Randy Leverock hit rock bottom before he began his climb back from the depths and despair of drug addiction.

And if it wasn't for the support of people like Sandy Butterfield, Eudora Brown-Zuill and Kuni Frith-Black, he dreads to think where he would be today... probably in prison and not even alive at all.

Next month will mark five years of sobriety for Leverock, 44, after being a crack user for about two years. And while the rehabilitation continues, Leverock isn't just living for himself, but also helping others faced with drug addiction.

Every day Leverock goes to Westgate Correctional Facility to act as a facilitator in Mrs. Frith-Black's Alternative Substance Abuse Programme. There he is reminded of the seriousness of the drug problem in Bermuda.

That he was even able to get the job was down to Mrs. Frith-Black's faith in him and also the fact that, despite years of substance abuse, he doesn't have a criminal record.

What he does bring to the table is experience, which the inmates in the programme can relate to.

"I've watch the transition take place from being in the gutter, homeless, penniless, jobless at the Salvation Army and now sitting in a facilitator's position at Westgate," said Mrs. Frith-Black of Leverock. She was his case counsellor five years ago when she worked at Focus Counselling Services.

"She just called me one day and asked me how many years I had been clean and I said almost five," recalled Leverock of the recent conversation. "She said `I have a job for you'."

Before he made the decision five years ago to get off drugs, Leverock would lose jobs because he couldn't make his time. He didn't want to admit that it was the drugs taking control.

"I got into the heavier drug, crack cocaine, and it was almost like I just fell into it," says Leverock who started experimenting with in his mid-30s.

"One of my mates said `try this' and I tried it. A couple of weeks later he said have another hit and eventually I started to change my company and started to think more of this drug.

"You always think you can control it but then you see yourself being in situations and doing things you wouldn't normally do. Then denial sets in because you don't look at yourself and see what you're really doing."

Added Leverock: "The normal things started happening, losing jobs because I couldn't make time, my appearance went and I burnt bridges. I never stole anything but I started manipulating because I never had any money."

What Leverock says is interesting is how he hung out with people whom he now realises he didn't even like. But they had something in common... drugs.

"You start getting paranoid because you know people are seeing a difference in you," he says.

"Some guys get into stealing and robbing people but - it may sound funny - I always had a dignity about me, that I would never do that. But looking back, if I had carried on down that round I would have done it.

"The hurting part was I was letting people down, more so myself."

A talented footballer and cricketer in his teen years, Leverock even lost interest in watching sports.

"I was hanging around people I knew weren't good for me," he conceded.

From being on the streets he saw for himself the seriousness of Bermuda's drug problems, by which time he had become addicted too.

Finally, he decided to seek help, after one day hearing a voice inside his head telling him `this is your day'.

"I was up all night smoking and the next day was payday and I heard the voice in my head," he explained.

"By this time I was thin and in the throes of addiction. I knew this was my bottom, that I was going to die. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror and really looked at how sick I was. My soul was sick.

"I went to my boss and said I have a problem. He said `yeah, I've been waiting for you to come to me and tell me because that's the word on the street'. I was shocked that people thought of me like that, but it was obvious."

Leverock's boss made some calls and that day he went up to Addiction Services to see Mrs. Brown-Zuill.

"She was the first counsellor I saw and I told her I needed some desperate help," he remembers of that first meeting.

"The first thing she said to me was `I can see that you are suffering'. She said I had to go down to the detox shelter and that's when humility comes in because I couldn't believe I had fallen so low.

"It practically saved my life. I stayed clean for the whole year and a half. I had good people around me and I went to Focus where I met Kuni and Sandy Butterfield."

Leverock's determination to stay clean remained strong, something he says is difficult in a small community like Bermuda where a couple of hours in the wrong company can undo all the good work by a programme. He estimates there is at least one crack house in every parish in Bermuda.

"My desire to stay clean was stronger than my intent to get high again," said Leverock who has seen guys he went to school with and grew up with become addicted to drugs.

"This is a serious, serious drug problem and a lot of people in Bermuda don't realise it is a chronic problem. You see fellas in their 50s and 60s getting addicted to crack."

"When I went to Salvation Army, David Masters told me I couldn't go back down to St. George's to get my clothes which were in a crack house. That crack house was the only place I could stay, I couldn't go home.

"When I went into Salvation Army I didn't even have a toothbrush... nothing. I can tell you that is the reality and when it hits you it terrifies you. The shame that hits you then is overpowering. Some go and get high again."

He was working for a Hamilton company when he got the call from Mrs. Frith-Black.

"I figured I had to give something back," he says. "This is my calling. I got lucky so I have to help any way I possibly can.

"This job means I have to go back to school and obtain a degree, but that's okay because things are in place for me to do that. I attend school now."

Behind the walls at Westgate, Leverock lets the inmates know he has been there, too.

"It's been about a month that I've been up there, but in the last five years I've been around recovering addicts at my meetings and I have seen things that people don't want to see," he states.

"I had to learn how to live my whole life all over again, a life without drinking. It is hard sometimes because recovery can get boring, so I have to keep active, like walking.

"I don't play with my sobriety. I don't even put myself in a position where I can get a thought (about drugs). I can go out and sit up at a cricket or football game and watch, but I prefer not to. I started drinking at 14 years old, that was mostly all I did."

Leverock is getting his life back on track, he lives with his girlfriend in Southampton and prefers to look forward, not back. He says the programme will only help those who want to be helped. He knows the ones who are serious.

"I give Kuni a lot of credit, she took a lot of flak, but her programme is going to be great," he stated.

"I would never have gotten this job if she didn't have faith in me. I'm not ashamed to say I'm a recovering person, but I'm in a position now to help."

"My soul was dead, my self esteem gone. I would have been dead or locked up. I have a life now without drugs."