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A tough road to recovery

A former drug user runs a ministry to help dozens of men stay clean and off the streets.

By EDDY RAMIREZ
Published March 6, 2007

Pastor Bill Garrison comforts resident Paul Maldonado after a counseling session. "There's a special bond that we built," said Garrison, who started the New Birth Abundant Life Ministry in St. Petersburg.
	[Times photo: Lara Cerri]

ST. PETERSBURG - Before he started preaching, pastor Bill Garrison served the devil. And he was good at it.

He was homeless, hustling for drugs and drowning in alcohol. He gorged on crystal methamphetamine.

Garrison told the story recently at his New Birth Abundant Life Ministry in St. Petersburg, shouting the Lord's name into a microphone. Two gold chains with crucifixes dangled from his neck.

The brutal honesty buys Garrison credibility with his congregation, made up of men from the streets recovering from drug and alcohol abuse.

"I was a hustler," said Garrison, 51, a bald man with pierced ears and a sliver of a goatee. "I'm still a hustler. But now I'm a hustler for God."

In a city struggling to find solutions to homelessness, Garrison represents hope. He has worked quietly the last three years to help dozens of men stay off the streets.

All he asks is that they follow some basic rules at his ministry: pay attention to the pastor's morning sermon, clean up after themselves and stay sober and drug-free. He warns them that the road to recovery will be difficult and sometimes lonely.

But he knows the way.

- - -

Garrison's life started coming apart when he was a child. His mother couldn't care for him and the man who adopted him was abusive, he said. At 17, he was sent away to serve in the military. Two years after his discharge, he hitchhiked to California rather than return home to Clearwater and endure more abuse.

Once in California, his life quickly spiraled downward. He was homeless and sleeping in the streets of skid row, one of Los Angeles' most dangerous neighborhoods. Drugs took over his life.

He started "flipping and tricking" to support his addictions, he said. When his mother died, he sank into depression.

"I was almost suicidal," Garrison said.

Tired of his lifestyle, he decided to return home to Florida. It was somewhere on the car ride between Texas and Louisiana that his transformation began.

He thought about his mother and a hymn she used to sing.

We've come this far by faith,

Leaning on the Lord,

Trusting in His holy Word,

He's never failed us yet.

Sobbing, he tossed out the marijuana and the bottles of alcohol that he had packed for the trip. He doesn't remember where but he took the first exit to a town with a church.

"It was a moment I'll never forget," said Garrison, whose eyes still well with tears telling the story. "There was a pool in the church, and I asked the minister to baptize me. It was a Sunday, and they were in the middle of Bible study."

Garrison's drug addiction did not end on Interstate 10.

In Clearwater, he turned to crack. He would smoke it, he said, while reading the Bible. At that point, Garrison knew he had hit bottom.

A friend helped him find a house with other men who were clean and a church that embraced him without judging. At the Christ Gospel Church in St. Petersburg, Garrison met Mattie, a woman with a clean past who eventually agreed to marry him.

"Everybody needs an opportunity to change," Mrs. Garrison said. "All of us have done something that we are not proud of."

According to court records, Garrison's last drug arrest was in 1997. He said he has been clean since.

- - -

At his ministry, the men chant "Amen" when they hear Garrison talk about beating drugs and alcohol. Many in the recovery program said they tried getting help elsewhere but never found someone as genuine and compassionate as Garrison.

"A lot of preachers haven't been there," said Ricky Bell, 45, who is recovering from alcoholism at the ministry. "He's been there."

Garrison doesn't offer help to every homeless man he meets. They have to be ready for discipline and to accept God, he says.

At the ministry, on 38th Avenue S near U.S. 19, the men sleep on bunk beds, take showers every day, prepare group meals in a kitchen and even grow mustard greens in a backyard garden. The walls are covered with images from the Bible and other small reminders of faith.

Garrison said he relies on donations and funding from the state to cover nearly $10,000 a month for rent, food, utilities and other items. He drives to a flea market in Hernando County to shop for men's clothes. He allows himself few luxuries: the gold chains he wears are from a pawn shop, and the Chrysler 300 sedan he drives is an upgrade from an old Yugo, he said.

The men at his church said Garrison "runs a tight ship." He assigns everyone chores and makes them do pushups if they disobey the rules. He rewards good behavior by having the men over for cookouts and football games at his house, which he mortgaged to start the ministry.

Robert Morris, 39, said he weighed 120 pounds when he arrived at the ministry, the result of nonstop crack cocaine use. Morris has remained clean for six months.

"Now, I'm 255 pounds," he joked, slapping his protruding belly. "This place has done wonders for me."

Gary Gohsman, 51, said he was sitting on the steps of St. Vincent de Paul Church in St. Petersburg when Garrison approached him.

"I was down on my luck thinking, 'Good grief. What am I going to do?' " he said. "I have no family and no money."

Gohsman, once a successful chef who has struggled with alcohol for 20 years, tried several rehabilitation programs in his hometown of Flynt, Mich. Under Garrison's watch, he has been sober for a month.

Gohsman said his mother has said he will take him back if he can stay sober until March.

"God must have sent this guy because he has literally saved my life," Gohsman said.

- - -

Toward the end of his morning sermon, before some of the men at the ministry go off to work, Garrison drew a stick figure with a bloated head on a white board. He scribbled the word "Darkness" and told the men the figure was him battling drugs, sex and alcohol.

"This was pastor Garrison without Christ," he said.

Now facing the men, he added, "What you see now is a man who no longer sees what I was but what I am."

"Amen," said the men.

Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Eddy Ramirez can be reached at eramirez@sptimes.com.

[Last modified March 6, 2007, 06:09:58]