Chris started drinking at 13.
“I loved the feeling right away, the warm feeling. I was confident, felt no fear… I was better looking and taller when I drank,” he recounted on Thursday at Project Homeless Connect in Morristown.
For years Chris coped with his alcoholism, a disease that ran in the family.
He graduated from college. During Operation Desert Storm he served with the Marines. For more than two decades, he was a special education teacher. He married a professor. They had a son.
And then Chris lost everything.
Nine drunk driving arrests landed him in the Morris County Jail. An altercation with police sent him to state prison for more than four years. His wife divorced him.
Chris emerged from prison in 2008 with no money and no prospects.
Homeless Solutions gave him a place to stay. The federally subsidized Zufall Health Center on Atno Street gave him medical attention. And the Market Street Mission gave him a purpose.
Chris found the Lord, sobered up and is making amends with everyone he let down. At age 50, he is a counselor at the Mission. He attended Project Homeless Connect to reach out to other men who have hit rock bottom.
The daylong event at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church gathered dozens of social service agencies to offer help to the homeless. Social workers were there with information on housing, health and legal resources; from dental work to expungement of criminal charges, potential solutions were available for virtually any dire situation one could imagine. Free flu shots, clothes, haircuts and massages also were there for the asking.
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It’s the fifth year for Project Homeless Connect in Morris County, and at least two trends are emerging, according to Joann Bjornson of the Interfaith Council for Homeless Families of Morris County. The homeless ranks are seeing increasing numbers of young military veterans and highly educated people who have lost their jobs.
“They used to donate cash to the food pantry,” Joann said of the laid-off professionals. “Now they need these services.”
Pastor John Isemann of the Mendham Hills Community Church organized a ministry called “Next” that travels to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, the Market Street Mission and anywhere else where the homeless may be found. He said homeless people tend to fall into three categories: The mentally ill, addicts and immigrant workers.
Johanna, a 65-year-old woman whose creased face and gravelly voice attest to a rocky life, said her drug addiction started at the Woodstock music festival in 1969.
She remembers the “good high” she experienced smoking pot, and how she would crave that feeling every morning. She and her brother blew through a $65,000 inheritance from their father, spending it on cocaine and heroin. Johanna wasted another $13,000 from her father that was earmarked for her to buy a car.
She married and divorced twice. In 2003, Johanna’s brother died “of every disease you can think of.”
Johanna managed to kick her cocaine habit a few times. She always relapsed. When she lost her job at King’s supermarket, she said, a roommate threw her out of their apartment.
“I was homeless and on the street,” Johanna said.
Gone were her two most cherished possessions: Urns containing the ashes of her mother and brother. She had a nervous breakdown.
The Interfaith Council for Homeless Families gave her temporary shelter in 2007, and guided her to agencies that helped her with medications, Social Security benefits and an apartment in Morristown.
Clean at last, she said, she has learned some things the hard way.
“Don’t do drugs,” Johanna said. “Get yourself an education and go somewhere with your life. I quit school at 16. Everything we wanted to do was okay with my parents. I had crappy jobs all my life. Now I’m pinching pennies. Get yourself a trade and do something with your life.”
Michelle is taking that advice. The immigrant from Grenada lost her hospital job, and then her apartment, shortly after giving birth to a daughter. For 11 months, they shuttled to a different church every week, in the Interfaith Council’s homeless shelter program.
During that time, Michelle completed her high school equivalency degree. Next month the single mother begins college classes for business administration. She credits her faith and the community for her turnaround.
“Hold on,” is her advice for others in tough times. “It’s going to get better. There is hope.”
Chris is grateful for his new-found hope.
“The easy part is stopping drinking,” he said. “The hard part is living sober.”
Too many recovering addicts rush to reclaim “normal” lives before fixing their core problems, he said. The Market Street Mission, faith and AA’s 12-step program have set him on a systematic course to rebuild the bridges he burned. His 12-year-old son is proving the hardest person to win back.
Chris has come to appreciate the virtues of patience and plans to keep working on himself.
“You’ve got to fix yourself from the inside out, not the outside in,” he said.
