Due to our interviewee’s past criminal record and in order to protect his privacy, he has requested that we do not publish any photographs of his face.

“Something happened at home. I was so fearful of going back home because I was terrified of my father. I was very small for my age, I looked more like a girl than a boy at 15. Long blond hair, big blue eyes. I ended up going to reformatory. And I was sexually abused there. A week after I got out of reformatory at 16, someone introduced me to heroin – it was the best thing. If God made anything better, He kept it for himself. All my pain went away, all my bad thoughts disappeared. And that’s when I got into heroin. I was safe from the thoughts. That continued for 50 years.

“Then I started doing crime to support my drug addiction…I became a criminal, basically a gangster. Because I was using, I didn’t think of it. To me, it was just a means to a way. Nothing else. The criminals gravitated towards me. We used to do crimes and…lots of money. I used it to spend it like it was paper; I had no value for it. 

“My first sentence I did 32 months in Haney Correctional. Got out, didn’t even last 6 months then I was in and out, in and out, getting caught, getting released, getting caught, but not convicted. I started robbing banks when I was 23. That’s when I started doing penitentiary time. My first sentence was seven and half years. My second sentence was 16 years. My third sentence was 20 years. All consecutive. The whole term was about 40 years. I did about 35 inside. I was on parole, in a halfway house, for 5 years. Two were for robbing banks, one was for robbing an armoured truck. 

“[In the penitentiary and the correctional facilities,] if you mind your own business, you’ll get by. The crimes I was doing, people would look up to us. But I look back on all those times, what I did, and what I did was terrify people. I learned what it is to be terrified. And I understood what I used to be. The last crime I committed was 1990.”

“Is that something you remember really vividly?”

“Yup.”

“Are you able to talk about it at all?”

“Not really. ‘Cause there’s lots of things I never got caught for.

“Once my sentence was finished, I lived in an apartment in Burnaby with my long term friend who passed away, [overdosed]. I overdosed like him too. Then my dog, who I had for many years, passed away.

“[Then,] at 70 years of age – I’ll be 72 this October – I decided enough is enough. So I went into detox, went into treatment, and now I’m in secondary treatment here. I’ve been drug free now for 16 months after 50 years of using. I tell everybody “If I can do it, anyone can.” I think I’ve succeeded. 

“I went to a friend’s place [and] I detoxed off the drugs there. I went back to my apartment, thinking I was going to detox off of alcohol myself. That was a terrible mistake. I ended up having a stroke. I was in the hospital for 25 days. Then from there, I went straight into detox after that because they wanted to regulate me off of my methadone. And then I went into treatment after that. 

“Treatment was work. It was intense. One on one sessions, group sessions, telling your life story, where it all started, where is it all gonna end. ‘How do you feel now?’ ‘How did you feel then?’ ‘How will you feel later?’ It’s a process, a full time job.

“From treatment, I came here (Grace Mansion). I’ve been here 10 months.”

“There’s a lot of good memories here. I see people come in, they’re struggling still, some of them. And there are times where I’ll talk to someone – especially the younger people – and just get them to understand that life is a struggle and you have to deal with it accordingly. And if you have anything bothering you, just talk to someone.

“My family – my mother, my younger sister – also motivated me. I wanted my mother to go to her grave with a smile on her face. It was very important to me. 

“I was in touch over the years, but I could see the sadness in both of them because they knew I was still using, I was still involved in crime, doing illegal things. I tried to keep my family out of all that stuff, protect them. I never told [the people I was working with]. If they did ask me, I’d say “none of your business.” I do have a moral compass. 

“[I have] a younger sister of 3 years. She got married and she’s been married to the same man for 40 years. She lives in Montreal and I’m in touch with her every day. We’re very close. I’m still in touch with all my cousins in Slovenia and Italy too. I speak to my mother three times a week.

“I just came back from Europe from seeing my mother. She’s very old, she’s 96. It was so nice there – never heard a siren, never saw any addiction, never saw any homelessness. Then I came back here and thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ But my existence is here so that’s where I am. 

“[My mother has] been there for about 20 years now and [is] doing as well as can be for her age. She’s happy that I’m finally drug and alcohol free. Ecstatic about it.

“The whole thing about going to Europe was I wanted to do all this after I got clean. I’m gonna go to the treatment place where I was at and show them I accomplished what I set out to do.

“A lot of things have changed in my life for the positive…I feel as though for the positive.

“I was two years old when I came to Canada [from Slovenia]. Me and my mother, through the Red Cross. My father had to flee the Communist regime at the time and my mother was kind of a partisan in the Second World War. There’s a book written about her over there. My mother was real famous over there. 

“We used to go fishing and hunting as a family all the time. My dad, me, my sister, and my dog, would be gone for five days [on some] weekends. My childhood was good in some ways, but it was a hidden childhood. What happened in the home, stayed in the home. 

“My father was overly strict. My father went to concentration camps during the Second World War when he was a teenager. He went through things that he never talked about. He took his rage out on me. 

“About 25 years ago, my mother finally told me what my father’s family was about, what happened to him. I wasn’t completely shocked because I kind of suspected some things must have been wrong with my father. Then I understood why he was the person he was. 

“I had a chance to talk to him about his past. My father couldn’t cry. He’s never shed a tear in his life. But I told him I forgave him. That was good enough. He passed away 20 years ago.

“One person who was really influential in my life was a psychologist. I received treatment from him when I was still in the penitentiary under the auspices of children at risk, even though I was at a later stage in my life. I was in my 40s. That’s when I really seriously opened up. He was very important to me. Sometimes he drove 90 kilometres to talk to me when I was losing it. He’s retired now, but we’re still in touch.

“It took a while. I was not comfortable talking to what I call a “shrink.” After he understood. He was my favourite shrink. He’s probably the main reason why I chose to start working on myself. He worked with me for about 10 years and has known me in total for about 30 years.”

“If you could tell something to your 15-year-old self, what would you say?”

“Too bad. You were a bright kid. Which I was. I had a high IQ, never used it, that’s the problem. That’s the sad part. I could’ve done so much good if I chose to, but I chose the other way.

“In some ways, I view it as a wasted existence. But in other ways, it’s part of life and whatever comes next. I’m trying to get into BC Housing, permanent housing, that’s my next goal. 

“I’ve inquired at about four places. I’m trying to get into two places that are sober living. We’re allowed to stay at Grace Mansion for up to 2 years. It usually takes about a year, year and a half to get into this before you’re in a situation where someone would take you. I don’t want to end up in one of the SROs down here; I’m terrified of that. It’s like a human zoo down there. Yeah, lots of people have their own issues, their own problems, but I chose to do something about my own issues and it’s more difficult to live around that. I have to be on my toes all the time. I want stability.”

This story is part of Hey Stranger’s partnership with The Salvation Army Belkin House.