You can beat addiction. Waterfront Rescue Mission has been showing folks how for 75 years

David Pattie has wrestled with drug addiction for most of his 42 years.

He started using drugs recreationally when he was 15 years old and continued dabbling in it for years. He believed using was something he had under control, even when he lost his first wife and children at the age of 25.

The Dothan, Alabama, man dove deeper into drugs after their divorce, especially methamphetamine, and for years was stuck on a roller coaster of addiction. Sometimes he would go for months without using, then “reward” himself with getting high for “doing good.”

He was barely getting by, jumping from job to job and living with his mom, when the chemicals caused him to have a mental breakdown in 2018. Pattie said he up showed up on a family member’s doorstep literally out of his mind.

“Crazy, paranoid schizophrenic,” Pattie described. “I thought people were trying to kill me and trying to go after my kids and there was a plot. Everyone was plotting. That's an effect of methamphetamine, because you don't eat, and you don't sleep.”

Pattie and his family felt he had hit rock bottom and was ready for rehab. Although Pattie had his doubts and was reluctant to go, he thought his best option was Waterfront Rescue Mission’s addiction recovery program for men in Pensacola.

It lasts from nine months to a year and in Pattie’s case he stayed the full year, first detoxing, then attending church, counseling, and other life skills and job training workshops. Now drug free and employed, he works for Waterfront as maintenance manager and stays connected and “accountable” to mentors and other men who went through the program with him.

He wears a bracelet that says, “Psalm 23,” a reminder of the well-known scripture that describes leaning on faith when walking “through the valley of the shadow of death.”

“I got this in 2018 when I came here and it doesn't come off,” said Pattie. “I don't take it off for any reason because it reminds me of my time at Waterfront and it's the 23rd Psalm, so you know you made it through the valley. The up and down roller coaster of trying to navigate addiction and still trying to maintain your life, never experiencing any type of stability. The things that Waterfront taught me, the men that they put around me, which is the most important thing, that showed me, ‘Hey, you can beat this, we beat it,’ because most of the chaplains all have their own story and Waterfront is pivotal.”

Helping people like David Pattie change their lives for the better has been Waterfront’s mission for decades. In fact, the non-denominational, faith-based charity is preparing to celebrate its 75th anniversary next year, a milestone for the ministry.

For nearly three quarters of a century, Waterfront Rescue Mission has offered a variety of services to help people who are homeless and/or battling addiction.

Besides the men’s recovery program, the organization also provides men and women in need with temporary shelter, daily meals, laundry, showers and bathrooms, access to computers and other services like medical care and obtaining a valid ID.

Waterfront administrators estimate up to 80 people a day come to the Pensacola mission for resources. Those who they can’t help, they connect with other service providers.

In 2022, Waterfront reports serving nearly 3,000 people, including veterans, with more than 160,000 meals, 57,000 nights of shelter, as well as helping 100 men find permanent housing and another 113 find employment, for a total savings to taxpayers of $4 million. So far in 2023, Waterfront provided 63 people with permanent housing, offered 46,967 nights of shelter and served 124,593 meals.

How it began

Waterfront Rescue Mission opened locations in both Pensacola and Mobile, Alabama, in 1949. The two cities had the typical problems that often come with port towns: people succumbing to the vices and social ills that are readily available, like drugs, alcohol and prostitution.

Waterfront abides by the original mission to “demonstrate God’s goodness by providing rescue and recovery services in Jesus’ name.”

Bob Rogers has been with Waterfront Rescue Mission for 35 years and remembers some of the founding members.

“Local churches saw the need and they came together and did something,” said Rogers. “There was a lady, she would go down every Saturday morning and set up a little tent and she would have peanut butter sandwiches and socks and some (gospel) tracts and she just kind of encouraged the guys and she kept trying to get her pastor to come down. He realized then that that Pensacola needed a place where they could help these guys.”

Like many who work at Waterfront, Rogers himself struggled with drugs when he was young, and he wanted to help others the way he had been helped. Over the years Rogers has served several positions at the mission including board director, vice president of ministry, and currently in-take chaplain for the recovery program.

“You’ve got somebody who comes in who's homeless and we want them to leave with a home, but we think taking the harder, the longer, the more expensive course is to help them physically and emotionally and spiritually and to help them socially, with their education and with their job training,” said Rogers. “There are 10 different domains to help them to get up to a job and housing and transportation so they can support themselves. What a joy, what an honor to be able to work in a place like this where what you're doing, you believe is so meaningful.”

Looking ahead to the future

From its small beginning with just two locations, Waterfront Rescue Mission now operates 10 locations along the Gulf Coast, including seven thrift stores. The stores help support the charity, along with donations, corporate sponsors and some service fees.

The Pensacola location offers more than 250 beds for people in the addiction recovery program and overnight guests. People may stay overnight each month with a $10 co-pay, but the fee is often waived based on need, income, bad weather nights and holidays.

The charity does not take government funding.

“We have a limited number of funding opportunities because we don't go after governmental or state funding,” explained Waterfront President Clay Romano. "We never have, we never will. We feel like the government just doesn't need to be a part of our business model. We've been doing it for 75 years, so I think we’ve got a pretty good way of doing it. We have a track record of success.”

The economic downturn that resulted from COVID-19 was a wakeup call to the mission to develop additional revenue streams in the event donations are scarce or the stores aren’t as successful. The goal is to help the mission survive any economic storm.

Romano said Waterfront's consistent dedication to its mission and willingness to expand services and provide them in a cost-effective way that has helped contribute to the nonprofit organization’s success so far and will carry it through in the future.

Administrators are planning several events to commemorate the 75 year milestone.

“It has been about the mission, it has not been about the accolades,” said Romano. “It's not been about the fundraising. It's not about selling a used T-shirt in our thrift stores. It's about helping the people who decided they wanted help and we do it with a godly foundation. It's taking care of the people that we need to take care of. That's what it's been for 75 years and that's what it's going to be for another 75 years.”

David Pattie said without Waterfront Rescue Mission’s no-cost addiction treatment program he would not have been able to afford rehabilitation.

“I couldn't really afford any other rehab so this is the only place I had to turn to,” said Pattie. “God brought me here and He brought me to the right place. Waterfront taught me how to operate on a day-to-day basis. How to have fun without that. How to how to deal with stress. How to deal with disappointment, anger and not turn to other substances. How to cope, how to function like a normal human being in society. That's what they teach you here, how to make healthier choices. It’s a blessing.”

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Waterfront Rescue Mission helping Pensacola and Mobile homeless