Yesterday, I described how I have been able to help clients at a drug addiction rehabilitation centre. Now I want to tell how they have helped me.

It wasn't long after I started working with the clients at the rehab centre that I realized that I was away out of my element when it came to them and their addictions. The centre decided to help me out, and sent me on a four-day course, so that I might gain more knowledge in this area. I did gain a lot of head knowledge as a result of the course, but the real knowledge, the heart knowledge, came from living with the clients at the treatment centre where the course was held.

At meal times during the four days that I was there, I made a conscious effort to sit with the men and women who were there for treatment. They opened up to me right away and shared with me about their addictions and how they made them feel.

Many of them shared their lack of spirituality with me, as well as the stories of their addictions. God opened up, not only a place for me to help, but also, more to the point, a place for me to learn how they could help me.

The clients showed me the powerful devil that drugs and alcohol can be for many people. They spoke of the devil on their back, and then asked for my help, not as a counsellor, but as a friend who was willing to listen to their stories and to hold their hands as they cried.

This has given me many hours of interesting conversation and led me to many new friends. When I got to know these people, I learned that addicts or alcoholics are not necessarily the down-and-out bums on skid row. They are men and women with more education than I have, who had high paying jobs, before the drugs and alcohol took over. They are women who are housewives and mothers. They are young and they are old. They are real individuals, people about whom Jesus is concerned. Jesus said that when we serve them, we serve him.

God has taught me so many lessons and has so richly blessed me by bringing them into my life. He will do the same for you.

Prayer: God grant me the ability to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

About a year ago, a friend of mine asked me to come to the addictions treatment centre where he worked, to meet a client, who was looking for a spiritual advisor. Knowing that I was a minister, my friend thought that I would be the perfect choice.

When I got there, I found a young man in tears, beside himself with his problems. He was almost through the withdrawal symptoms of his drug of choice, but not quite. He was shaking, and, within minutes of our starting to talk, he was extremely tearful. He told me some of the things he was going through at the time and asked me to pray for him. I did this, and then he didn't seem to want to talk, so I left after a few minutes.

A day or so later, I got another call from the client himself, asking to talk. This started the beginnings of my volunteering at the treatment centre. In the spiritual advisor role, there is a lot of room for movement and growth.

You may not be aware of the steps in a "12 Step Program", but a number of them deal with God. Step 12 says, "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics (addicts), and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

I have had the satisfaction of working with a number of clients whose "Higher Power", when I first saw them, was a coffee cup that kept their hands warm. Later they began to see that a "Higher Power" was a loving and caring God to whom they could reach out and ask, not only for forgiveness, but also for compassion and grace.

A number of them have, later on in the process, asked me for Bibles. The local Gideons group has been very helpful in providing these Bibles. As I have come to know them, I have found that these people can be, and often are, the most honest and caring people. Jesus showed me, through my new friends, a new ministry to become involved in, as a volunteer in His name. These were the men and women who Jesus went out into the streets and by-ways to rescue. Can we do any less? Can we refuse to see their faces, get to know them, and hear their pain?

Prayer: God grant me the ability to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.