Jeremy Raven is a Winnipeg man who openly shares his efforts to break a lifetime cycle of crime and addiction. He is actively in recovery and hopes, he says, to "inspire others who want to change their life. If they see me doing it, they'll know that they can, too."

"Families and children mimic our very actions, teaching what was taught to us — a long line of broken homes, trauma, addiction and depression," Jeremy Raven writes.

"Recovery is not for the faint-hearted," says recovering addict Jeremy Raven. And sometimes, something as simple as a kind word may be the hand up that someone who is struggling needs, he says.