LOS ANGELES – It has been four years since Richard Edick played a guitar.
“Over the years I’ve owned a mountain of guitars,” Edick said, “they’ve all gone to the dope man or the pawn shop."
Sitting at the Mt. Carmel Treatment Center in South Los Angeles, Edick was struggling with the chords.
“It’s been a while,” he said apologetically.
Still, it was a moment to behold. Just four weeks earlier, Edick had been strung out on meth, waiting in line for a shower at the Saban Community Clinic in Hollywood.
Homeless for nearly four years, he had just arrived in Los Angeles from Florida. His mom had died, and he fell into a deep depression.
He came to Hollywood Boulevard with dreams of becoming a musician. But just two days later, he found himself in a hospital on the brink of death after a 22-day meth binge.
“I was in a bad place. I was ready to kill myself,” Edick said.
After years of teetering on the edge, Edick had finally hit rock bottom. But then, a moment of fate changed everything.
Discharged from the hospital, he immediately headed to a rehab facility, only to find it was closed. Dead set on being first in line the next morning, he found a spot behind a dumpster where he planned to spend the night. It was at that moment, he said, an angel appeared.
“I came out of work one night to go to my car and go home at about 6:30 or 7 and I saw this gentleman looking like he was settling down for the night beside our building so I just asked him if he was ok,” said Kathy Icenhower.
Edick didn’t know it at the time but the woman he was talking to just happened to be the CEO of the clinic behind those locked doors. One quick phone call and Edick was in.
In just four weeks, the transformation has been nothing short of miraculous. Edick is now sober, healthy, and gained 30 pounds.
Curious about his progress, Edick asked to see the video I shot of him when we first met. It was that interview four weeks earlier, he said, that made him finally get clean
“I didn’t want it to end like that," Edick said. "If that was the last the world would see of me, that’s not what I want."