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“This Place Gave Me a Chance.”

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He went to rehab in Albany and managed to stay clean and sober for six years, even trying to reconcile with his wife.

“We were seeing each other and said we should get back together,” Dave says. “But a week before I was going to move back in, she changed her mind.”

What Dave wanted most was to be with his kids who were eight and nine at the time. He had taken them on trips all over the country…he even opened an ice hockey school for his son who loved the sport. Dave was teaching power skating… there was a ton of money coming in. But when he became despondent, instead of calling his 12-step sponsor, he went out and used cocaine.

Over the next two years, Dave lost everything – his job, the money in his retirement fund and his pension… over a quarter of a million dollars!

He found himself homeless, living in parks under bushes.

When friends and family deserted him, Dave remembered his mother who used to “send money to the Mission at Christmastime.” “I remembered they had a shelter, so that’s where I went.”

Dave’s first stop was Samaritan House on West Main where he found food and a place to sleep at night.

Once his basic needs were met, the shelter manager started talking to him about the more permanent changes that could be made in our Christian Life Addiction Recovery Program.

“I’d been in other programs before and been ‘cured’ about the time my insurance ran out. When I came here, they didn’t ask for insurance.”

Dave is convinced that insurance isn’t the only thing that separates the Mission from other recovery programs: It’s the people. “Everyone was so kind to me. They just kept me putting one foot in front of the other. When I got a call that my mother was in the hospital and dying, there was no question that they would take me up to see her. I really found out who my friends were!”

Once Dave graduated, he started getting job offers. The guy who used to make $50,000 a year was now working for $8 an hour. Then, he was hired by Eastman Kodak and works there to this day.

Dave is thankful for the Mission and for the people who support it and helped him get “back on his feet.”

“They didn’t ask me for anything, and they gave me what I needed in return.”