Retired Renascent Addictions Counsellor, Michel Robert still remembers the first person he admitted to Renascent. “I was a nervous wreck,” he recalls with a laugh. “Decades later, that Renascent alumni still calls me every year on my sobriety anniversary. He’s still sober too.”

Seeing people rebuild their lives, reconnect with their families, and discover hope in recovery became the most rewarding part of Michel’s work at Renascent Madison Avenue Centre (Madison Centre). But long before he welcomed others through Renascent’s doors, Michel had once walked through them as a client himself.

Believing he had run out of options, in 1985, after years of addiction and a life that had spiralled out of control, a friend drove to Ottawa to bring Michel to treatment at Renascent’s Bayview House. Michel completed the program and returned home determined to stay sober. A few months later, he relapsed.

“I woke up in the hospital but I knew exactly what to do,” Michel says. “Renascent had shown me the way.”

The program had given him something invaluable; not a quick fix, but the knowledge, support, and confidence to reach out for help again. Michel returned to recovery, attended meetings, found a sponsor, and began rebuilding his life one day at a time.

Recovery gave Michel a new sense of purpose. Determined to better understand addiction and human behaviour, Michel returned to school and became Renascent’s very first student placement. He later joined the organization as a counsellor, where he spent more than 30 years helping others begin their own recovery journeys.

While Bayview House is no longer a Renascent treatment centre, looking back over four decades, Michel has watched both addiction and treatment evolve. When he first entered treatment at Renascent, it was the only 12-Step based addiction treatment centre and most clients sought help primarily for alcohol addiction. Today, Renascent supports people experiencing increasingly complex substance use disorders, reflecting both the changing landscape of addiction and the organization’s continued commitment to meeting people where they are.

While treatment has evolved, Michel believes one thing has remained constant: Renascent gives people hope and a place to begin again.

“I really believe Renascent saved my life,” he says. “If I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t be alive today.”