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Read stories about men who have changed their lives because of the Calgary Dream Centre
Darren
John
Mark
Laverne
Darren
by Doris Fleck
The Calgary Dream Centre is renowned for giving men who battle with addictions a second chance, but in Darren’s case, he needed a third.
A full-blown alcoholic by age 15, Darren had been to the Dream Centre on two previous occasions, but never went through their entire program.
In 2007, on his second chance, Darren said, “I just kind of snapped in my room.”
There was a bar next door to the Dream Centre and Darren quietly slipped down the stairs, ran past the cameras and out the back door. He ran close to the building to avoid another camera and charged towards the 12-foot fence.
“I’ve always been a really good climber,” he said. “It was so fast the guy on duty replayed the tape a few times. He was pretty amazed at the jail break.”
By the time he returned the next morning it was “game over” and Darren left saddened since the best sobriety he ever had was when he was at the Dream Centre.
After living on the streets for the past two years, the Dream Centre took him in again. This time Darren poured himself into their programs, taking advantage of the case workers and counselling sessions.
With a job at XS Cargo, Darren said the Dream Centre has a lot to offer. “I’ve been here five months now and there’s nothing like it. I can put away a bit of money every month and use this as a transition.”
John
by Doris Fleck
John is not your typical graduating class valedictorian. But then, the Calgary Dream Centre is certainly not a conventional educational institution.
The Dream Centre provides top-notch programs that help men conquer their addictions. In its six-year history, hundreds of men have gone through the various programs and successfully transitioned off the streets to become productive members of society. Their astounding success rate is something John said gives the Dream Centre a positive “word on the street.” Over 75 per cent of the men that go through the centre never go back to their former life.
For 36-year-old John, the Dream Centre has become the answer to his desperate prayer for God’s help while on his knees in the Remand Centre. As an alcoholic and drug addict for the better part of 30 years, John found himself in and out of jail.
Even though he worked with an engineering firm for 18 years, sometimes earning as much as $300,000 per year, drugs and alcohol were never far away.
When he addressed the families, staff and 18 other men who graduated with him, he said, “We battled with something we couldn’t overcome alone. Many of us ended up hopelessly lost, on the streets, in jail, hurt and alone…
“It was evident immediately that this place was different,” John continued. “Everyone had a genuine care, understanding and empathy towards us. We were welcomed and we felt loved. These things can’t be bought.”
Now John is working at the Dream Centre and encouraging the new men coming in.
Drawing on his experience of persisting even through the more difficult challenges of the recovery process, he said. “I’ve saved some men from walking out of here and throwing this opportunity away.”
Mark
by Doris Fleck
The Calgary Dream Centre was Mark’s last chance. He had gone to nine other treatment facilities in the past 16 years. None of them were able to give him long-term help for his cocaine addiction.
“In all the other treatment centres there was one thing I was lacking,” Mark said, “and it was God.”
At the age of 38, after years of cocaine addiction, drug trafficking, and being isolated from his family, Mark told his two children and ex-wife that he was going to kill himself.
“I was in a fetal position on the floor in my house,” Mark related. “I screamed out, ‘If there is a God out there, I need You now!’ ”
He went to the Renfrew Recovery Centre which provides medical help for addicts going through detoxification. When Mark left, he went to a local rehabilitation facility, but his urine test came back positive for cocaine even though he was clean. He was immediately rejected.
His last chance was the Dream Centre. When he arrived his urine was still positive for cocaine, but “they gave me the benefit of the doubt,” Mark said. Later it was proven that liver problems had caused this “false positive” test result.
Mark has now been clean for the longest time in 20 years. He hasn’t even had a desire to do drugs since he arrived at the Dream Centre.
Mark has started his own business and invented a “flashy” handle for a welding stinger. The response to it has been great and Mark said, “Now I have a craving to live life and be a better father.”
Laverne
By Doris Fleck
Family means everything to Laverne. That’s because he knows what it’s like to have his father abandon him at age two.
“Not having a father as a role model hurt me,” Laverne said. “I wanted to be nothing like my father who left his wife, daughter and son.”
But when Laverne was 12, his father came back and asked if they could be friends. Laverne needed his father so badly he was willing to overlook the hurt and pain he had caused just so they could be together. Soon his dad was teaching him how to grow marijuana and smoke it. They drank together and Laverne’s dad became violent. He was caught by the police two years later and fled to Ontario.
Laverne felt like he had no one. After joining a large drilling company, he began making good money and started snorting cocaine and drinking.
“I didn’t care if I died,” Laverne said. “I had nothing to live for.”
Laverne heard about a facility called the Dream Centre that taught life skills. Here he found caring people, help for his addictions and other men who encouraged him. It was a new home and a new start.
Laverne said he had been throwing his life away, but after going through the programs at the Dream Centre, the 25 year old plans to apply to SAIT for their three-year paramedic course so he can save lives.
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