Steve Chaboyer is living a life today that he could have never imagined possible just a few years ago.

Chaboyer had spent over 15 years addicted to alcohol and meth. He says it all started out of loneliness and trying to find a way to belong.

"I guess I started drinking in my early teens, trying to find acceptance. And, that was the easiest place to find it -- that crowd."

But, that acceptance led him to more dangerous activities. Just two years later he was introduced to meth for the first time at the age of 17.

"I didn't want to live anymore. I didn't want to do it anymore. I couldn't do it anymore."

"I fell in love with it and never put it down," he says. He quickly became addicted to the dangerous drug which took over his life

"Over the years in my addiction, I got myself into a lot of trouble, hurt a lot of people, and I did a lot of bad things to support my addictions." That trouble led him to trouble with the law and into jail a few times.

"I came to a point in my life where I guess that whole lifestyle of darkness had caught up with me. I hated who I was - I hated everyone around me. Very angry. Just all the negative stuff that comes with that life."

Broken in his addiction Chaboyer says that he had a moment where he cried out to God and asked to deliver him from the life he was living. "I didn't want to live anymore. I didn't want to do it anymore. I couldn't do it anymore. And He answered my prayer - He took me out of that life."

Chaboyer was in prison at the time, and he says that he spent a few months in there and took advantage of the time to get sober. In March of 2018, he got into the Adult & Teen Challenge program in Winnipeg. Chaboyer says while he wanted to be there the program, and living with the other men there, was a bit of a shock to his system.

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"The first thing I noticed, you come in here, and there's a bunch of guys you've never met, and they're saying, 'Hey man, I love you.' It was kind of weird. But, it was also cool that you didn't have to do anything for acceptance. I was kind of wondering what that was all about and I realized as I went into my program it was God's love flowing through them."

He says that love and acceptance drove him to want to learn more about God and His love and forgiveness. Chaboyer graduated from the ATC program and now lives in Winkler in the program's graduate house there. He is also a key piece of their successful thrift store in the southern Manitoba city.

"I'm walking every day in God's grace and His love."

"It's been an amazing journey. I no longer have those chains and bondage to my addiction. I've been set free. I have relationships back with my kids. With my family. Everything is amazing. 

"It's good to wake up every day no longer walking in that darkness. I'm walking every day in God's grace and His love."

What's the biggest lesson that Chaboyer has learned through Adult & Teen Challenge? "God's real! He's so good," he says.