PATH TO FREEDOM, ROAD TO RECOVERY

You'd never expect to find so much hope among a bunch of men wrestling with
alcohol or drug addiction.

Media tours of Surrey's rehab houses usually result in the reporting of
hard-luck stories coming from guys with even harder faces.

But Cloverdale's Path To Freedom home seemed different.

The men gathered around the table, with their different races and
experiences, all had one expression in common - that being a resolve to get
their life together and improve themselves even beyond that.

A sign hangs on the wall, with a quote from the Bard himself: "Cowards die
many times before their deaths - the valiant taste of death but once."

The Path to Freedom Alcohol and Drug Treatment Centre, at 19030 Hwy. 10,
was opened by recovering alcoholic Hardev Randhawa, in September 1996. It's
a 90-day residential treatment facility licensed by the Fraser Health
Authority, and has helped 150 men since it opened. It currently has 10
beds, but wants to expand its operation to 15. Admission is voluntary.

Randhawa worked 22 years in a sawmill in Merritt before making a new life
in Cloverdale.

"I wasn't doing very good there. I struggled to stay sober," he said,
knowing first hand how tough it is to kick the habit.

The minimum stay at the house is 90 days, though some men remain for up to
five months. In that time, they attend daily workshops, work through
Alcoholics Anonymous' Big Book and prepare themselves for another shot at
living in the outside world.

Giorgio Bellico, 27, of Vancouver, is the newest resident, having arrived
just four days before this interview. He was spending a lot of money at the
bar and casino, he said.

"It went to a point where enough's enough. I called a few places. This is
the place that picked up the phone."

Keith Jones, 52, of Richmond, went through the program two years ago, but
relapsed and is making a second attempt at getting his life straight.

"Last time I came for somebody else, not for me," he said. "This time I
came totally on my own, for my own, by myself."

Resident Brad Paine said an addict's options are limited: You're looking at
losing everything, or doing something about it.

"You reach that point where you're going to end up in jail, you're gonna
end up dead, or you do something," he said. Unfortunately, not everyone
who's looking to a rehab for help gets help right away.

"Most places you call, for a lot of people, they'll tell you they have a
waiting list," Paine said. "Sometimes that lucid moment, where you're
willing to do something, say 'I'm an alcoholic myself,' stop drinking for a
couple of days and the opportunity is now - when you're told you've got to
wait two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, it's almost impossible, when
you're 'out there,' to hang on for that long.

"It's not a very pleasant experience, stopping," he added. "It's really
not. And to hang on for a couple of days, for three days, takes most of
what you've got. Most of us came here with no hope. When you've got no hope
and you're told OK, we can help you but you've got to hang on for another
two weeks - when that day that you've hung on for seems like it was about
two weeks long in itself - it seems almost impossible."

Paine's thankful he didn't have to wait long.

Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Kevin Falcon was invited by Randhawa to tour the
facility.

"I admire you guys for having the guts to come in and get straight," Falcon
told the men.

After hearing their stories, he said, "I admire the heck out of these
folks. They're good people whose lives have taken a turn for the worse as a
result of drugs or alcohol." To see them sincerely working to get better,
he added, "is quite moving, actually."