He finished rehab and found purpose in the kitchen

First of two parts.

Lee Goldberg was stopped by a cop after he slid through a stop sign. His pupils were pinpoints. A blood draw sealed it. He was arrested for driving while impaired.

His roommate kicked him out. He had nowhere to go and only a grocery bag with a change of clothes.

About to turn 30, Lee checked himself into drug treatment.

He knew why he used, but didn’t use it as an excuse.

Lee was 12 when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. His parents had divorced when he was a toddler. His brother Jesse, four years older, wouldn’t talk about it. Lee felt alone.

When Lee was 17, his mom’s cancer came back. She was dying. He got a job at a video store to get free movies he could watch with her.

He also helped himself to her painkillers.

At 19, Lee was taking the pills every day. His mom died when he was a freshman at Arizona State University. He left before midterms for her funeral in Philadelphia. He never went back.

When Lee checked into Crossroads, a residential treatment center in Phoenix, he had been smoking heroin for a year.

“I had always known I was broken,” he said. He started counseling, meetings, self-reflection. The hardest part were the empty hours, time he once spent hustling for money and drugs.

Lee worked in the kitchen. He had cooked with his dad and later worked in restaurants. It felt familiar.

“I finally felt the ground beneath me,” he said.

Lee completed treatment and was hired at Crossroads as a cook. He moved into staff housing.

“I was really lucky that I came in desperate to change,” Lee said.

One day at brunch, while making eggs, he laughed at how much the yolks looked like eyes and concocted a face on the plate with bacon and hash browns.

A resident admired it, and then asked Lee, “Have you ever seen pancake art?”