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AT ISSUE: From $600-a-day coke habit to sobriety: East-end transition residence is 'First Step to Home'

May 26

Written by: admin
5/26/2011 


Kelly Glover had it all: a beautiful wife, two amazing sons, a wonderful suburban home and a successful food distribution business.
He also had cocaine, which at first, he used occasionally after a long day's work to unwind. He never imagined the havoc it would wreak on his idyllic life.
Originally from Edmonton, Alberta, and Kelowna, B.C., Glover came to Toronto in 1982. The son of a well-known newspaperman, Glover easily landed a job in a Toronto daily's composing department and worked there for about a year and a half before getting into the wholesale grocery business and opening up his own operation.
About six months after moving to Toronto, he met his future wife, a beautiful Greek woman, and was smitten.
"It was instant love," said Glover, reminiscing about the dozens of future relatives he'd meet when he asked her father for permission to marry his daughter.
"Things were really good. Everything was uphill from there."
The couple, who before long welcomed two sons, had a nice home in Mississauga. Life was good.
He worked hard: "six days a week, 12 to 14 hour days" but the money was worth it.
"I was a workaholic. I saw the potential of my business," Glover said.
Somehow in the midst of all that "good", depression lingered.
"Thoughts stewed in my mind and I started to shut out my loved ones," he said.
Self-medicating had become a way to escape it all.
A few years earlier, a friend suggested he try coke one night. The next morning Glover and another friend were still sitting in the man's kitchen wide awake and high.
"I tried cocaine and I liked it. There are different results and it just made me feel good," he said, adding the drug was a way he could forget about his problems.
"I wasn't having any bad reactions from it."
Even at its $500- to $600-a-day peak, his cocaine habit didn't seem so bad.
"It wasn't easy to just quit the drugs. Cocaine had become a dependency. I got wrapped up," he said, admitting he's let down those he cares about the most.
"I didn't realize at the time that it was destroying my life and that's what it did."
His wife of 22 years, a devoted stay-at-home mother, left him. His sons didn't want any contact with him.
"I had tried quitting, but it reached inside of me," he said.
Glover's life was spiralling out of control.
For the next six or so years, many overnights were spent in downtown Toronto shelters. Scores of meals came from soup kitchens or the like.
Life was lived on the edge. The addiction had taken over.
To make matters worse, Glover, who is in his late 50s, had two consecutive heart attacks in December 2009.
"I never would have thought I'd go down this road," he said.
Something had to give.
About a year and a half ago, a city worker suggested he apply to live in a soon-to-open transitional residence for 28 homeless male seniors called First Step to Home in the former New Edwin Hotel on Queen Street East.
One of Glover's good friends, a man who also spent time on the streets, also applied and was accepted to live there. He's someone to hang out with, talk to about life, run errands with. All part of the journey.
For just more than a year, Glover has called a tidy third-floor unit home.
He sees a cardiologist twice a week and has regular visits with his family doctor. His once two-pack a day smoking habit is now down to just a few cigarettes a day.
Attending AA meetings and other groups have helped him better understand his addiction, what triggers it and what he'll have to do to live a normal life once again.
It's not easy, but Glover's working hard to get back on track.
"This place gave me an opportunity to get off the streets. It's been pretty good," he said.
"It's a long journey and I'm still working on it day by day."
Glover hasn't touched cocaine for more than a year now.
"I have more good days than bad days and that's all I could hope for. I'm thankful every day," he said, sharing he longs to rebuild his long-broken relationship with his sons, who are now both young men.
"At this place it's like they put you in a cocoon and help. There's lots of caring staff who ensure the residents are doing OK."
He's also eager to give back and is working with the staff at First Step to Home to set up a new program he proposed that would get residents giving of their time to help seniors in the community with small jobs such as landscaping or other odd jobs.
He'd also like to get his own place in the next few months, and maybe a pet such as a fish or a turtle.
Glover also one day hopes to have a female companion in his life, someone he could share a meal with or invite to a movie.
It's been a long and winding road, but Glover's now back on the right path.

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