STORIES

It’s not your average fairy-tale beginning but there is something undeniably romantic about how two ex-drug users met at Odyssey House Auckland, fell in love, and ended up getting married.

Before Jane* entered treatment at Odyssey House Auckland in 2005, she and Steve* had never met but they already had a few things in common. Both had been intravenous drug users and both had been facing serious jail time when they were sentenced instead to Odyssey.

When Jane entered his life, Steve had already been at Odyssey for over a year, kicking his drug habit and slowly straightening out.

He says even after you stop taking certain drugs, it takes a few more months to fully exit your system during which time you still get twitches, anxiety attacks, and “the sweats”. Despite these hassles, Steve had progressed to Level Four (the level residents reach prior to re-entry into mainstream life) and was working at the Odyssey Admissions front desk when Jane walked in.

“I admitted Jane,” he says with a grin. “I did the paperwork for her.”

“That’s how we met,” says Jane.

Now, four years later, they’ve have been married for six months and, after much saving, have just bought their first house. Both have great jobs: Jane is assistant manager of a stylish Auckland café and Steve is an automotive technician at a large dealership on the North Shore. They’ve come a very long way in a short time, but they started off slow and took each step gently.

“I didn’t start dating her straight away,” says Steve. “I was just doing my stuff and getting through the programme.

“But when I came to the end of it and I was living out, I heard through the grapevine that she liked me. I wasn’t going to do anything unless I knew that because I didn’t want to embarrass her or jeopardise her programme.”

“They don’t encourage that sort of thing happening in Odyssey House,” says Jane.

So Steve waited until the day after he fully “graduated” from the programme before asking Jane out. He was supposed to attend one last group therapy session to say goodbye but the couple ended up using the opportunity to make sure everyone was happy with them seeing each other.

“We asked a group of a dozen people is it alright if I go out with him? Just to see what everyone else thought about it and if it was the right move,” says Jane.

“It was a shock actually, but it really blew me away, because even the staff said oh, that’s great! They were all for it,” says Steve.

When Jane made it to Re-Entry (where residents start living in the community but still attend Odyssey House activities), she wanted to move in with Steve straight away but Odyssey suggested she live in a supervised Re-Entry House first.

“You’ve got to be careful because you know each other to a point, but our past – what led us to get into the programme – is pretty bad,” says Steve. “You don’t know what’s going to trigger each other to slip up. So we took it pretty slow and we were support for each other too.”

The affection and emotional commitment the couple shares is obvious – Steve lays a protective hand on Jane’s leg whenever her story heads into painful territory; Jane often lets Steve take the lead and backs up his points with ones of her own.  It looks like a good match.

But back in 2005 when Jane pleaded guilty to what she describes as “some pretty large convictions” and entered Odyssey to dodge a prison sentence, few people would have predicted such a good outcome – Jane included.

“I decided I had to go to Odyssey House otherwise I’d be going to jail for a really long time,” she says.

“In my mindset, that was the only reason I was going there at first. But once I got there I thought I’m so glad I’m here.”

“It’s like a safe-house,” says Steve.

Jane was sentenced to two years but given leave to apply for Home Detention while at Odyssey.

“So I was on Home D for about a year with a little anklet on,” says Jane. “It was a horrible experience but it was definitely the best way for me.

“I thought as soon as this is over I’m out of here. But because I had to stay there, I had to look at myself. It didn’t take me very long to realise that my life was shit and had to change.”

Steve says people who think going to Odyssey is a soft option have got it all wrong.

“It’s not easy at all. You have to talk about your past and the things that you’ve done to other people. You have to talk about everything that you’ve bottled down, suppressed for so many years. You have to let it all out in front of your peers,” he says.

“It’s hard. Many times you think f**k this, I want to go. I’ve had enough, see you later. You get to that point where it all gets too much and you just want to leave. I got there quite a few times. But the staff talk to you and help you to turn it around.”

“The thing with Odyssey House is if you do something wrong or screw up in some way, they don’t kick you out on the street. They help you learn from your mistakes. Your mistakes are actually quite valuable because it’s a huge learning curve,” says Jane.

Jane in particular became so settled at Odyssey that she found it very hard to leave.

“I had some pretty big anxiety issues when I was leaving. I was even too scared to take the bus by myself. Little things like that,” she says.

A women-only therapy group and lots of one-on-one counselling helped her to deal with her fears, but her next step – applying for jobs – was no easy task.

“I was so many times in tears because I supposed to be looking for a job but I got too scared to even ring up places. Just a confidence thing, you know? Who is going to hire someone with a home detention bracelet on?”

However, with the support of Odyssey she fronted up to her first interview and made a brilliant job of it.

“I said I think you’re better off choosing me over someone else because I’ve got so much to prove. I’ll work for free just so you can see what I’m like,” she says.

“I’ve been here for three years now. I worked my way up. It turned out to be the best job I’ve ever had.”

The couple agree that the best aspect of Odyssey is how the Therapeutic Community model challenges everyone to confront their behaviour and with the support of the community, make fundamental, long-lasting changes.

“You can stop drinking and taking drugs but you’ve still got the same old behaviours,” says Jane.

“Odyssey changes your whole way of life and your thinking, the way you are. Your thinking is changed to pro-social instead of anti-social,” says Steve.

“When you’re doing crime and stuff you just don’t give a shit. You don’t care about anyone else around you. You don’t care who you hurt. Now I could never do something like that.”

Jane has re-established a strongly supportive relationship with her sister through Odyssey and has been instrumental in persuading her father to enter Odyssey as well. Steve reckons it’s amazing how far they have all come.

“It’s been about three and a half years since I left Odyssey. I graduated and I had nothing. Now I’ve got a good car, Jane’s got a good car, and we’ve got house.

“My parents couldn’t be happier with me. That’s just a good feeling because I put my parents through hell. Dad always denied that I was doing drugs but Mum always knew. It nearly broke up their marriage”.

Steve has very simple advice for anyone considering entering Odyssey House Auckland’s programme.

“Get as much out of it as you can. You’re there so use that short period of your life to get your life back,” he says.

“No, you don’t get your life back – you get a new life,” says Jane.

“Yeah, you get a life,” agrees Steve.

[Not their real names]