Recovered cocaine addict shares heartwarming story of how taking over shelter for abandoned dogs helped him beat drugs because he was so dedicated to caring for animals with ‘broken souls’

A recovered drug addict has shared his inspiring story of how he was able to beat drugs and turn his life around after adopting a puppy.

Mike Favor, a 40-year-old New York carpenter and son of a police officer, was an active cocaine user for 13 years and was struggling to get sober when he met an eight-week-old German shepherd with heart disease in 2016.

The rescue organization, where Favor occasionally volunteered, told her the puppy only had four months to live due to his condition.

After much reluctance, Favor took the dog, named her Honey and said, “I’ll give her the best four months possible.”

Little did he know that adopting Honey would begin his nearly decade-long sobriety journey and encourage him to establish a rescue center for abandoned dogs.

Freedom Home, a 4,000 square foot sanctuary houses tons of abused or abandoned dogs that were abandoned by their owners or found on the streets.

Favor also runs a program called Pitbulls and Addicts that connects recovering addicts with the breed.

As the recovered carpenter explains, the show brings together “two misunderstood races that need care and acceptance.”

Aside from this, Favor also runs Broken Souls Rescue and Recovery, one of more than 300 nonprofit rescue groups in New York that take in stray or abused dogs, either in city shelters or off the streets, and facilitate adoptions.

‘I wanted to show people what works for me. This lifestyle with dogs just made me no longer want to deal with drugs, but with broken souls, because I was a broken soul. These animals gave me a purpose to live.

‘That dog accepted me as I was at the lowest point of my life. As an addict, we corner ourselves and fight back.

‘I opened my heart and welcomed her. And with that, she welcomed me to find the man within. “I was still a broken kid trying to get to that man,” the man who has been drug-free for seven years told the newspaper. New York Times.

Talking about his current status, he said: ‘It’s seven years. I finally feel like I’m okay. I haven’t felt like this in my entire life. As if he finally had a reason to live.

According to Favor, he prefers to focus on pit bulls because they are “the most difficult to locate, stigmatized as aggressive and dangerous.”

But starting the shelters was not as easy as it seems.

‘I’ve been robbed. He let people sleep on couches. I put people in hotel rooms. I took guys under my wing for many, many, many months,” he explained.

Favor also suspects that someone deliberately started a fire that burned much of the shelter in 2019.

When asked what he thinks is the usual problem with these dogs or the world, his answer is “humans.”

‘They are humans. Soft America is not for me.

Although Honey survived her condition for seven years and succumbed last year, Favor has not been deterred from her goal and says there is still work to be done.

“If you pass a stray dog ​​on the street, you stop and want to help it,” he said. You walk past a drug addict, you run over him. We need to do better.’