ExclusiveBreaking the Cycle of Addiction Through Community and Action | Cregg Johnson

I had spent so many years destroying my community that this was a chance for me to do something to give it back. The hard part was the way we approached it. The way we approached it was not the way everybody else approached it. I'm beginning to see the impact that I've really done in San Francisco in terms of the movement. And you've got to just be serious about really doing something different. And there's all kinds of opportunities in the world to do something different if you choose to. But you have to make a choice and you have to be willing to give up whatever it is that's holding you back. Craig, it's great to have you back. Welcome back. Hi, how are you doing? Glad to be back. Great to see you. And we want to talk to you about you, what you have achieved here in California, in San Francisco. You were facing challenges with crime and you had your background in the criminal justice system. But then you managed to turn things around and build a non-profit that's holding 450 people now in San Francisco. Yes, yes. We want to hear about your journey. How did everything start? My journey started probably in the 70s. That's when I first started using drugs. And I started smoking marijuana and weed and I started drinking. I was in school. Everybody was doing it. This is high school? Yeah, this is junior high school actually. Junior high school. Right. But it was also during the time when getting using drugs was like, OK, right. You know, hippie era, you know, all that part. So so we didn't really see anything wrong with smoking weed or, you know, we knew we shouldn't be drinking because we weren't old enough. But ideally it wasn't frowned upon the way it is now. But that's where a lot of people ended up going into addictions and I became one of them. So from probably I think around 18 or 19, I started using cocaine. Started snorting it and then eventually ran into like freebasing it, which is a form of smoking crack, basically. But it's like the early stages of it. Eventually I smoke crack, too. So I started using drugs and committing crime from like very young age, like I was in my junior high school. I started selling weed and those kind of things and involved in some robberies, different stuff like that. Never really got caught until I got older. Then I got caught for selling drugs and I went to jail for selling drugs. I got out, went back to selling drugs, started using drugs as well and went back to jail again. Moved to Los Angeles and stayed down there a few years, sold drugs, went to prison from down there. Ended up going to Susanville on the Sierra Yard, which is a two yard. And I did that, did three years. And when I got out, I paroled back to San Francisco. I was born and raised basically in the Bay Area. So I was born in San Francisco and then I moved to Oakland back and forth between my mother and my father because they weren't together. I have a sister. But. When I came out of prison, this is like 87 or 88. No matter how it was, 88. So as soon as I got out of prison, I started selling drugs and using again. But this time I was on parole. And back then, if you got any kind of trouble, you was going back to prison. So the parole agent found out I had been using. So she wanted me to come to her office and she was going to arrest me. Right. And then put me back in jail. And I didn't want to go back to jail because I just got to doing three years. So somebody said, well, maybe you need to go get the drug program. And so. I said, that's a good idea. So I went to Delancey Street, interviewed for Delancey Street. And when I first went in and they said, you know, they kind of like the residents interview you. They said, tell you about yourself. And so. I, you know, I put it like I was a slick guy doing all this kind of stuff. So they told me basically you full of it and you need to go back and think about you really want to commit to doing this two years in Delancey Street. So they kind of hurt my feelings. Right. So because I thought they was going to take me because I was that kind of guy. Right. So they didn't take me the first time. So I left. I went to my friend's house. We started smoking crack. And while we was getting high, I was taking it and said, I know I need to go get this program. And another guy who was getting high with me said, that's a good idea. Why don't you go? And so when we ran out of drugs, I went back to Delancey Street. Right. And this time they took me. But they said, I know you ain't going to stay. You're going to run out of here. You full of it and all that. And I said, OK, but I'm here. So they took me. Right. So the first experience I had when I got to last week, this guy walked into me and he was telling me that, you know, everything here is this is our house. This is where we live at. You know. And so but you got to do maintenance. You got to clean up. Right. So I'm cleaning up and the guy come over there and he started telling me how to mop and all that. And I was saying, like, I'm mopping the floor. Why you got to mop it this way? You know, and then there was a pack of cigarettes on the table. And he said, everything is ours in here. If you want a cigarette, get you one. So I got a cigarette. Somebody came in and said, anybody see my cigarettes? And so the guy put me in a jackpot. I got in trouble for taking somebody's cigarette. So I got to holler that. Right. That's OK. I got it now. I got this now. I got to watch what I'm doing up here because I'm in here with a whole bunch of drug addicts like me. And so they play a lot of games. So I adjusted. I started working being, you know, because you have jobs and everybody got jobs. And so they had me doing paratransit. At one time, they had a contract with paratransit to support people to the doctor's appointments, to the senior citizen homes and those kind of things. And so I ended up being the department head of that. Right. And I stayed in Delancey for five years. I thought I was only going to be there a month. That's what I thought. Right. But I ended up to get out of the right to get the heat off me. Right. But the cold part about it, what happened is the parole agent would come and see me every month and make me give a U.A. while I was in Delancey Street. I think I was one of the only people she did that to. What is a U.A.? Urinalysis. Drug test. OK, OK. So you're getting tested while I was in the drug program because she didn't trust me. Right. And I don't blame her. I don't trust me either. But she tested me while I was in Delancey for six months before she stopped. Right. So by that time, I've been there six months. I also think she was in there to make sure I didn't leave, too. But I stayed there. And like I said, I stayed there for five years. And it really was a very eye opening experience for me. And it gave me a chance to really change a lot of things. Right. And one of the things that really hit me the most, it really made me decide I need to do something different. Was I was in Delancey Street about two years, I think. And I thought I had it figured out. Nobody could touch me. I knew what was going on. I knew all the angles, knew how everything moved. Right. And I ended up getting a 30 day contract. Right. For letting somebody do something they weren't supposed to, who was one of my friends. And I said, you know, OK, I'm going to look the other way because you're my partner. Right. And they find out my friend, he get caught. He tell him. So then I said, OK. So I had I'm doing all this great work and I get the rug pulled up on me. So I realized that this ain't just about me using drugs as I hadn't used drugs. This is about my attitude, the way I think and my behavior. And I need to really pay attention to this and think, look at this, because I'm so cold, so sober. And I still pull the rug out from under myself. And I used to always blame it on the drugs is why I kept feeling. And I find I know it when the drugs that made you feel it was you was making you feel. And at that point, I decided that, OK, I got to figure it out. Now, I'm not going I'm not going to use and I'm not going to do nothing stupid. And I'm going to let my let nobody put my head on the chopping block in the name of whatever. You know what I'm saying? At that point, I started becoming independent. So when I was getting ready to leave the Lansing Street, a lot of people were leaving the Lansing Street and going out and relapsing. We didn't call it relapsing. We just said they went got loaded. Right. And so that kind of bothered me. And I said, well, you know, we got all this structure, we got all the support around us. And back then we used to say people prop you up. Right. But it was really it was just support around you all the time. And once you leave the support, if you don't have nothing to replace it with, then you're going to be susceptible to all the temptations and things going out in the world that you've been missing. Well, at least you think you've been missing. Right. So while I was there, we started talking a lot about we need to have a support group so we get out, we can support each other and make sure none of us fall off. And it was out of fear. It was really out of fear that I didn't want to fail. And so we started the support group, which became positive direction, equal change, and it started with a bunch of us that graduated from the last year, mostly African-American men. That was only people who was in the group. And we started having groups and we had a support group that we used to meet every week, at least twice a month and just talk about the struggles, like paying bills, like being in a relationship, like being on a job and you don't like what the boss say to you. And one of the things we learned from that was one thing we always say to each other, keep the paycheck in front of you no matter what happens in the job site or whatever. You need to keep the paycheck in front of you because if you don't have that paycheck, you can't pay your bills. So you can get over whatever else somebody come with you. So we learned. We talked about that. And that was part of what we kind of like philosophies. That it ain't about the job is about taking care of your family and take care of yourself. And so the job is just a vehicle to do that. So those are things that we learn from each other. After that, we decided, OK, we need to start a group and invite other people to come to our group. You know, because a lot of them didn't know what Delancey was and they didn't know what we did in Delancey because it was very secretive. I didn't know nothing about recovery or any of those things. You know, I didn't find that out. And so there was never nothing like when people are leaving, go get an N.A. or go get an A.A. whatever it was that your problem was. They didn't tell us that. So we had to find out the hard way, which is through trial and error and watching what happens to other people. So we started Positive Directions based on it just being a support group so we could learn how to live life on life's terms. You know, I'm saying that all it was for. Out of that, we said you can't keep it if you don't give it back or if you don't give it away. So it's kind of like a restorative justice idea. So we said, let's start us a group and then bring people in who want to get some support and we can help them. And she told them how we did it and all that kind of stuff. And so we started the Positive Direction Equal Change Group. Right. And we started doing that at the neighborhood house back in 1993 is when we first started doing it. By this time, I had graduated out of Delancey Street because I was. So you mentioned that you went to this program and you wanted to just stay there to kind of get people off your back, get the poll, get the parole agent off my off my back. And then you ended up staying five years. Yes. How did that happen? What happened was that I met a lot of people that were like me and we started bonding. See, for me, Delancey was not bad. It wasn't hard for me. I actually enjoyed it. I like doing the groups. I really felt like I was really doing something productive. You know, like I said, I was we was working in paratransit, helping seniors and doing all stuff. You know, everybody has a job. So basically the way Delancey works, you go go to work every day. These are things I had never done. Right. So this is discipline. So you always you were always like selling drugs and do this. Right. Right. I never had a job. I never kept a job. I didn't have the first job I really had. There was a job was after I graduated Delancey Street and I had jobs in Delancey Street. But prior to going to Delancey Street, I never had a job, really. Why was that? Because I was in the streets hustling and selling drugs. And I think one job it was kind of a half ass job was when I worked at this car lot, you know, worked at a car lot in Los Angeles from this guy named Leo McCarty. He had a car lot and he sold all these used Cadillacs and stuff. And and basically, you know, it was we hung out there and we'd sell a car and we'd hung out there and we'd drink and talk and argue. But that was the only job I ever went to on a regular basis. But ideally, no, I never had anything remotely. Why not productive? Because I was in I was a street hustler. I thought I was slick. I thought I could do it without having to work for, you know, had no job. I was like selling drugs and putting moves down and doing all kind of anything I do to get money. You know, I'm saying it didn't require me to go to a job because I came from a era where, you know, working for a job was square. That was for squares. That was for lanes. You know, that was for suckers. If you why you want to be a nine to five guy when you can be out here getting all this money, you know, that kind of mentality, which was a joke. But that's what I believed at that time. And then. So sometime in the Delancey Street, when you were doing those jobs, you started liking it. Can you tell us when was the turning point of what happened that you started changing? Well, this is how it happened. They started. Delancey Street started giving me responsibility and nobody ever, ever offered me being responsible to do anything. That was never something that. Oh, you're responsible. Let me be responsible. That never happened. Right. So responsibility. I kind of liked it. Somebody saying that I was good enough to be responsible for something and that kind of what sucked me in. You know, they had people that were department heads and doing all these kind of things. And so I said, I want to do some of that. Right. Some of the guys had like minions and tribes where you had a you as responsible for a group of guys. They come into the program that you was responsible for, you know, and then you had groups with them and they had to come to you for everything. And you made sure that they did what they were supposed to. It didn't fall off. And so. They made me do that, they had me do that, and then I had a crew, so I had to practice what I preach. And so it kind of forced me to practice what I preach, but it was really like putting responsibility on you and showing a person like me who thought he couldn't do nothing. That there is something you could do, and that was really what was really, really was one of the best things. It was the greatest thing about the land, besides not using drugs and alcohol. But it was about building your esteem to where you think that you can do anything. You know, just because you're a drug addict doesn't mean that you are worthless and that you're useless. And that's what the land you showed me, that you can do whatever you put your mind to do. So they trusted you with this responsibility? Yeah, they started giving me responsibility because, you know, everybody was responsible to do something in there. And then the more you did, the more responsibility you got. And so a lot of the people that are in positive direction now are people that I met in Delancey Street that I was responsible for. And they just kind of follow me out. You know, I'm saying that we just stay like that. We're friends now. We're very good friends, but they're also a part of my support group. And I talk to a lot of them every day. So when you got out of Delancey Street, were you living in Delancey Street? Yeah, everybody lived in Delancey Street. Matter of fact, I met my wife in Delancey Street, who I've been with for 30 years. And then now that you got, when you guys got out, then you created... She got out before I did. She left first and then I came behind her. And then you went and got jobs? Yeah, she had jobs. She was already working. She worked at Glide Memorial. And then I got a job working for Northern California Service League, which was a program that works with ex-offenders when I got out. And so we started working. You know, this is like I said, this is all new to me. Me being married, me being in a relationship, all that was new to me. You know what I'm saying? I never thought I would be one of them kind of guys end up being like that. I had no plan that I was ever going to end up. I had no plan on doing what I'm doing today. What I had a plan was that I was going to be a tour bus driver and sell real estate. I got the real estate license, but I never really used it. And that was a determination because of my record. They didn't want to give me a real estate license. And they kept making me go back and forth. Because you had gone to prison? Yeah, I'd been to prison. I had a criminal record. And so they just wouldn't just give me no real estate license. So I had to fight them to get it. And so I did that. I had to go to hearings. I had to be interviewed. I had to get letters of support. I had to do a whole lot of stuff. But eventually somebody had told me that if you really determined to do something, they will not deny a man livelihood. And I believe that. And I believe it to this day that no matter what your background is and what you've done in life, if you really are determined to do something, you won't be denied a livelihood. You know, the world will not deny you a livelihood. Someone will give you a chance. And that's what happened. I got my real estate license. But in the process that I started working in the community, which I liked it better because I felt like I was. I had spent so many years destroying my community that this was a chance for me to do something to give it back. So what were you doing in the community? I was working with ex offenders who were just like me. And I was teaching them life skills and sharing the things that I learned when I was in Delancey Street. And I would go to the prisons and talk to the guys in the prison, tell him that you can do it. If I can do it, anybody can do it. Matter of fact, my barber that had been cutting my hair for the last 30 years, I met in prison. He was in prison. He was in one of the classes I taught. And he went out and got his barber's license. He'd been cutting hair and he'd been cutting my hair ever since. And, you know, it's just it's just kind of like he changed his life. Yeah. I didn't know that at the time. I just was talking. Right. But it's like really funny. You don't know who you inspire, who you don't inspire. And I wasn't trying to inspire nobody. I'm just trying to just share with people what it took for me to get where I'm at, because they look at me and say, how did you get out of that? And I said it wasn't easy. It was a lot of work, but you could do it. You know what I'm saying? And, you know, you got to just put the right people around you and you got to just be serious about really doing something different. And there's all kinds of opportunities in the world to do something different if you choose to. But you have to make a choice and you have to be willing to give up whatever it is is holding you back. And one of the things that hold me back was drugs and crime. And so those are two things I had to I had to eliminate. I had to quit. And so what do I replace it with? Helping people, you know, and I replaced my addiction to drugs and crime with helping people. And how long did it take for you to see the impact of helping people? Did it come right away? No, heck no. Heck no. Heck no. I'm embarrassed now when people say, man, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here right now. That's really embarrassing to me because I don't feel like, you know, I guess it's my self-esteem. I don't think I deserve it. But like I said, I'm just now like like as we speak, I'm beginning to see the impact that I have really done in San Francisco in terms of the movement, the recovery movement that we're pushing for, the things that we have done. And basically, I just speak my mind. You know, I'm saying I just say, like, you can't tell me that you're reducing the amount of drugs and alcohol and stuff in this community through the harm reduction. And when I look, I still see people laying on the ground smoking fentanyl. I'm going with what my eyes see. Kids can't walk down the street no more. They don't play outside. None of that stuff happens anymore because the kids is getting traumatized by seeing all the drugs and all the other activity and to where it just becomes like you become numb to it. But you lose your childhood. You know what I'm saying? Kids need to have a childhood. They need to be able to play outside and have fun like we did when we was growing up. And again, that goes back to that old school stuff, right? That we need to get back to some of that where kids can feel safe being outside instead of sitting in their rooms on Tick-Tock, playing video games and in La La Land, which ain't real. And going outside and getting in some fights and getting beat up, learning what that is, play some kickball. You know, I'm saying do some stuff that we all did when we was growing up. You know what I'm saying? It's like anti bullying. A bully is what makes you change. You need a bully. Everybody need a bully in their life at one point. Until they get tired of bully bullying them. That's the way I grew up. And it developed a lot of coping skills that I don't see a lot of our generation, our new generation having. Now, Craig, going back to when you started, you started with a group of you that you graduated from. It was probably 25 of us. We were meeting regularly. We were talking about our struggles, about how weird this is doing the new stuff that we're doing. And, you know, people think that. So normal living was weird, right? Yes, it was weird. It was weird. Yeah, because mainstream folks, to them, it's natural. Right. For us, it was it was like really a challenge, you know, going to a job every day, being on time, allowing somebody to tell you what to do, paying bills, calling people up to set up, you know, like you said, PG&E up to pay a water bill to put your money in the bank and start saving your money. You know, I'm saying, you know, they don't give you instructions on a paycheck. So you just think somebody give you a paycheck with no instructions. You'll know what to do with it. But spend it right. That don't work. So you got to learn how to manage your money, you know, because it's the only money you got coming in. You ain't got no money. You go take some money. So you'll check out the last two weeks and all that kind of stuff. So all that stuff was a real struggle being in a relationship and not and not being a toxic relationship, being a relationship where you have to have consideration for the other person and not be all about you and not be selfish. And be there for that person and communicate with that person. And you can't knock them upside the head and tell them to shut the hell up. You know all that you have to really have to sit down and listen to what they got to say. And then you've got to come to some kind of understanding. All that stuff was was like real hard. I still ain't got it together yet. I'm still working on it. But I think I better. My wife, like I said, she stayed with me 30 years. So I must have been doing something a little better. You know, I wasn't that bad. But like I said, just just the way things are. But, you know, I mean, she's in recovery, too, though. When was it that you guys started the nonprofit and helping other people? We had been doing a support group for a while and everybody spoke and said, well, y'all ain't got no program. And we said, I don't know. We ain't got one. They said we all should have a program because you guys is talking the language that we can understand. And so it's like these are the people that were coming to come into the group to help to get help. Yes. And so kind of like an AA group, like it was it was a support group, support group. Yeah, it was. We didn't do anything. We just we talked a lot about behavior and attitude doing the right thing. Right. And doing what you post to and not get loaded and don't use it loaded to get it as an excuse for all the stuff you do. Because now that you're sober, you still doing the stupid stuff. So you need to look at why you doing that. So out of that, we said, OK, so I said we need to get us a program. We need to get a nonprofit. So I always had when I was in the last street, there was some things about the last year I didn't like. And one of them was that they didn't take culture into consideration. They would always do the dominant culture. And, you know, you had to think like that. They would tell us that we need to move out of our community, go somewhere where it's safe and get away from the drugs and alcohol and all that. But then I said, we leave our community. Who are people going to see that can get out of, you know, get out? They will see us if we somewhere in somewhere else hide. They ain't going to see us. So we need to be able to be in our community and see people that have changed and turn their life around to inspire them. And then maybe they can do the same thing. And that's basically where it came from. And so we went out and we got somebody help us do a new put a nonprofit together, which is positive direction. We finally got us a little office. This is when Mayor Brown was in office. He used to have a Saturday. Every Saturday he used to have a sit down with people. And you had to get appointment to come to this Saturday sit down. And so we come in and he come in and he said, what you all want? You know, I want something. We said, well, we want to open up a program and we need some help on how to do it. We don't know how to do it, but we need we need this. We need this. He said, well, he talked to the head of the behavioral health at that time and said, get him some technical assistance money so they can start a program. And he told her to do it and she did it. And that was Barbara Garcia. And so she sent us to some trainings and give some stuff. They gave us twenty five thousand dollars so we could get training and we could get our paperwork in order and do all the stuff that we needed to do. And that's how we put the brand together, the positive direction, equal change brand. That's what we started at. And then after that, we was on the treatment on demand planning council, which is another one of the programs that Mayor Brown has started. When he was in office, it was about treatment on demand. It wasn't about saving homeless. That happened when Gavin came in. But when he was there, it was about treatment on demand. And so he wanted the community to be saturated with places where people could go to get help. Whether you were Samoan, whether he was Latino, whether he was Asian, whether he was black, whether he was white, whether whatever, you know, whether he was gay. It was they had programs all over the city that were culturally specific to that community. And so he did that. He did that. But when he left office, Gavin Newsom came in and said he going in homelessness in his in his three years that he won't be there, which we know it happened. That didn't happen. You know what I'm saying? He's still talking that I'm in homeless stuff. And he pumps all that money into it. It's the same thing. We still get the same results. You start this program. Essentially, you figured out that what you were taught that to leave the community so that you can improve. But you didn't want to do that. You wanted to go back. No, I wanted to make sure that people knew that there was somebody in their community that was just like them who can change their life. And be there as a living example of that. And all the guys and people that are part of our program are living examples of that. All of them got history in San Francisco. All of them been in the streets. You know, a lot of this like so we're very peer driven and peer led. You know, so we finally got a contract to outpatient treatment. So we opened the office up on third, which is in the heart of Bayview, Hunter's Point. And people would come there and we would have groups and classes. And after a while, we just came there and they would say, I got a probation officer that says I got to do this. What am I supposed to do? We would call a probation office and say, what is it you want from this person? And they would tell us or they would say, I got a letter from the PGD saying they're going to cut myself. What I do. You know, we started doing all that kind of stuff. And so we rarely got ourselves connected with the community, with the restaurants, the bar, the cleaners. Everybody around there knew us and we knew them. And the preachers would come to our office and we work with one preacher that was at Providence Church. And he used to walk around and give people $20. We said, man, don't get him $20. Talk to him. Just give him $20. Talk to him. He said, Tom, I talk to him about God. If that's what you want to talk to him about, but talk to him about something. I'll just give him $20. Tell him to do something for it. You know, so he kind of took that advice. You know, he started doing stuff. So it was just like we just did that. You know, it's like because because our experience with being there and doing that, we kind of know how people can take advantage of you when you see somebody who got who want to help out, be this good Samaritan, do this nice stuff. And a lot of times, you know, just predator prey. So, OK, you can help me, but that don't mean I'm a change. And but with us, I mean, doing that, you know, you got to put some work in. You want you want change. You got to do something to change, not just think I'm going to take care of you and give you everything you want. You don't do nothing in return. Now, was it difficult to do it this way, to go back into the well, your neighborhood and do this? I know it's rewarding, but was there any challenge? It was difficult to go back in my neighborhood. That was the easy part. What was the hard part was the the way we approached it. You know, this is the way we approach it was not the way everybody else approached it. And so everybody else had this, you know, business as usual approach. And I remember one person saying that, you know, you know, having drug addicts is job security for a lot of programs. And I have a real problem with that. I want people to be taxpayers. You know, I want people to have a voice. I don't want them to be voiceless. I want people to be heard. And so our philosophy goes against the grain. It was like they would say that, you know, they would try to say all black people was angry and all that. And I said, why couldn't we be passionate about what we think or what we believe in? Why does it have to always be anger? Why do I have to be the angry black man or the angry black woman? When I can't be the passionate black man or the passionate black woman, you know, because I believe in what I'm speaking of. You know, I'm saying, you know, so don't turn my stuff around like I'm just howling because I'm mad. No, I'm not mad. I'm like upset because you ain't hearing what I'm asking you. I'm saying we need stuff in our community and you tell me we don't. And I'm saying, what did you talk about? You ain't in our community. You don't know we need. And so a lot of it came out of that. All of that. All that. We fought to vanilla about programs being most closely specific to the communities that they represent. Not just having everybody go to this one program that teaches this one philosophy. And that's supposed to help. One size don't fit all. These have to be tailored to fit. Or made to fit. So you had a location in the community, right? One one facility. We still have it. And when did it take off? Well, we had ups and downs. We had an outpatient program. We did that for a while and then we lost it. We lost our contract. They took our contract. We didn't have no outpatient program. So again, we was out on our own again. Do you know why they took your car? Well, they said that we mismanaged the money. They said we didn't know what we was doing. They said we had nepotism. They all they came with everything, whatever they could think of, because they what they wanted me to do. What they wanted us to do. They want us to go and combine with another program. And we didn't want to do it because their philosophy and our philosophy was two different things. Our vision was two different things. And we said, we don't want that's what y'all know. You're not going to assimilate us. That's how I felt. They were going to assimilate us. So what was the philosophy there? Their philosophy was that, you know, recovery that you got to. But then they had contradictions. So the staff would be teaching clients recovery. But they had a permission model where they could drink alcohol and get high. And we were totally asking. We didn't believe in that. We didn't believe in that. How are you going to tell somebody to not get get high and you get high? What did you say that you don't think they see through that? No, we ain't going to be part of that. No, no, thank you. And so they came at us. And, you know, of course, we made some mistakes. We mishandled money because we didn't know what we was doing. We were new to this. We knew we didn't know what we was doing. I didn't know you could see I'm from the old school. I robbed Peter to pay Paul to pay the bills. Right. But when you mess with their money, you can't. You know, like it's restricted over here and it's unrestricted and you can't mix them together. They say you mishandling. You know, I'm so we got in trouble for that. And one day we did anything to our community was nothing that we heard the people that were our clients. All our clients was upset. We just pissed off the bureaucrats. And then they shut us down. And then what was it like for you? So you think you're going to thought it was over with. But we was determined to keep going. I was determined to keep going. I said, well, I was doing it for free before I do it for free again. And we kept doing it for free. And and we just kept having the groups. We never stopped the group. We never interrupted what we was doing. We lost the office, but we had another building. So we just did an office in that building. We had a transitional house that we had. So we just had used the downstairs for the office. The people come there for groups and check in. And so one of the guys that when I was working at the choices program in San Mateo was in the program. The name was Steve. He got out, went to the last week. He only went last because I was in the last week. He went to the last week. He got clean, got himself together. He went got his master's degree. He started working for adult probation. And he the one that said, man, why ain't you guys got no program? He said, well, it's because we ain't got no program because they ain't giving us one. They told us we cut out. He said, I will change that. And he pushed and got us to get a program. And that's how we started. A lot of the programs we got now, you know, was through him. When he was that Steve Adami. Yeah. Very close. He'll tell you. He said, you know, he'll tell you. Like I've been I used to talk crazy to him when he was in the jail, when he was in jail. You know what I'm saying? He said, that man's crazy. He said all the time about me. But we got really close and he really was instrumental in helping us get back in, get back in the game. Get back in it. So now we have grown to where we at now. Now you have 450 people in your program. Can you tell us how your program works? We had to put a label on. So it's called therapeutic teaching community. Right. We don't call ourself a program. We call ourself an academy because we want people to learn how to live, how to thrive. You know, so we teach in that. That's what all we teach. They teach about restorative justice. Of course, we teach about drugs and alcohol. We teach about thinking for a change. We teach a lot of stuff in there. And then we model it. We address behavior. A lot of our programs are totally abstinent based. We have no drinks, no drugs, no drugs, no suboxone, no methadone. Nothing like our one of my program, the TRP Academy is like that. Now, we also have the the minute project, which is dual diagnosed program where they're at that place. They can be on medication. And so we kind of like balance it out. So we have place you go if you want on medication. Our women's program, they are mostly absent based, but they allow them to be on suboxone or some kind of meth. And, you know, that kind of thing. But then our transitional houses are all absent in base. You can't use drugs. You can't use alcohol in there. The Billie Holiday Center is a stabilization center. So that's where that's your first step. So what we've created is a continuum of care. So because the system doesn't work in our favor, it doesn't work the way it needs to work. It's like come back for an appointment. You don't say who refers you. Those kind of things. Right. And when the door opportunity opens for addict is very small window. And so there needs to be somewhere they know they can go and get what they need when they get right there. Yes. Right. Kind of. So Billie Holiday Center set up that it's on 6th Street right in the middle of the chaos. And it's 93 6th Street. It's 24 7. So people walk in. They walk in and say, I'm ready to stop. And they say, OK, come on in. Leave all your drugs and alcohol and stuff on the table. We're going to throw it away. And we'll have somebody come and talk to you and figure out what your plan is, what you want to do. Do you want to go to a program? Do you want to just go to detox? Do you do what do you need? What kind of services you need? And we help them from there. A lot of the people that we interview in the jails and different places like that go to the stabilization center first. Then we come and pick them up, bring them to our program. And so in a sense, do you guys teach people how to kind of become come back to the society and be normal and get a job? Well, for some of it, even coming back to the side is finally becoming part of a society, being part of a community because they've never been. They've never been part of anything. They've only been part of the streets, you know, which is community in itself. But but we're trying to bring them into a place where where their life is more productive for them and for the people that they care about. And so we're teaching from the beginning of what people need to do is real basic. You know, I'm saying, you know, it's like addiction. Addiction is always about disconnect. It is disconnect from your family, your friends, your community, your spirituality, you know. And so recovery is about being connected to your spirituality, being connected to your family, being connected to your friends and definitely being part of your community. Community and spirituality are very important components that we teach, that we community, that we're recovering community. But we community, too. And we don't need to be ashamed of that. And we need to be proud of the fact that we were able to turn our lives around and take our liabilities and turn them into assets, as opposed to just letting our liabilities continue to be liabilities and prevent us and hold us back. You know, you have to take that, turn it around. And so that's what we teach community. We are all part of the same family. So now our program that one time was just only black men has women, has Latinos, has Asians, has whites, has everybody in it. Because the community is a recovering community and that's made up of every nationality and ethnicity and every gender and every kind of way you want to look at it. Orientation, all of it is all together because the thing we have in common is recovery, is recovery and how we can make life better for everybody. You know, not just us. Do you have any examples that you can give us on what people what happens to people when they come? I give you an example of a person. He's a Latino male. He came to us. We probably been knowing him probably 10 years and he came to us before we worked with him. He got sober. He got his stuff together. He went. He moved out of our transitional house, got his own place, started working and all that. But he ended up relapsing because he disconnected. That's something else. Stay connected. But he disconnected. He went out, got high, started using, got tore up. About a year later, one of the other staff seen him walking across the street and said, what are you doing? He said, I'm trying to get some help. And so they bring him to the office and, you know, he came to see me and said so. We both was like, hey, don't do that. We ain't fooling with him. He foolish yet. Basically. They said, no. The other the other ladies and other staff said, no, you guys are going to help him. That's what you do. We said, OK. So we bring him in. I said, OK, first thing to give me all your drugs and all your pipes, because I know you got him. He gave to me. I still have his pipes. I was shown to him every now and then. So he gave all this stuff. I said, where are you staying at? He said, I don't have a way to stay. I said, what you on the streets? He said, yeah, I'm on the streets. So we told him, go get on that couch over there and go lay down and we'll figure out what we're going to do with you. So over the weekend when he was on the couch, the other guys live in houses who knew him, they would come down and give him food and feed him and talk to him and tell him just stay, just stay. You're going to be all right. You're going to be all right. And so after that weekend was over and he stayed and he didn't leave. Then we said, OK, we're going to put you in a detox. So we put him in a detox. He went to the detox and then he went into the program. He went into Harbor Lights and he stayed there for almost a year. When he came out, he came back to us. He came into our transitional house. And by that point, he started working at five keys. And then he started working for us. And he's been with us ever since. And he's been sober. He's going on five years. Wow. And, you know, it's just it just that happens all the time because you never know who will get clean and stay clean. Everybody want to get clean, but they don't never stay clean. So, you know, we just just have to just hang in there with him. It wasn't easy for him, you know, because we stay on. We you know, people don't like to be called on this stuff. And Craig, for people that are facing like they they are actually addicted right now. And they're they're going through what you were going through. Right. Yeah. Put your pride aside and get the help that you need, because there's somebody out there to help you. But you have to put your pride to the side and you have to ask for help. If you ask for help, there are folks that will help you. But then you can't put no expectations on how that help looks. When you ask for help, you have to take the help the way it come. You know, you can't talk about, well, I didn't want help like that. No, you're going to have help the way it come when you ask for help. You know, only God can can do that. You don't say you can't dictate how you want your help, because if you want your help, that means you really want to stay in your addiction. When you humble enough and you submit, you'll be fine. Everything will work out. Craig Johnson with Positive Direction, Equal Change. It was great to have you on California Insider. Thank you.