I am a men’s recovery coach with a Bachelor of Health Sciences in Addiction Counselling from the University of Lethbridge. For over 20 years I have worked with men navigating addiction, identity, and the deeper questions of what it means to live as a mature man. Across residential treatment, private coaching, weekly men’s groups, and immersive retreats, I have worked with thousands of men.

I live on Salt Spring Island, BC with my wife Sheleana and our daughter.

What I do:

I run the Freedom From Addiction Circle: a weekly online recovery group for men that combines addiction recovery curriculum with real men’s work practices. I coach men 1-on-1 on addiction, relationships, and masculine development.

I serve as co-director of The Arka Brotherhood: a men’s organization with over 700 members and 70 active squads worldwide. And I host small-group immersive retreats on Salt Spring Island for men who are ready to go deep.

My areas of focus are addiction recovery, men’s work, and conscious relationship.

My Story

I came to this work the hard way.

I grew up in Calgary in a home full of dysfunction. My father was a doctor, my mother a respiratory therapist, and the structure of a normal family life was there, but behind the curtains there was fighting, abuse, and chronic emotional instability. My older brother’s addiction and aggression dominated the household, and what started as survival adaptation became my own pattern. By 13 I was addicted to drugs and alcohol. By 15 I was in a long-term residential treatment facility, against my will.

I spent the first months of rehab convinced I didn’t belong there. I had a big ego and a bigger wall. Slowly that wall came down. I stopped performing, dug into my pain, and did real work for the first time in my life. Over 13 months my life changed. I built a new set of principles to live by. I found a spiritual practice that actually fit me. I learned to ask for help. I came out the other side with something I’d never had before: a foundation.

At 18, I went back to work at that same treatment centre, not as a patient, but as a counsellor and group facilitator. I learned to walk other people through the same process I’d just survived.

After several years in the field, I committed four years to earning my Bachelor of Health Sciences in Addiction Counselling from the University of Lethbridge. At U of L I studied the major counselling philosophies, but it was Humanism, Existentialism, and Transpersonal Psychology that pulled me deepest: they shaped how I think about addiction not just as a clinical problem, but as a spiritual and developmental one.

After graduation, I joined a team to build the curriculum for Shunda Creek: a 90-day wilderness-based residential treatment program for young men aged 18-24, run through Enviros in Alberta. We built the program from the ground up, holistic model, wilderness experience, and brain-based addiction education. Three years. Some of the most meaningful work of my life.

I then spent a year at Cedars on Cobble Hill, one of BC’s most respected residential treatment centres. Strong facility, excellent team. But something larger was pulling, toward my own work, and toward a question that most treatment programs don’t ask: what does a man become after recovery? What does he build? Who does he grow into?

That question led me to Phil T. Mistlberger, a transpersonal psychotherapist and teacher who opened up shadow work and the territory of conscious masculine development in a new way. Phil was the founder of The Arka Brotherhood, and I joined early, rose to leadership, and became co-director. Arka is now 700 members across 70 active squads worldwide. Over ten years working inside that organization, I have seen what structured brotherhood does to a man’s relationship with himself, his family, and his addictions. It is unlike anything else.

That integration of addiction recovery and men’s work became the foundation of Evolving Man, and the core of everything I do.

Who I Work With

Most of the men I work with are functional on the outside and privately stuck. They are dealing with alcohol, pornography, substances, or compulsive behavior, not because they are broken, but because those patterns met a real need at some point and never got replaced with something better. They have tried willpower, and willpower has not been enough.

My approach sits at the intersection of the clinical and the developmental. The clinical side: the neuroscience of addiction, the role of trauma, and the mechanics of behavior change. The developmental side: identity, purpose, masculinity, and the kind of ongoing community that makes long-term freedom possible.

I believe that addiction is not just a habit to break. It is a signal worth listening to, and a doorway into the deeper work of becoming a man. That is why my recovery framework, the Freedom From Addiction system, is built on the premise that recovery is not about stopping a behavior. It is about building a life you no longer need to escape from.

My Life Now

I live on Salt Spring Island, BC with my wife Sheleana Aiyana and our daughter. We’ve been married for six years and we collaborate on relationship and couples work together. Sheleana is one of the most formidable people I have ever known, and my marriage continues to be one of the most direct teachers I have.

Fatherhood has become the newest and most humbling frontier of my own development.

I lead a weekly men’s group of 15 men, run retreats for small groups of men on the island, and manage the leadership team of The Arka Brotherhood. My days are full of the work I built my life around, and they still surprise me.

I occasionally run 7-day-Plant-Medicine-Retreats for very small groups of men. These immersive retreats involve group work, jungle medicine, breath work, and a diet overhaul to help men get to the next level of their healing process. Get in touch if you want to know more.

Work With Me

Dealing with addiction or looking for recovery support? -> The Freedom From Addiction Circle – my weekly men’s recovery group

Ready for 1-on-1 work on addiction, relationships, or masculine development? -> Coaching

Working on your relationship or exploring conscious partnership? -> The Conscious Relationship Council for men and The Path To Conscious Love for couples.

Looking for men’s work and community? -> The Arka Brotherhood

Want to follow along? -> The Evolving Man Podcast | Instagram @evolvingman