Jarmila Jackson, Features Writer

Richard Blackman is a counsellor at the Salvation Army Men's Hostel & Rehabilitation Centre in downtown Kingston - Norman Grindley /Deputy Chief Photographer

For a reason to make a difference, Richard Blackman needed to look no further than within.

He had been a substance abuser since the age of 13, an early beginning, which would precede years of turmoil, ultimately leading to deportation and finally to the revolution that made him who he is, a symbol of hope and inspiration to others like him.

Blackman is now a counsellor at the Salvation Army Men's Hostel & Rehabilitation Centre in downtown Kingston. The journey to get to where he is now, though, was not easy.

At a tender age

At 13, while living in Brooklyn, New York, Blackman's drugs of choice were marijuana and heroin. He was also an alcoholic.

He's quick to emphasise that his heroin use was not intravenous. Instead, he snorted the substance, but recounts that he did have a brother who fancied the needle and subsequently died after contracting AIDS.

In the years that followed, Blackman would develop a taste for cocaine, and it was in fact the exchange of a 'rock' to an undercover police officer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that resulted in his deportation to Jamaica, where the second phase of his life would begin.

"Eventually, they caught me on a corner smoking crack, when I gave a crack rock to an undercover cop. I got probation, but then on probation I went on the run. I went to California and became a beach bum, stayed there for a couple years and they eventually caught me up in California," he said.

With the possibility of facing 28 years in lock-up for his crime, Blackman feared the worst. The authorities held him in a deportation camp for a while and eventually ordered him deported to Jamaica.

Blackman was a student in college, had been in the military and was working steady jobs. In fact, at his peak, he was part-owner of a car dealership and earning buckets of money.

Coming to reality

"At that time, I really didn't think I had a problem but, coming to Jamaica really woke me up."

In 1993, after being away for 30 years, Blackman was deported to Jamaica, his only means of survival being the US$3 in his pocket, which he used to get a taxi to Mountain View, from where he walked to downtown Kingston. On his first night in a country he did not know, he slept on the compound of a police station, the only place he believed he would be safe. In the months to follow, he would spend his nights in an abandoned house he had found on Harbour Street, bathing in a river to keep himself clean and occasionally doing odd jobs for very little money.

After a while, Blackman got in touch with family members, who managed to get him a job. He said that, initially, he didn't use drugs in Jamaica but, after his employers discovered that he was a deportee and terminated his employment, his depression led him to start using again. He was unable to keep a job thereafter and, in time, with persuasion from family members, he checked himself into a rehabilitation centre.

His first visit there wasn't successful, however, and he suffered a series of relapses, eventually leading to him spending two years roaming the streets of Kingston in vagrancy. Eventually, facing violence on the streets, he returned to the rehabilitation centre and begged to be readmitted. He had no money but was accepted on the promise that he would do whatever it took to stay there, tending to just about any chore that needed attention.

Interest in counselling

With his recovery well under way, it was at the Centre where he first took an interest in counselling, becoming a training counsellor, and enrolled at The University of Continuing Studies to study same. After completing the programme, and doing various jobs, he received a call from The Salvation Army's William Chamberlain Men's Hostel and Rehabilitation Centre, offering him a position as a counsellor.

He has been there for nearly six years, and considers that programme the best in the island. He has counselled nearly 500 clients and, while he does not make any money, he finds fulfilment in those whose lives he has impacted.

"This is the best life I've ever had, because we're really making a difference here, even when I had all the money with the cars and everything, it doesn't compare to this because I've never felt this good."