---

After two Army tours in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s, Marc Smith experienced signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, tinnitus and diabetes. But the heroin addiction he picked up abroad dulled his awareness of those conditions.

Mr. Smith had started using drugs "just to get out of myself" after "seeing combat, seeing bodies [and] seeing other people suffer," he said. After being honorably discharged - despite his habit, he'd "stayed out of trouble" and fulfilled his role as a sergeant - to his hometown of Newark, N.J., he lost more than 20 jobs, in addition to his license, his home, his family and his credit.

Next week, the 56-year-old Menands resident will receive the William B. Joslin outstanding performance award from New York State Industries for the Disabled, Inc., for his cleaning work at the Corning Tower in Albany.

Better and better
His employment is the latest in a string of long-term jobs with ever-growing responsibility through the Altamont Program, Inc., an arm of the Peter Young Housing, Industry and Treatment program. PYHIT, founded by Rev. Peter Young of the Albany Diocese, advocates for ex-convicts, homeless people and recovering addicts throughout New York State.

Mr. Smith brushed off the recognition. "I just want other people [to] know that they too can prosper," he said. "I hate to see people suffer the way that I've suffered. There's another way of life, even with a disability."

Outsiders, he noted, might not view addiction as a disability: "Some people think that you can just be strong-willed and just stop. It doesn't work like that. You have to change your way of thinking, your whole life. It's very difficult when you've been doing something almost 30 years.

"I believe that people who have addictions are born with them," he added. "It's a trait that's passed down. I have other disabilities, but I think that's the worst one."

Mr. Smith's recovery process began about a decade ago. He was living at a Salvation Army site when a fellow resident told him about a Veterans Affairs drug treatment program.

He got help for his undiagnosed health conditions, which included complications from bullet wounds in his arm and leg; started therapy to address his insomnia and combat nightmares; and began working on his addiction.

He was sober for close to a year and relapsed - a process that would repeat itself four or five times in the following years.

Finding Father Young
Eventually, he said, "New Jersey got tired of me," and the VA sent him to a program in Bath, N.Y. There, he heard about Father Young's addiction treatment, veteran housing and vocational programs.

He moved to PYHIT's Schuyler Inn site in Menands in 2008 - and something about the program worked for him.

"I was treated on an individual basis," Mr. Smith said of PYHIT. "All the other programs are like a mass treatment. When I started getting near a year [of sobriety], they were all over me [with support]; I was never alone."

Mr. Smith celebrated five years of recovery this week.

"I can't say enough about Father Young," he said. "Spiritually, physically and mentally, that man turned my life around. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be a productive member of society.

"He would always encourage me and say, 'Marc, God has great things in store for you.' He was a tool God used to get me clean. He knew I'm Baptist, and he did not care."

God loves me
After falling away from his religion for most of his adulthood, Mr. Smith is now a member of Mount Olive Southern Missionary Baptist Church in Albany. He said Father Young taught him the difference between religion and spirituality and debunked his idea that God is a harsh punisher.

"God is an all-loving God," Mr. Smith now declares. "I killed people in Bosnia and I thought God would never forgive me. I thought, 'I'm going to hell; I might as well go all the way.' I didn't care about how I treated other people or how I treated myself."

Mr. Smith attended his first family reunion this summer. He had drifted away from his mother and siblings during his years of using heroin, but "now, anytime something goes on, I'm the first person they call."

His driver's license was recently restored after being suspended for more than a decade because of a DUI offense; he's eyeing new cars. PYHIT helped consolidate Mr. Smith's debt so he could rebuild his credit score, and housekeeping work through the Altamont Program has built "structure and character."

Happy to be
He lives in an apartment in Menands with his best friend from the Schuyler Inn and enjoys listening to music, exercising and building model cars.

"I'm happier now than I've ever been," he said. "When I come home sometimes, I can't believe I live here and I pay my rent on time and my cable's on and my bills are paid. Every day, I just feel like a miracle. I shouldn't even be here [with] all the years of abuse I put on my body.

"God chose to still have me here," he continued, "and I think I'm here so I'm able to share my story with other people."

On Saturdays, Mr. Smith still attends a 12-step program for recovering addicts, where he's viewed as a mentor - but he doesn't see it that way. "It's just me," he said. "I just want to live, and if I'm helping other people by the way I live, then good. It's God first and then my recovery and then family."

He also mentors a 17-year-old boy who's been raised in foster homes in Albany: "I just try to let him know you don't have to fall into the peer pressure [of gangs]."

Mr. Smith is planning on returning to school to study crane operation. "I think there's nothing that I can't do," he said, "if I put my mind to it."[[In-content Ad]]

---