From Drug & Alcohol Addiction to Serving God & Others

Rob Robinson came from a good home. From Christian parents who are still married to this day. Sunday school, vacation Bible school, baptism – he experienced it all. He was an athletic standout, a good student.

Flash forward to 2008. Rob is now addicted to drugs and alcohol. He has destroyed relationships. He has spent a combined 6 years in prison for drinking and fighting. He has just lost a good job because of a failed drug test and now he is homeless. Rob says that at this point in his life he didn’t care what people thought about him anymore. He was going to do what he wanted. His life had developed into a pattern of drinking, fighting, losing jobs, messing up relationships and doing drugs. So what happened to the good kid from the good family?

After a family move when Rob was 8 years old, he struggled with the insecurity of being the new kid, the outsider and losing the comfort of a close-knit extended family. He responded by getting angry. He started drinking when he was 14. He knew that drinking was wrong. The more things that he did that he knew were wrong, the further he separated himself from the church and from God. He was still an excellent student and athlete. He was All Southern California in high school track. He found his identity in track. Being a jock made it easy to be someone. But he had no accolades in college because when he got to college the talent level of his teammates was at or better than his and he was no longer a standout athlete. Because of this he coped with being "regular" by turning to alcohol even more than he had in the past. This is what led him to have to drop out.

He joined the Army where he was sent to Germany. The drinking turned to drug use. By the time he left the military a few years later, he was an addict. On a camping trip in 1979, Rob experienced a hallucination of himself falling from the cliffs he was preparing to climb and landing in the same stream he was standing in. This vision of his own death was a defining moment for him, but not enough to make him change.

Over the next fifteen years he had a good job, a house, influence, a wife & daughter, and then lost it all because of drinking. He came to believe that he really did “die” on the night of the hallucination. Furthermore, the mess that his life had become after that day was really his existence in hell. A hell that he believed he was now stuck in and was never going to end.

In 2008, Rob decided that what he had been doing wasn’t working. He came to the People's City Mission. They took him in, gave him a bed, assigned him some chores. He had knowledge of God from his upbringing, but no relationship. He asked God, "If You have a plan for me, let me know". Then he was invited by Mission staff to church. He said yes.

When he walked into that church there was a real sense of family, not formality. The message was on God’s challenge to Gideon and Gideon’s challenges back to God & understanding that he was being called. Rob learned that regardless of what God asks us to do, he doesn’t ask us to do it alone.

He needed to break the cycle of what his life had been. He was overwhelmed with all the decisions he had to make. But he had people at the Mission to help him figure things out. He knew he had a big ego & lots of pride, but he also knew he had to rely on God.

One of the biggest considerations in helping Rob while he was going thru intensive outpatient drug & alcohol treatment, was he always knew where he was going to sleep, that he was going to eat, that there was someone to listen to his problems who shared his pursuit of constant contact with God.

He is inspired by Matthew 6:25-34 that talks about the lilies of the field. God will meet our needs if we’re faithful. That’s where he’s at today.

Rob helps out at the mission doing construction work. He says, “This place has to be here so that someone else can use it. I know people who have died because they couldn’t control their using. They didn’t find a safe place to land. I found one in 2008.“

As an alumnus of the Curtis Center, he is part of the Mission family. The People’s City Mission was his home & safe place; a shelter where he could come while he was trying to reassemble his life.

He believes that there is still something ahead of him. He has rebuilt his life with his estranged daughter & granddaughter, made amends with people back home and reconnected with his parents. He now looks for the value in everyone he meets because he doesn’t know who God has sent him to serve. He says that he learned to give at the Mission because that’s what he saw in the people who helped him. “I need to be open to the still small voice of God. My goal is to serve God & anyone around me. I know from my history that someone like me can change.”