20 or $30 a night is possible through collecting
bottles. In a week, Kenny could raise between $100 and $150.

"It's easy to get $20 a night if you know the right bins."

"I found watches, rings - stuff like that.

"Lots of times when you're doing the binning you're keeping an eye
out for what you can 'liberate, [or steal and then sell for drugs],'
" he recalls.

Financing the habit was also done by buying a quantity of the drug,
smoking half and selling half.

Kenny admits, on occasion, he did some petty theft. But he didn't
break into cars or homes.

"There are a few people around that would kind of specialize in
that," he said.

"I didn't cross the line, sort of thing."

He realizes now, as he did then, it wasn't right.

"Sometimes you'd be doing something that you know is not right, but
you still do it.

"The false sense of euphoria makes you forget the shty thing you had to do."

Party time

Life on the street isn't as lonely and wretched as it seems.

Street people form a network, a social circle. While they may lie
and steal from each other, they also look out for and protect each
other, hang out together, get high together.

"There's kind of a brotherly, sisterly thing out there," Kenny said.

It's not difficult to get the word out if someone is looking for
someone, he points out.

Routines or schedules didn't count for much, unless one was keeping
track of meals offered at local soup kitchens. Instead, it was more
or less party at night, do nothing all day.

"Every day is Saturday and every night is Friday night," Kenny said.

He also showed the symptoms which many Maple Ridge residents
encounter daily in the form of the long trains of grocery carts
laden with eclectic collections of junk.

"I was kind of guilty of that collectivitis too," he said, adding
later that he used to haul the merchandise on a dolly that he'd tow
behind his bike.

Nevertheless, some items could always be pawned for dollars and
turned into drugs.

The street also offered the occasional free meal. The KFC bin kitty
corner from the Caring Place sometimes had bagfuls of untouched
chicken dinners.

The bins behind the former 7-Eleven on 222nd Street sometimes had
sandwiches that had gone beyond the expiry date. At Tim Horton's
"you hit them up at the right time - every six to eight hours they
replace all the donuts."

The bins where people would donate their second-hand clothes to
charity were also a rich source of pawnable goods, but those are now
tougher to get into, he notes.

Kenny disagrees with the current policy of the Friends in Need Food
Bank, which only provides hampers to people with addresses, an
attempt to discourage junkies.

"If you don't give them the food, they're going to go out and steal
more anyway," he said.

Spirituality helped

Why has he succeeded where so many have faltered? Kenny pauses. It's
hard to explain how it happened, but when he was on the street he
"got touched by Jesus."

His road to recovery started in fall 2004, when he developed
pneumonia and had just survived a fire in his tent.

It was Salvation Army former staffer Barb Wardrope and Maple Ridge
Mayor Gordy Robson, then a Salvation Army volunteer, who talked him
out of the bush and into the Sally Ann's transition housing program.

Kenny had been thinking about getting clean, but "everybody thinks
about quitting.

Thinking about it and doing it are two different things, Kenny said.

For him, Wardrope reminded him of his mother, and the fact Robson
would take the time from his busy schedule also impressed him.

Kenny's brother pitched in $450 a month for rent so Kenny could stay
at the shelter. He volunteered working Christmas kettles for the
Salvation Army that December. By February, he had a job dismantling
a sawmill in Squamish. That lasted just four months, but it was long
enough to keep him out of the drug scene of central Maple Ridge.

Kenny still visits the shelter five to six times a week to stay
connected to his "family" and, it's hoped, be a beacon for others.

He admits he's far from perfect, but "Uncle Kenny," as he's known,
says he always looked out for his weaker friends.

"My Christ-like thing is to try and be the positive energy around
here and everybody is so negative."

Back at work

It's a good day for Kenny. He's just turned 56 and he's wearing a
clean shirt with Triumph motorcycle logo on it. July 1st marked his
21st month away from meth.

He still drinks the odd beer, but hasn't had a cigarette in three
months. "I haven't choked anybody yet," he said.

Kenny recently took a work safety course and just started a job as a
construction safety officer on a project in Vancouver.

It's just temporary, but he hopes it will lead to something
permanent, a shorter commute from his west Maple Ridge home.
Ideally, he'd like to get hired by the Golden Crossing Constructors
Joint Venture, which is building the Golden Ears Bridge.

Getting off the street also means he can now take care of his
daughter, Kennya, a student at Pitt Meadows secondary. Heading into
Grade 10, she's glad to have her dad back. While he wasn't always
around, he always stayed in contact with his daughter.

It's nice to know she has a father, Kennya said.

When he left years ago, she had no idea the trouble he was in.

"I'm really, really proud of my dad and what he's been through - it
takes a lot of willpower to get off the stuff and then get out and
yet still be around the same people.

"Takes a lot of courage too," she adds.

While Kenny tries to provide a role model, he has practical advice
to anyone tempted by the lifestyle.

Try to find something that gives you a genuine euphoria rather than
the false one promised by a drug, he said.

"The help's out there, if they ask for it."

Kenny jumps into his pick-up truck with Kennya and head home.

[Sidebar]

For many addicts, salvation can lie in plain, simple talk.

It's often through that everyday interaction where people stuck in a
cycle of drug use and crime can see there is another way out, says
Ron Lawrence, executive-director with the Alouette Addictions Society.

Once caught in the spiral of getting high, crime and poverty addicts
often see can't any other way in life.

So having outreach workers get to people in the locations where
they're actually living is the first step to getting them off drugs.

The key is to offer hope to those who may be living out of a
dumpster and using a rock as a pillow.

"It's a grim life - for those people who have reached the hard-core stage.

"They don't see any options. For some people, they just don't see
any way out."

But turning lives around is more complicated and lengthy than that.

Once people realize they can change, they need a safe environment
where they can stay clean and allow the drug to clear from their
system and allow them to think clearly.

After that, transitional housing is needed to support people as they
make the change to productive life.

What's crucial -- is putting time between a person's last use of
drugs and the present -- so they can relearn the healthy pleasures
of normal life.

The process can take up to two years, he says.

The same goes for heroine or cocaine addiction, although crystal
meth recovery takes longer.

Lawrence said most users ingest a variety of drugs.

But crystal meth, he says, is particularly deadly. "The drug has
such a devastating effect on the brain."

Crystal meth at $10 or $20 a point, can offer a high for several
hours which could mean less crime is needed to finance the drug. But
the psychosis it creates can be dangerous to the user and anyone else.

By comparison, a high from crack cocaine can just last 10 minutes.

All the research shows that crystal meth can't be used recreationally, he said.

"You're not going to find an old crystal meth addict. They're going
to be dead," either from a heart attack or criminal activity.