His family grew quite large with more than 20 adopted, foster, related and siblings living in a small rural home in Decatur, Illinois.
In the seventies, he became an outreach worker, gathering addicts and alcoholics from jail or hospitals and connecting them with services like Salvation Army shelters, SRO’s and AA meetings.
In 1970, he worked at Chestnut Health Systems, one of the first local community treatment centers in Illinois, and became the clinical director of the facility.
In 1986, he returned to the Chestnut Health System and founded the Lighthouse Institute, an addiction treatment research center.
He was a senior consultant at the Chestnut Health System engaged in research and writing on addiction treatment and recovery coaching up until his retirement in 2014.