Under the Bridge

It's no secret that I used to be a drunk and a drug addict. Anybody who knows me knows that. I been sober a while. Almost 17 years. If you ever want to know how I stopped, just ask - that's no big secret either.

During the first two months of my sobriety, I was a homeless person. I spent some of that time sleeping under the bridge. It was winter and it was cold. Sometimes I went hungry. It wasn't pretty and I hope I never have to do it again.

Luckily I had friends who were looking out for me and I managed to get into Freedom Foundation. I was there two months. I didn't get sober there. I just slept and ate there in between meetings. I have a lot of gratitude for staff and volunteers of that house for the kindness they showed to me.

Two years into my sobriety I went to work for Freedom Foundation. I spent a number of years there, as an attendant and as a caseworker. I don't have any degrees in social work and I'm not a professional counselor. Well, I took a few courses but nothing to write home about. I just know how to talk to drunks.

I left my job there in the spring of 2012. In September I got talking to some people who thought we should open our own house. And so Last House on the Block Society was formed.

Our intention was to open a transition house for men in recovery. I knew a lot about how to run a house like that but when it comes to opening one I knew squat. So the operation failed before it got started and we were going to shut the whole thing down.

And then, just when it seemed the end was near, we had an idea. Why not scrap the whole transition house idea and try something smaller, Something more within our means. So we altered our mission statement and became a community outreach.

Nancy came up with the scarf idea. She said she could knit some for the clients who currently resided in transition homes. Someone said wouldn't it be nice if we could have some ready in time for Christmas.

And here we are, doing it for the second Christmas. Last year we could only help a few people. This year we plan to help over a hundred. I think that's pretty cool.

Now if there was just some way we could turn this into a job then we could quit our other jobs and do this full time. Oh well. Anything is possible when you try hard enough.