1. My motivation for doing what I do,
2. The reasons why I do not believe "recovery" stories are the most effective approach in preventing addictions,
3. Why I teach the Power of Choice in schools rather than the powerless, disease model,
4. The philosophy behind all my programs,
5. What I believe is the real root cause behind all unwanted habits, including bullying, compulsions and addictions - and how I came to that conclusion,
6. How kids, adults, and communities can work together to overcome a life of addiction; and
7. How and why the Power of Choice is aligned with all faiths, religions, and cultures.

By the time I had graduated high school, I had already become addicted to people pleasing, love and romance, paint and varnish remover, cigarettes, alcohol, caffeine pills, amphetamines, and other drugs. I went on to study music at a local college and then a University playing the upright bass and bass guitar. I did not graduate due to my desire to party rather than practice.

From there, I moved on to become a corporate head hunter driven to prove to the world that I was successful by making lots of money, which I did. It was through my career in headhunting that I was introduced to the personal growth and self-development industry. I took all the seminars from Dale Carnegie, Stephen Covey, Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, Richard Bandler, and countless others. I went through hundreds of self-esteem/personal development books and tapes which I would listen to constantly even in my sleep. You might say that I was addicted to "fixing myself".

I rapidly became a successful corporate recruiter, and I began my own business, The Executive Network.

However, I would continually "relapse", and I continued to struggle with cocaine addiction, which escalated to crack cocaine addiction. I took a date with destiny course with Tony Robbins which resulted in me getting off alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes, getting married to a wonderful woman, buying a house, and driving my dream car: a vanden plas jaguar. However, I quickly destroyed all of that when I relapsed, yet again.

I jumped from that relationship into another before I had time to grieve. My next girlfriend and I were a perfect match for each other because we both equally loved crack cocaine more than we did each other. Eventually, she was caught committing fraud with my bank accounts to fund her crack cocaine addiction. When she got caught, she went off to a treatment center. There, she had what can best be described as a profound personality change. This change in her was so appealing that it got me evaluating if treatment might be helpful to me. I also noticed that my personal income, although still a moderate six figure income, was definitely declining because I was so focused on smoking drugs and cigarettes instead of on serving people in my business.

I was what many would call a functioning addict. Inspired by the change in my girlfriend and my desire to earn more income, I went to treatment on November 4, 1999. In treatment, I was informed that cocaine addicts had a less than 1% chance of staying sober for even one year. I reflected that I had heard these odds before. I was told that less than 1% of people earn a six figure income. Still, I had managed to accomplish this through hard-word and commitment. Determined to beat the odds, yet again, I continued on with my treatment.

While there, I met a man that had beat the 1% odds himself. I asked him to help me with my addiction problem and he did. He taught me that my extreme selfishness was the root of my problem, and that "constant thought of others and how I could meet their needs" was, therefore, the root of the solution. In fact, he was clear that the reason he was spending so much time helping me was because doing so was what he needed to do for himself to maintain his sobriety from drugs and alcohol. Ultimately, he taught me that permanent recovery was possible by helping others achieve permanent recovery.

After learning this lesson from him, I went back to my company's staff and told them that making money, leading them, and continuing to build my business was no longer important to me. I informed them that I was now singularly focused on working with this man to recover from a life of addiction and that I was going to help others do the same. I no longer cared about being wealthy anymore.

My loyal staff stayed with me much longer than then should have given that they had absolutely no leadership from me. Eventually, one by one, they all had to leave, and I was back to being a one man show. However, I was actually relieved when they left because I had such guilt that they were staying with me.

I believe it was that guilt and concern that contributed to me going back to my cigarette, coffee, and sex addiction. I did keep sober from the alcohol and drugs, however, because I was totally driven to help drug addicts. Originally, I was driven by my fear of relapsing if I did not help others. I helped anyone that wanted help. I even tried to help those that did not want my help. I assisted others for free, and, in fact, I still do.

I became quite successful at helping others and soon realized that the same process that worked for one addiction could actually work for any unwanted habit, compulsion, or addiction. At one point, I remember having regular weeks where I was working with 2-3 people a day, for 2-3 hour sessions, 7 days a week. I would then go to different 12 step meetings, detox centers, or rehab facilities to find more addicts to help.


My new passion, volunteering my time to help addicts and their families, became such an obsession for me that I neglected my responsibilities to earn income, and I eventually chose to declare bankruptcy to avoid my accumulating debts.

Even after declaring bankruptcy, I still had a problem: I was a highly skilled recruiter with huge income potential in that industry. However, after having a taste of what it was like to make such a profound difference working with some of the most badly beaten up people on the planet, feeling that usefulness, and knowing that my life had a real meaning now, I could not put my heart into recruiting anymore. Regardless of my feelings, I went back to recruiting anyways. I made a good living, despite how much I hated doing it. Corporate recruiting was always a means to an end for me, and now that I did not have a vision to be wealthy, my recruiting was just a means to survive. I worked as a recruiter so that I could continue to do the work I really loved: "helping addicts for free" and teaching them to do the same.

My passion and spirit to help people grew, and it resulted in me, along with the help of others, creating a registered non profit organization that helps all sorts of addicts all over the world. This organization is an unconventional, 12 step program that aligns with the powerless model of addiction and spirituality as being the solution to the powerless problem of addiction. Because of its success, people all over the world have been helped, regardless of what their addiction, compulsion, or unwanted habit may be. Kids and Addiction

I branched out from my one on one work, and I began doing group programs in jails, in my home, and also at a church location. I began to think that as part of my mission I wanted to not only work with people that had become addicted, but to also help prevent addiction.

Shortly thereafter, I spoke for free at 2 events that were hosted by the Toronto police department in conjunction with two Toronto school boards.

Soon afterwards, I started to explore the possibility of finding a way to make money doing the work I loved. I passionately wanted to do this without compromising the integrity of my core value of fulfilling my primary purpose to work one on one with any suffering addict that needed my help and to have that help be made available to them for free.

I thought maybe I could start telling my story in schools for a fee, which I did. My first talk was for $400.00, which at the time I felt guilty about receiving at first. I quickly realized two problems from giving my first talk:

1. telling my "war story" about all the bad things that happened to me from doing drugs was not the most effective message for kids, and
2. some sort of a follow up program needed to exist for those kids who were in the audience that were already beginning to think of themselves as "addicted" or powerless over their behaviour.

Telling my "war story" on the surface may have appeared to be a good way to teach kids the dangers of experimenting with drugs. "If you do drugs, this could happen to you. This could happen to you, because it happened to me." However, there were three problems I saw from this approach:

1. Such a message, although it might scare some kids from trying drugs, could get other kids curious. They might think, "It happened to you, but it won't happen to me.".
2. Or, they might think, "You got away with it, so can I."
3. And, perhaps, my story, told in the way that I was telling it at that time, could become a self-fulfilling prophecy for those other kids who would end up experimenting with alcohol and drugs. In other words, the power of their beliefs combined with the power of their belief in my message could actually cause some of them to become progressively powerless by continuing down the path of self-destruction and hopelessness. The fact that this seemed even possible had me totally committed to transforming my message in a more responsible way.

I kept asked myself this question: What is the root cause, the real reason, that some people get addicted to things and others don't? It's obviously more than just experimenting with alcohol and drugs because some of the most successful people, like President Obama, Bill Clinton, and many famous celebrities, have experimented with alcohol and drugs. And, even they have gone on to have extremely successful lives. Kids know that. Kids are smart. So, trying to scare kids into not engaging in dangerous, potentially addicted behaviours, like tobacco, alcohol, drugs or even eating junk food and caffeine, is not the most effective approach.



What I then came up with was a viewpoint on what causes addiction that would give the power completely to the person needing help. The solution to the problem of hopelessness was what I call the Power of Choice. The Power of Choice is the decision to take control of what we chose to believe, what we chose to think, what we chose to feel, and what we choose to do. How a person decides to view all four of those choices, in that particular order, could possibly be what leads a person to become addicted or not.

This was challenging for me, though. To reframe my life story from this viewpoint wasn't easy. After all, I was taught that addiction was caused by some combination of heredity, genetics, environmental upbringing, "God's will", ADD, other mental disorders, chemical imbalances, serotonin or dopamine levels, and all sorts of other things. Those were the things I believed. However, I noticed that sharing those beliefs only served to keep me and other people entrapped in addiction as victims, powerless to a disease or bad habit that they, ultimately, had no part in causing.

Now, please don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that those other models of what causes addiction are not incredibly useful for some people. Heck, they worked for me in the past! What I am saying is this: such a message definitely cannot be a beneficial message for all kids. More importantly, such a message could even possibly be destructive for some kids.

I discovered through my experiences that what causes all unwanted habits, compulsive behaviours, and addictions and what the remedy is to eliminating these problems are one and the same: ourselves and our choices. I call this solution the Power of Choice.


I said earlier that some sort of a follow up program needed to exist for those kids who were in the audience who were already beginning to think of themselves as "addicted" or powerless over their behaviour whether that be drugs, food, self-harm, bullying, alcohol, cigarettes or whatever.



What kind of a program should I create for the follow up? I knew right away it had to be about the Power of Integrity. If you had to sum up in one word what the 12 steps did for people like me who experienced powerful, life changing recoveries or transformations, it would be integrity. Some others might choose the word responsibility, others honesty; but for me, for my life experiences, if you were to sum up all of these core values, they are included in the word integrity.

What is integrity to me? Well, it starts with taking responsibility for the fact that my life is the way that it is because of the choices that I have made. That I am, and always will be, 100% responsible for how my life turns out. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. The choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility."

This was a hard statement for me to wrap my head around because I was so used to blaming people, places and circumstances for my problems. I used to think that her quote did not apply to me. Maybe it applied somewhat, but it didn't apply to me 100%. I had (and sometimes still have!) what all addicts have: the "victim mentality". It is a victim mind-set in which I believed that I may be responsible for dealing with my problems through right choices, but that I could not have possibly had anything to do with causing them, too. Because, don't you know, I grew up in poverty, experienced abuse, and had the alcoholic gene?

Now, the Power of Integrity for me also included being responsible for my beliefs and the way I think (which ultimately causes how I feel). This also included being responsible for my actions and the other habits I have created around physical health and emotional well being. Power of Health and Nutrition

My experience and the experience I have witnessed with many others is that although I may have recovered from one addiction (alcohol and drugs), if I do not honour my body with regular, physical exercise, hydration, and healthy nutrition, then that lack of integrity for my body affects my moods and my thinking. This, ultimately, makes me more prone to choosing to engage in some other avoidance behaviour, bad habit, or addiction to get quick relief from the bad feelings caused by not making healthy choices.

For me, all bad habits, compulsions, and addictions begin from being out of sync with integrity with one's self. Not doing what you know you should do or want to do makes you feel bad. Those bad feelings get worse, so you try and hide or avoid dealing with your thoughts and feelings by lighting up a cigarette, watching porn, bullying or controlling others, alcohol, drugs, over eating, not eating, etc. But then you feel bad about doing that, so you feel even worse. Doing what you know you should do and want to do, even though it may make you uncomfortable for awhile, takes work, courage, and discipline. Choosing the Power of Integrity will ultimately lead you back to the path of health and fulfillment free from addictions.


Just like the man that helped me get free from my drug addictions said, "You are helping me more than I am helping you." This is what the kids have done for me, also. They have helped me more than I have helped them. I don't mean this as a slogan or cliché either. They taught me quickly that teaching them through my story of pain from the perspective of being a victim was not serving them OR ME...because ultimately, I am them. And, as the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous says, "Our real purpose is to be of maximum service to God and the people about us."

Well, if helping kids is about helping myself, then the most effective message I could teach them is Eleanor Roosevelt's, which is now mine, that "ultimately we shape ourselves, we shape our lives". That no matter where we come from - no matter what has happened to us - it is our choice to look at our past as an obstacle or a gift. Choices are up to each individual to make for themselves.

Henry Ford once said, "If you think you can or think you can't, you are right." I'd go on to say, that whether you think it is a choice, or you think it is not, you are right. To the degree that we don't believe our life is completely caused and created out of our choices, is to the degree that we are limited from becoming, doing, and having what it is we really want from life.

If you believe life is created from choice, your life will go one way. If you believe it is not, it will go another way. I will tell you this, out of the hundreds of self-admitted addicts that I have had the profound privilege to work with, every single one of them believed they were victims - and they believed that before they got addicted. Perhaps that might be a clue? Is the degree to which we choose to be responsible for our life a function of how many bad habits and addictions we "recover" from? Perhaps.

In my school programs, (and in fact, in my adult programs too), choice has to be given to the kids I help upfront. So their "recovery" can't have anything to do with me convincing or manipulating people to believe that they "should" change their ways, the kids first had to own that decision for themselves. It had to be offered as an open invitation, respecting their life choices. Whether or not they were going to break a bad habit had to be 100% their decision. So, immediately after my school wide assembly presentation, I invite the kids, of their own free will, to attend my "How to Break a Bad Habit" seminar. This approach works in attracting anywhere from 2-10% of the school body, depending on logistically what serves the school, based on what works for them in terms of space availability.

This approach also works because it does not focus on just one bad habit or addiction. Kids don't feel embarrassed to attend the session thinking other kids or school officials might know they are addicted to drugs, alcohol or whatever. Confidentiality is not an issue because they are never asked (in fact, they are actually discouraged) from divulging what their bad habit is while in my seminar.

After the one hour seminar, kids are given a further opportunity to choose to (after a short break or lunch) to attend a team based "Healthy Habits" workshop where they get to create and participate in creating a sort of healthy habits club in their school. It is a 28 day program. However, some schools/kids go on to continue the program longer than what is required simply because it's fun for them, and it works.

When it is all said and done, no matter how many kids attended the "How to Break a Bad Habit" seminar, 1-5% of the entire school body that I originally did the keynote assembly presentation with choose to be a part of the "Healthy Habits" workshop. These are the kids that realize that they lack the discipline required to implement the strategies and tools they learned in the "How to Break a Bad Habit" seminar on their own. They need accountability through a buddy system and/or a group. You could say that what we are creating is a community of kids helping kids develop healthy habits to replace their own unique unwanted habits. It is a program that prevents bad habits from turning into chronic addictions. Power of Community

Communities are very powerful. In fact, they are one of the key ingredients to what makes Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 step programs work. Being a part of a new community of people with a common problem, being committed to solving the common problem with a common solution, and hanging out together from time to time in structured meetings aids recovery. Now, the meetings we create are obviously different from AA meetings, but they do create a community of wellness. Our meetings are a structured way to help kids help each other to create and develop healthy habits through healthier relationships. Bringing the Program to Adults

Again, in the spirit of being of maximum service to God and the people around us, I realized that yes, we always have choice. However, the communities we live in, or the people we hang out with the most, do have an influence on how we act.

Many of the kids I speak with go back to their school classes and homes to teachers and parents where they do not experience the kind of love and support from which they could really benefit. This is because many of those parents and teachers are dealing with the impact of their own destructive habits. Thus, the adults that surround them are, often times, not well equipped with the tools of change that would really serve to better their children's lives.

That's why, as an add-on to the program, I also now deliver the same program in an adult version for parents, educators, and other members of the community. It's the same program. It's just that the language is a bit different for adults, and the Q and A, obviously, deals with issues adults are facing in dealing with kids and other members of their family.

To be straight, quite often, parents come to get tips on how to "fix" their kids. But they go home realizing that the questions they are asking are often a part of the problem. They also realize that the biggest difference they can make with their kids is to "be the change you want to see in your kids". This is my adaptation of Ghandi's quote: "Be the change you want to see in the world."
In this program, adults get to take a look, with the same confidentiality and anonymity that we gave the kids during the day, at their own lives. They look at what habits, compulsive behaviours, or addictions of their own they could be responsible for transforming. The adults also learn to replace those behaviours with the same techniques that are learned in the "Healthy Habits" program for schools. Some parents are quite often shocked to find that their unwanted habit or addiction has to do with trying to dominate, bully, and abuse their kids as a way for them to gain a false sense of control in their own lives. This false sense of control is a way to avoid being responsible for their own choices and actions.

By transforming these and other unwanted habits in themselves, they become an authentic example and real support for the kids in their lives. Ironically, they come to discover that by redirecting their attention from trying to fix their kid to working on themselves, they make the biggest difference of all for their kids. Corporate Program

Now, to support these parents and other adults even further, I have recently unleashed this program to businesses, corporations, churches, and other community organizations. This also helps the kids. (On a side note, some, but not all, of the religious folks out there have concerns that my message might not be right for their people. However, when I begin to talk with them, they love it, and they quickly see how my message of CHOICE is exactly the same as the FREE WILL message of all religions. Free will is something that God gave us all. My message is fully in alignment with all religious messages. ) Why the same program works for both adults and kids

Think about it, many adults, whether they are parents, teachers or whatever, are not really all that different from kids. In fact, when I am really honest with myself, I see myself as being equal to all kids. I still have so much to learn and plenty of room to grow in so many areas of my life. Don't you? Aren't we all just big kids, really? Well, that's how I see it.

Similarly, most of us did not get the degree of love and support from our families that we could have really benefited from. This is not our parent's fault. They, too, had parents that were just learning.

So, my adult programs support those adults (big kids) who are learning new habits. They will then go back into their work force where the communities there can also benefit from developing healthier habits to replace unproductive ones at work and at home. Again, this program is only a little different from the one I do in schools simply because people get to develop habits they see as important for themselves. Since they are at work, some will naturally choose to apply the program to replace unproductive time-wasting habits that are occurring on the job with other more productive and healthier ones. The great news, though, is that being more productive and happy at work, carries over to how you treat your family at home.


My life experiences are the passion and spirit that drive me to help others. Knowing from my own life and the many lives of people I've met along my journey, the Power of Choice works. Through the Power of Choice, integrity, and community, I believe we can transform the destructive habits that limit us from reaching our full potential. By making healthy choices and helping others to live a dedicated, healthy lifestyle, I believe that anyone can free themselves from the bonds of any unwanted habits, compulsions or addictions.