From the streets of Chicago to Gimli

Former drug addict reflects on journey of recovery

EXPRESS PHOTO BY AUSTIN GRABISH

Ian Rabb, 50, is a former drug addict who turned his life around. He is planning on opening the Aurora Recovery Centre this June in Gimli. 

By Austin Grabish, The Express Weekly News

Ian Rabb didn’t expect to make it past his 40^th birthday.

It was the ’90s and Rabb was a 23-year-old meth addict living on the streets of Chicago. 

He had a regular itch for booze, coke, meth, and ecstasy, and even though Rabb saw life through the haze of addiction, he knew his life was spiraling out of control.

But an American DEA agent somehow managed to pull Rabb away from it all, and to this day Rabb credits her with saving his life.

The agent had arrested the former Winnipegger a handful of times before, but couldn’t fathom why the certified optometrist was on the streets.

“Like you don’t belong in this world. What’s up with you?” Rabb recalls the agent saying.

Rabb wasn’t supposed to be an addict. He came from a ‘good’ home and had a top-notch university education.

“I was not a kid that was throwing chairs at the teacher. I was not a kid that was getting drunk or high everyday. I was going to school and I was going to succeed,” Rabb said.

And succeed he did.

After completing an undergraduate degree from the University of Waterloo, Rabb went on to study at the Illinois College of Optometry.

And it was there the trouble began.

“In Chicago I just started crossing the line,” Rabb said.

At first it was just a weekend thing.

For Rabb, a hit here and there seemed harmless.

“It was a lot of fun in the beginning,” Rabb said.

But Rabb’s addiction to meth grew stronger.

“I ended up crossing some really ugly lines,” he said.

“And then it just started getting worse and worse and worse.

“I actually remember thinking ‘well I’m just going to party hard until I’m 40 and then die’. That was my goal.”

Rabb spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on meth and other narcotics, and was arrested numerous times.

He became involved with organized crime and the sex trade.

He hit rock bottom when he wound up homeless living on the streets of Chicago with his dog.

But it wasn’t until he moved in with his sister in Denver, Co., that he realized he had a problem.

“Not being able to change I realized that I was doomed.”

Refusing to stay clean Rabb quickly found himself living on the streets again.

He spent a total of 2 1/2 years homeless before making a decision to change his life.

It was a phone call to the DEA agent that changed everything.

“The day that I wanted out I woke up that morning and she’s the first person I called,” Rabb said.

The agent had given Rabb her personal cell number in case he ever wanted to get out.

Turns out he did.

Rabb returned home to Winnipeg shortly after the call, and has been clean since July 7, 2001.

The date’s one Rabb, now 50, remembers well.

Staying clean was an uphill battle. “The first couple years were really difficult,” Rabb said.

Many of the peers Rabb went to rehab with relapsed.

He credits his soberness to advice he received from an 82-year-old mentor, who told him it wasn’t drugs and alcohol that were the problem.

The mentor told him he was using the drugs to cope with feelings that Rabb says he knew were there, but couldn’t quite grasp.

“He just intrinsically knew, because he felt all the same feelings.”

Rabb said he always felt consciously separated from his friends and family, and after talking with his mentor and getting clean, his life began to change.

“All those feelings that had crippled me since kindergarten went away.”

Rabb has a message to addicts who are struggling.

“There is hope,” he said.

“There’s a chance for everybody to get out of the misery.”

Rabb is hoping addicts can escape the misery at the new Aurora Recovery Centre, which he founded.

The private centre, which Rabb is an investor in, is slated to open in Gimli in June.

“I’ve been given the gift to help people transform their lives,” Rabb said.

But Rabb knows what the realities are.

“I have been to so many funerals.”

When his February interview with the Express finished he was off to another one.

That addict had shot himself because he couldn’t take it anymore, Rabb said. 

Ian Rabb at the construction site of the Aurora Recovery Centre in Gimli.

 -- First published in the Express Weekly News print edition April 9 2015 p.2