I started martial arts and Gung-Fu in Grade 6, and I continued practicing what I learned throughout my life. From there came bodybuilding and boxing. For approximately 38 years, athletics, physical conditioning, health and training were a major part of my life.

That kind of life teaches you discipline. You learn very quickly that wanting something and actually doing what is necessary to achieve it are two different things. You learn patience, repetition, sacrifice and how to keep going when things become difficult.

Those lessons have stayed with me throughout my life, but my understanding of addiction comes from much more than athletics or discipline.

I know something about drugs because I have been there myself.

I drank alcohol, although alcohol never became an addiction for me. At different times in my life I also experimented with LSD and speed. After my years in competitive sports, I used cocaine and eventually became hooked on it.

So when I talk with somebody who is struggling with drugs, I am not talking about something I have only read about.

I know how a person can make choices that gradually begin taking them somewhere they never intended to go. I also know that it is possible to recognize what is happening, make a decision and start changing direction.

That period of my life is part of who I am, and I don’t hide it. In many ways, it gave me an understanding of people that I could never have learned from a book.

Later, addiction became personal in another way.

A woman I was in a relationship with became severely addicted to drugs. Cocaine, speed, crystal meth and crack cocaine were all part of that world.

Trying to help her was one of the hardest experiences of my life.

I tried everything I could think of. Some things worked for a while. Other things didn’t. There were setbacks and some very dark periods, but I refused to give up on her.

Today, she has been free from those drugs for many years, and we are still in communication.

She is also involved with EverChange as a peer recovery coach.

That matters because she knows addiction from the inside. She knows what those dark days are like, what it is like to make destructive choices and what it takes to begin rebuilding your life.

Between us, we bring two different kinds of experience to EverChange. I know what it is like to deal with my own drug use, and I also know what it is like to stand beside somebody whose addiction had become extremely serious.

She brings the perspective of someone who lived through severe addiction herself and has remained free from those drugs for many years.

EverChange is not about trying to turn another person into me.

People are different. Their circumstances are different. What brought one person to addiction may be completely different from what brought somebody else there.

That is why communication is so important.

I have always been good at talking with people, but more importantly, I know how to listen. I want to understand the person in front of me before deciding what may help them.

I consider myself an educator and a coach. I have spent a great deal of my life studying, learning and trying to understand why people do what they do and how they can change direction when something in their life is no longer working.

Sometimes a person needs information. Sometimes they need somebody to challenge the way they are thinking. Sometimes they simply need someone they can speak honestly with who will listen without immediately judging them.

That is the kind of relationship I want EverChange to provide.

My faith in God is also an important part of who I am.

I value education, but I don’t believe education and wisdom are necessarily the same thing. A person can acquire a tremendous amount of information without necessarily understanding life or understanding people.

For me, wisdom comes from God combined with experience, mistakes, consequences, reflection, faith and a commitment to truth.

Those things influence the way I communicate with people and the way EverChange approaches personal change.

I believe every person has free will. Nobody can make another human being change simply by demanding it. The individual ultimately has to decide that they want something different and that they are prepared to do something about it.

Our approach is personal and one-on-one.

We begin by talking. We listen to what is happening in your life, what has happened in the past, what you are struggling with now and where you would like your life to go.

Then we work from there.

I bring decades of discipline, my own life experience, education and the experience of having dealt personally with addiction. EverChange also benefits from the perspective of someone who has lived through severe addiction and knows firsthand what that road can look like.

We are not here to make your decisions for you.

We are here to talk with you, listen to you, work with you and help you see another way forward.

You still have to take the steps.

But you don’t necessarily have to take them alone.