DREAM CENTRE RESURRECTING LIVES

Father Of Recovering Addict: "none of us thought Jeff would survive
another six months"

"A miracle, that's what he is," says Jim Moore, as he gestures toward
21-year-old Jeff, a Mount Royal College commerce student.

"Every day, I get to see miracles, lives transformed, people on the verge
of death brought back to life," says Moore, the executive director of the
Calgary Dream Centre, a highly successful addiction recovery centre for
men, located on Macleod Trail.

Jeff nods and smiles. "I am a miracle. It's really a wonder I'm alive. I
honestly don't believe I'd be alive right now if it wasn't for the Dream
Centre."

Jeff's father, Ken -- a lawyer and a senior executive with a large Calgary
energy company -- agrees. He says this summer when the family had a
reunion at their summer home in Kelowna, he marvelled that Jeff was not
only there, but he was back -- back from the brink. His youngest son --
who was lost for so many years to alcohol and drug addiction -- was not
just alive, but thriving. "A miracle."

"If you were to roll the clock back to October last year, none of us
thought Jeff would survive another six months, he was so far gone,"
enthuses Ken.

Jeff's story is proof that addiction can grab hold of people who come from
even the best and most privileged of homes.

When he was just 14, he started experimenting with alcohol and marijuana.

By the time he was 15, he was drinking and using marijuana daily and
experimenting with essentially any drug he could get his hands on. Then he
started selling drugs to feed his insatiable thirst for escape.

On the outside, he was clean-cut, had good manners and was respectful, but
he was really out of control. He was eventually kicked out of two high
schools for drug use before he graduated, just barely, from Ernest Manning
High.

"I never studied I just did the minimum. Now I actually enjoy studying,"
says Jeff, who plans to attend the University of Calgary next year to get
a Bachelor of Commerce degree.

After high school, Jeff travelled to Europe for a couple of months in 2006
with a friend, supposedly to drink in the history and art of the
continent. Instead the 185 pound, strapping student, drank and ingested
virtually nothing but booze and drugs and came home a veritable skeleton
of 115 pounds, with sunken cheeks and grey skin.

"I was completely emotionless, a totally different person. I was using
half an ounce of cocaine a day."

He became quite violent with his parents and his two older brothers.
Everybody was afraid of him and his parents were desperate and tried
everything to save their son, from helping him out of tight spots to tough
love to putting him in programs.

He'd been committed to the Peter Lougheed psychiatric ward and eventually
was flown to Nanaimo, B. C., to attend an expensive detox and treatment
centre, where he spent almost five months before being kicked out for
breaking the rules.

"At that time, I had no respect for anybody or anything. I was suicidal. I
was pretty much disowned because I was too toxic for my family."

After he got out of the costly treatment centre, he got a job in Nanaimo,
but eventually he hit the bottle and the drugs again, lost his job and
wound up homeless.

Jeff called an old friend in Calgary, told him he was coming home for the
weekend and asked if he could meet him at the Greyhound station. But his
concerned friend called Jeff's mom and stepdad instead and they met Jeff
at the station. They told him he could either continue doing what he was
doing and not see them anymore or go into detox.

After five days of detox at AADAC's Renfrew Recovery Centre, Jeff entered
into the Fresh Start program for two months.

After a brief relapse, he got out and lived for a time with another drug
addict.

One night, he borrowed her car, ended up rolling the vehicle and smashing
into an RV compound and walked away unscathed.

His father Ken says, "you've heard of people having nine lives, well Jeff
has had 99 lives."

"One thing I'm very, very grateful for," says Jeff, "is I never injured or
killed anyone else.

"I was trying to kill myself, with drugs, alcohol, the way I drove,
everything."

One night, while with the same woman, he threatened to kill himself and
wound up strapped to "the little green bed at the Peter Lougheed
Hospital,"where he was in lockdown. Jeff says a fellow he met at Fresh
Start told him about the Dream Centre and its very high success rate.

"I asked for a pass to come to the Dream Centre and I met Rob Laird and
begged him for help.

"Rob said: 'when you get out of the hospital, you have a bed here.'

"They fed me, they clothed me, they loved me and only asked that I
participate." At that, Jeff weeps and so does Moore.

"The compassion here is incredible. The teachers, Tyrone Lester, Gary
Carmichael. They don't preach but they showed me the love of God by how
they treated me," says Jeff.

"The biggest thing for me is the God factor. God's love for me was the
last thing I had left. I started reading the Bible, I got baptized.
Religion is not pushed on you here but if you want it, it's available and,
for me, it's the answer."

Moore calls the love of Jesus, the Centre's "secret ingredient" and the
real reason behind the centre's incredible success rate.

Jeff has been sober since November 26, 2007 -- just one of thousands of
men who have been transformed since the centre opened almost six years
ago.

Jeff has made amends with his long-suffering family, who are ecstatic
about his transformation.

"I laugh, I cry, I have a great girlfriend, I'm a kind and respectful
person again," he says wiping away a tear. "My family actually started to
want to spend time with me again. One of the things that the Dream Centre
gave me is it gave me my family back."

Jeff, who chose to live at the Dream Centre for an extra five months past
his graduation, is living the centre's motto: Restore dignity, discover
destiny, and realize dreams. His first modest dream was to get a job where
he had to wear a suit and be respected, similar to his father. Incredibly,
he spent the summer working as a market analyst for a large Calgary firm
where he excelled and now is studying hard to improve himself and give
back to society.

Moore says none of the success stories like Jeff's could happen without a
great team, the support of the church, the partnership of governments and
the thousands of people who support this vital place where dreams are
realized.

The Calgary Dream Centre is just one of a dozen charities supported by the
Calgary Herald Christmas Fund, which passes on every penny raised to these
wonderful, life-saving agencies.

"We built the wellness centre, which the Calgary Herald gave us the money
to start," explains Moore.

"That made it possible for us to have two counsellors and two case
workers. The Christmas Fund cheque we received last year really got that
going which raised us to a new level of excellence, so we're very, very
grateful for it," adds Moore, who was once president of real estate for
Canada Trust.

"This is the best job I've ever had," says Moore, who was instrumental in
starting the Dream Centre in 2003 after it was conceived by First Assembly
Church.

"Actually, it's not a job, it's a calling. Every day in the Dream Centre,
there's a miracle. It just blesses me so much. When lives are changed and
transformed, the feeling is satisfaction and peace. There's hope for
everyone.

"When guys walk through that door we don't see the men who come in here
the way they are," adds Moore, "we see their potential. Then we see the
miracle of a life transformed."