Before recovery, I was a rich guy living off drug money and the sex trade. I was rich but it was not normal or with honor. My dysfunctional life made my family vanish, my siblings were not brought up well, no one and specially not our family had a future to cling to. Before, we focused on problems and how we could avoid them from happening.

After learning to love myself in recovery, I learned to be Solution focused. I now choose to face my problems and strive for more in life. Unlike before where money and security coming from money drove me, today, it is my dreams and hopes that fuel my drive. My vision of my future is what makes me get up in the morning and go for what I want.

It was when I gave myself a chance to dream that my life began to change.

—– Larsen, survivor or Drug abuse. An abused child stolen from his parents and sold to a drug and prostitution ring

“Utak biscuit”. “Isang kahig, isang tuka”. That is how Larsen was described when he came for recovery work. His idea of the future was whether he was going to eat the next day. His lack of self-esteem, lack of self-love, and lack of self-respect jailed him in the drug and sex trade for many years. For him, his life was not worth planning for because his was a basket case, no better than the life of an alley cat, meant to strive and fight for every scrap and then die.

But, fate brought him to a halfway home where he was given education, treated like a human being, and regarded as someone with a future. This is when things started to change. A little love can do that.