This mountain is the difference between dying or living
To climb this mountain is the choice to live
When I was homeless I could not quit
In addiction in the Downtown Eastside is horrible, it’s miserable
It’s like the end of the world
Suffering, hurting, a lot of pain
It’s a weight on your shoulder, it’s slavery
But this is opposite
It elates me, it’s so joyful
This is my new sport, this is my new high
Totally unbelievable
This is like heaven on earth
My name is Jonas and I grew up in North Vancouver
Where life was just one huge party after another
I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth
It was kind of a good family lifestyle
And then what happened was
I got a job on a cruise ship and I traveled the world
Where I became addicted to alcohol
Renting fancy cars, life was a luxury
I drank myself to death just about
My name is Tom
I grew up in a beautiful Christian family
My life was doing great until at fifteen
I found out about my parents being murdered
After that everything went downhill
I was in my addiction from drinking so much
Being on my own
I finally lost my jobs
I couldn’t even work because of my addiction
Off and on in my life I’ve been homeless
I was sick every day
I could not quit
My name is Joel
Drugs were always in my life
I was a cocaine addict, alcohol addict
I was multi-addict, everything
I became a gangster, I became a dealer
I wanted to change all this you know
My name is Dalmar
I always loved nature
When I was in high school my mom passed away from cancer
At that period I kind of got to the wrong crowd
And I ended up abusing alcohol
When things get tough and difficult
I will go drinking because I am trying to escape reality
It was horrible, it was horrible every day drinking
But I couldn’t get out
I didn’t know how to stop myself
I was fortunate when I found UGM
And they were offering a recovery program for alcohol and drugs
Expeditions is one of our tools that we use at Union Gospel Mission
In our Alcohol and Drug Recovery Program
To help men climb out of addiction and homelessness
To a life of success
We take our men on Expeditions
Into the deep wilderness of BC
Mountains, lakes, streams, rivers
To explore and discover what’s there
Addiction has a way of shrinking one’s world
And taking a person into a pit
Expeditions is about helping them to discover that
They can climb out of that hole
They can conquer and achieve new heights in God’s creation
And discover that they have a life of meaning and purpose and value
And the wilderness experience
Does that like nothing else can do
There is something about being in nature
That is a life giving environment
And these guys begin to see hope
They begin to feel that their problem isn’t all there is to life
There’s something more
There’s an awakening, it’s a kind of rebirth
Of what happens in them
That life can be so much more
When I was homeless
I would go to sleep on the beach
And I would look through the trees and
I would see the hills and mountains over here
And I would just think how much nicer it probably is there
In the Downtown Eastside
The day starts out grey even though it’s sunny
Listening to all the vehicles going by and sirens
Expeditions, when I got out here
No screaming, no yelling, no sirens
Peace, calm, serene
This is like heaven on earth
I never thought in my wildest dreams that
I would be able to accomplish something like this
I never did
Just the idea of someone mentioning to me
About a trip like this
I’d shake my head at the whole thing
I’d be like, no
Just show me where the closest bar is
Removing myself from the area of the Downtown Eastside
Where there is so much sadness and poverty and addictions
It’s like a 180 degree turn
It’s so joyful
It’s like from complete sadness to complete like
Hooray! I’m up here, I’m up here in the woods!
It’s like, cool
While using drugs, you have this cocaine
And when it hits your heart it pumps
It gives you a high
As a hiker, you go to that spot
Same as using drugs, same thing
Totally the same thing but more naturally
For me, this is my new sport
This is my new high
Seeing nature, seeing the birds chirping
Just the wind
It really helped me find this higher power
Which actually was key in my recovery
Was being able to find something better than myself to believe in
That will give me hope
These Expeditions will challenge these guys
To experience emotions that they don’t want to experience
But to deal with them, to address them
And find out they have the power and the strength
As a group, as a community
To do what they could have never done before
So I’ve learned that
Life is so much more exciting without alcohol
I feel like I’ve got so much life
So much greater reason to live
My alcoholism was horrible
But this is opposite
It shows you where the start is and where the finish is
You can come across anything
But my focus is to reach the finish line
To the top
Overcoming addiction is way tougher than it looks like
When I first began my recovery
I lost 3 good friends my first month
And I just couldn’t understand
Why all this was coming down on me
And I was blaming myself
There’s always that temptation to just turn back
And giving up and not trying to climb that mountain
People would talk bad talk about you
Saying that you’ll never make it
People will take bets against you and that sort of thing
That this guy will never make it
You know you get stuck
You get sorrows, you get sadness
You feel like getting the easy way out
Yes it is a struggle and continues to be
But with the help of God I can make it
The darkness of recovery is that
We have to face our demons from the past
Either demons we’ve done
Or demons done to us
It becomes extremely bleak
It can become desperate
It can become so overpowering for some of the people
That they want out
It’s at that point that we begin to help these guys
See and experience that they still have strength to go on
They know if they go back
The likelihood of their dying, they know it’s real
They don’t want to play the game anymore
Expeditions is more than just a hike
It shows you also how you can win
When life gets tough
While you’re climbing, you’re struggling
And your legs are paining
And addiction is the same thing
The mountain becomes steeper and steeper
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The weight doubles now
Take baby steps
I know one step will lead to another step
At the beginning I had difficulty with it
My body shuts down on me and tells me
That’s it, I can’t go no more
But after 5 minutes I recover
I notice my entire body recover
And I can go again
And then that tells me, well hey,
That was not the end of it, I have more left in me
I can do it
And recovery is exactly the same
You’ll have challenges every day
You’ll have difficulty
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But now I know there is a chance
That I can reach the top
Making it to the summit proves that your dreams can come true
It’s so worth it
There’s no words for it, really, I can’t express, really
I feel that I’ve recognized my insecurity and my weakness
And I’ve overcome it
It’s totally unbelievable
Expeditions showed me what freedom is
This program gave me my life back
