Cooking Up Recovery

Learn about Robert, an OHL graduate who has turned his life around with the help of Second Helping Catering. To read about Robert's story, click below!

March 17, 2008 was a very important day for Robert Sanders. “I will never forget that day,” Robert says, a deep dimple forming in his cheeks as he smiles, “Ever.” This was the day that Robert entered treatment at Odyssey House after nearly 20 years of a crack addiction.

“I know everyone has heard this story a million times before, but I’m telling you the honest truth. I never liked myself and that fed into all my problems,” Robert says. Through his adolescent and teen years, Robert was teased for his dimples and round face. Other kids told Robert that his mother wanted a girl when she had Robert and that’s why he looked the way he did. Robert started acting out to try to fit in with the tougher boys. His older brother did drugs, but Robert idolized him because no one had the courage to ever mess with his brother. 

In the circle of friends Robert tried so desperately to fit into, occasional marihuana use as adolescents progressed almost naturally into hardcore drug use as young adults. For Robert, it was crack cocaine and quickly he found himself addicted.

For 15 years Robert lived the life of an addict, accumulating run-ins with law enforcement and basically just existing. Finally, his mother became fed up with his behavior and threw him out of the house. For three days, Robert slept in his mother’s backyard; his only comfort was a pillow that his younger sister secretly slipped to him out of her bedroom window.

Robert was so desperate that he broke into the crack house where he got his supply and stole uncooked rice and red beans. “I was literally walking down the street, asking strangers to cook these beans and this rice for me. I was hungry!” Robert remembers.

Eventually, Robert’s probation officer, whom Robert hadn’t paid in months, caught up with him. Robert says he surrendered willingly, “I told him to come get me and put me in jail. I couldn’t handle what I had been doing. I would rather be in jail than live on the streets like this.”  His probation officer, however, recognized Robert’s addiction issues and sent him to Odyssey House.

Robert was assigned to the kitchen crew while in treatment, learning culinary arts skills from OHL’s professional chef, Chef Bruce, and assisting with catering events for OHL’s catering social enterprise Second Helping Catering. Robert had a generic background in cooking from sporadic jobs in restaurant kitchens before he came to Odyssey House, but he says working in the kitchen expanded his understanding of culinary skills beyond what he ever expected. Robert says, “Working with Chef Bruce broadened my knowledge and experience so much. It helped me learn new things in a hands-on setting, but also gave me book knowledge on proper procedures and sanitation, which were things I had never been taught before, even though I was working in kitchens.”

Eight months later, on November 19, 2008, another date Robert will never forget, he moved into the final Reentry phase of treatment and officially completed treatment a short while later in December 2008.  Robert was such a success as part of the kitchen crew that he joined the staff of Odyssey House as a Chef Assistant for Second Helping Catering. Robert is proud to make the distinction between his previous jobs in restaurant kitchens and his job with Second Helping. While he was previously preparing short order-style meals, now Robert loves making the detailed dishes and gourmet-style meals for more formal events.  

Says Robert, “I know now that this is what I was meant to do. Sometimes I forget to clock out when its time to leave because I feel so at home here and it doesn’t feel like I’m working. This kitchen is where I feel comfortable. But I also get wrapped up in the stress and excitement and thrill. I just love all of it.”

Robert acknowledges how far he has come since that fateful day in March when he first arrived at Odyssey House and is glad that other people have noticed too. This past Mother’s Day, he asked his mother what she wanted and she told him that he had already given her the best gift ever with him finally being sober, successful and happy.

“I’ve changed completely,” Robert says. “ And it all started here. To use a food analogy, the proof is in the pudding.”