Andy Nieman's healing journey has taken him from the streets of Vancouver's skid row and the Whitehorse Correctional Centre to earning his social work degree at Yukon College and becoming a support worker.

He also delivered the keynote address at the healing in corrections conference this morning at the Kwanlin Dun's Nakwataku Potlatch House in the McIntyre subdivision.

The conference is aimed at moving the corrections system forward. It's taking place today and tomorrow after officially opening Monday night at the Yukon Inn with a presentation on residential schools.

As Nieman went over his own experience through the justice system, he continually stated to the crowd of about 100: 'No one is hopeless.'

Looking back over his journey, he remembered, as a five-year-old, running away from home to get away from the violence there. He eventually ended up inside an abandoned car, under a blanket, shivering, with no one knowing where he was.

Five years later, he was so out of control and in trouble that the government decided to punish him by sending him to the Lower Post Residential School in northern B.C. There, he became number 74 and fell into the hands of a pedophile, he said.

It was there that the 'real' Andy Nieman disappeared for 29 years.

At the age of 12, Nieman used alcohol for the first time to escape the pain in his own life. About four years later, he turned 16 in the Watson Lake jail after stealing a car in Whitehorse and running out of gas in Lower Post, where he was caught.

His journey would continue. He eventually spent 10 1/2 years behind bars and living on Vancouver's skid row, addicted to cocaine and heroin. He overdosed on the drugs six times.

At one point, so desperate for money to buy cocaine, Nieman said, he held a knife to a cab driver, threatening to kill the cabbie if he didn't get the cash he wanted.

'The sad part was, I meant it,' Nieman said.

During his times at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre, he can remember waiting until everyone else was asleep, then crying himself to sleep.

'I felt so hopeless, I felt so lost,' he said.

It was when he was staying in a cockroach-infested room in Vancouver that he found Jesus, and that changed his life forever, Nieman told the crowd.

'Healing never started until I found the courage to look at my pain,' he said.

As a support worker and a Christian, Nieman has seen the frustration of others trying to help offenders in jail, who aren't receptive to the programming available to them.

He noted the programs have to have continuity from jail into the community and on to the offender's home as well, with a trust built between the offender and support workers.

He likened the situation to elephant training in India, where trainers chain the animal's leg to a large post and the elephant learns to walk in a circle. As the training continues, the post and chain get smaller and smaller until the elephant can break the chain if it chooses to.

The justice system is like the elephant, Nieman explained, noting that while it has all the power and intelligence, it continues to go in a circle around the offender, who holds it at bay.

Justice is now at a time when changes will be happening for the better, Nieman said.

From his experience, Nieman said, an addict or alcoholic has to answer yes to three questions before he or she can begin healing.

They have to question whether they are so sick and tired of the way their life is going to make the change, if they are willing to work hard on healing, and if they have a vision or plan of who and what they want to be.

'One of the hardest things in an addict's life is to change their life,' he said.

And it's one of four things that will inspire that change, including falling in love, a crisis, children or finding God/the Creator/the higher power, he said.

The biggest stumbling blocks for those dealing with their addiction is the loneliness they experience when they can't associate with their old friends they may have drank or used drugs with, along with filling the time they used to spend in a bar drinking or using drugs.

In his own experience, Nieman most feared the loneliness.

'That was one of the biggest things I was scared of,' he said.

While going to church helped him with the loneliness, to fill all the time he found himself with, he went back to school. That's why, he said, education and employment programs are so important.

One of the most crucial periods for many who are healing is that moment when they are released from jail and forced to make a decision about whether they go back to their former lifestyle.

'We need to be there if they want us to be there,' he said, pointing again to the need for continuity once offenders are released.

He also advised the numerous justice workers there that one of the biggest fears for many is that of rejection, and it's something they will pick up on immediately.

'We need to show them we have hope,' Nieman said.

He added that while it sounds egotistical, there are many more 'Andy Niemans' out there.

'No one is hopeless,' he repeated, reminding the crowd that change takes time and there will be many failures before success occurs.