Recovering addict gets a do-over as a dad

SALT LAKE CITY — Recently, Matt Kinikini taught his 5-year-old son Gabriel to ride a bike.

As any proud father might, Kinikini reveled in the moment when Gabriel suddenly found his balance and stopped wobbling.

"It makes me happy to see him do that. If I hadn't changed, it would have been someone else that taught him to do that," Kinikini said.

Kinikini, a recovering crystal meth addict, travels a journey similar to his child's as he seeks a healthy balance in his life as a single father, breadwinner and role model for his two young sons.

Kinikini, 23, is in Odyssey House's Fathers and Children's program, a yearlong residential substance abuse treatment program. The unique program serves fathers who are addicts, who have mental health disorders, criminal records, parenting issues, relationship problems, poor employment histories and low educational attainment. Their children, who are provided child care, educational services and therapy, live with their fathers while they are in treatment.

The goal of the program is to help fathers overcome substance abuse and develop life and parenting skills that help them raise healthy children. The children are taught a wide array of life skills so they, too, do not fall prey to addiction and other pitfalls.

Although participants come from lives of chaos, the Parents and Children's Program operates on a tight schedule with strict rules.

The day starts at 6:30 a.m., when dads and children dress and prepare for the day. Next comes breakfast and the children go to a nearby Children's Services facility, where they will spend their day in supervised child care, play, instruction and therapy.

The dads meet for group therapy for three hours. Next comes lunch, which can be followed by court visits, medical or dental appointments or individual therapy. The children return for dinner, followed by baths and a predictable bedtime routine. They're due in bed at 8:30 p.m. The men then gather to reflect on their respective days, which includes their peers' critique of their progress or regression.

Then, the clients join their children for the night, hopefully getting seven or eight hours of sleep before they have to do it all again the next day.

Bradley Heib, a graduate of the program, who now works as a case worker at Odyssey House, said it can be difficult to submit to such a strict routine.

"At first, it would be like being in the military. After you start doing it for a while, you start to see how it makes sense," he said.