A JOURNEY TO HELL AND BACK

A Local Man Has Seen Suffering Beyond Suffering - And He Now Has A Message
To Share With Others

Randy Miller had it all - he was cool, handsome, a top athlete, a popular
guy at high school - and he was on his way to play for the NHL. He had the
world by the tail.

But then something went wrong, terribly wrong.

And Randy became a filthy, stinking raving maniac lying in the gutter at
Main and Hastings. He became one of those skinny, rag-clothed, drugged-out
bodies that people walk past either with pity or disgust. He became a
nobody, a bum who slept in the street and who cursed the day he was born.
Randy became a derelict drug addict. And that was his life.

Before he became a bum, when he was still a cool and popular guy at New
Westminster Secondary School, Randy used to smile and laugh. But that smile
hid the dark secret that lurked in his life.

Randy explains that at home, his dad used him as a punching bag. He'd hit
him, slap him and tell him he was stupid. At hockey games Randy would score
five goals and his dad would give him hell for not scoring six.

"He never called me son until I was 24," recalls Randy in a sad voice.

But that was at home. At school, things couldn't have been better -
excepting who you are stays with you at home and at school.

When he enrolled in Grade 8 at NWSS, Randy's life began to change.

"I saw guys rolling joints at school and drinking and smoking dope at the
cook house in Queen's Park. I started smoking pot and then tried hash,
mushrooms, acid and then speed. I didn't know I had an addictive personality."

At the age of 15, Randy was playing junior jockey. Everything for this top
athlete came naturally. But, after a year of doing drugs, the hockey player
realized he wasn't thinking as quickly. Randy didn't know it then, but he
was on his way to skid row.

"This could happen to any one of you," Randy said recently during a talk to
students at NWSS. Randy was there only because by some miracle he made it
back from hell - a return trip few other drug addicts ever get to make. The
road to drug hell is usually a one-way ticket to death - a road paved with
a tragic lack of love and self-worth.

By the time Randy was 15, he'd had more beatings than he could count. Each
time his father's fist slammed into him, Randy's self-worth sunk a little
lower. You can only be hit so many times before your heart breaks.

At the age of 15, Randy left home the first time.

By age 17, Randy was still a star athlete and was in the process of being
drafted by the Minnesota North Stars. But he was living in a dumpy hotel in
downtown New Westminster and he'd met an older girl who had introduced him
to heroin. With heroin in his veins, the pain of his inner life dissolved
into nothing. And Randy was finally happy.

"She came every day for a month. One day she didn't have enough for me. I
started getting sick and I realized at the age of 17 I was wired to heroin
and there was no turning back."

Randy shot drugs for three years in New Westminster and then moved to Main
and Hastings in Vancouver. For the next eight years he never left a
six-block radius. He didn't need to leave - his world was defined by his
hallucinations which had a tighter grip on him than any NHL career could
ever have.

"Down there, men rob and steal to get money for drugs; girls sell
themselves. You're first high is always free. If you need a fix, you take a
needle out of the wall, sharpen it on a match package and use it. You don't
care who else has used it. Most people down there end up dead. All have AIDS."

Randy lived in doorways, abandoned warehouses and in alleys. He lived on
chocolate bars, doughnuts and ice cream. Once a month he got a hot meal
from a local church. Once a year he ended up in hospital for two months
suffering from malnutrition and infections. When the nurses weren't
looking, Randy would sneak out to get his daily heroin fix.

Even in the gutter, Randy was a bit of a legend - a survivor. The National
Film Board learned of him and filmed him in the gutter, filthy and raving.
He was high.

"I thought I was clapping my hands and singing until I saw that film,"
Randy quietly said.

"It's really lonely down there. In all my 13 years as a drug addict, I can
say I don't have one good memory. You never celebrate Christmas or
birthdays. You have no friends. You can't trust anybody.

"But then it got really weird down there with the cops. They started
addressing me by my name. It was the first time in years I was treated like
a human. Fifteen years ago, cops would view you as scum and beat you with
their flashlights. Now they realize everyone down there comes from a family
and they all have a story. Everyone down there has been hurt by the word
love. Drugs is their form of slow suicide."

Two Vancouver police officers began to take an interest in Randy. They knew
his background, and one day brought Randy's brother, high school friend
Laurie (Little) Spindor and two other high school buddies to see him.

"I just freaked," recalls Randy, who at this point loathed himself for who
he'd become.

"I broke up and started crying. My brother told me I needed to come home
because I had three nephews who wanted to meet me."

Not long afterwards, Randy ended up in hospital with pneumonia and a badly
infected leg. He was at the end of his journey. At the age of 40, he was
one of the oldest surviving drug addicts downtown. And his time was running
out.

"I was just so ashamed of myself. I had nothing to feel good about. I was
sick and tired of being sick and tired. I just hoped that one morning I
wouldn't wake up."

Drug addicts say there are only two roads out of hell - dying or hitting
rock bottom. Randy was at rock bottom. His self-worth was almost gone -
excepting a spark of love that had been rekindled when his brother and
former classmates had visited him.

Somehow that gave Randy enough courage to make that all important phone
call - to get into a treatment centre, and then a recovery house for the
horrendously painful and lengthy withdrawal. For two years Randy was on
methadone, a medical replacement for heroin. A few months ago he managed to
get off methadone. Miraculously, during his 13 years as a drug addict,
Randy managed to evade both AIDS and hepatitis.

Now Randy shares his story with students, hockey teams and police officers.

One of Randy's biggest regrets was never graduating from high school. So,
after kicking heroin, Randy went back to school. Last summer he graduated.

If you are having problems in your life, if your self-esteem is low, if
your only escape is drugs - find someone to talk to, urges Randy.

"If you don't share it with someone, it will build up in you and you'll
make a bad choice.

"If I can just turn one person from going where I did . . ."

As for his father, Randy said: "I get sweaty just thinking of him. I have
nothing to say to him."

However, Randy said that when his father heard that Randy was off the
streets and wanting to get back in shape, he sent him a mountain bike and a
weight bench.

"Things are changing," Randy wistfully says.