Finally, Done Running

RECOVERY | FEATURE

Two years ago when Steven Kaus walked through the doors of the Salvation Army’s Providence, R.I., Adult Rehabilitation Center on New Year’s Eve, he wanted to find a new life rather than celebrate a new year.

Kaus , who was born in Nebraska, married in 1998 and he and his wife welcomed a daughter, Kayleigh, the next year. However, the couple’s good times were short lived, and they divorced in 2001. Steven headed to Texas, where his mother, Mary, lived.

“I started drinking as soon as I got to Texas. I think I was an alcoholic from the first night I decided to drink,” says Steven, who was 24 at the time. “I refused to drink my whole life up to that point, because my biological father was a real bad alcoholic.”

In fact, his father died of cirrhosis of the liver when Steven was just 12, and he had determined to stay away from alcohol.

“When I started drinking, I liked the way it made me feel, because suddenly I didn’t have to be concerned about the pain that I was going through,” he says. “The partying was fun at first, and I had good jobs and that sort of thing. But then I started hurting a lot of people, especially my family. I hurt the people closest to me.”

For 12 years, Kaus was estranged from most of his family, including his daughter. As his life spiraled out of control from drinking, he decided it was best to stay away.

The runaway prodigal

The years that followed saw Kaus in and out of jail for various drug and alcohol offenses in Nebraska and Texas, which included more serious charges such as armed robbery and assaulting a police officer. He estimates he did a total of eight years behind bars, often in short sentences of just two or three months each.

“I would get out of jail, get drunk, and then do something stupid—sometimes on purpose—to escape the way I was living,” he said. “I figured that, if I was locked up, it would make a safe place for the rest of the world. I knew I was no good to myself or anyone else.”

After being released from a three–year prison stint in Nebraska in 2018, Steven headed back home to Texas, but he could tell his drinking hurt his mother. He hit the road again and ended up in Seattle, where he injected methamphetamine for the first and only time of his life.

“When I had some money in my pocket, I would get really drunk and then go out looking for anything I could find on a particular night,” he recalls. "I would work someplace for a few weeks at a time to get money to drink. Then I would enjoy a city I had never been to.

“But I would get tired of where I was. Then, most of the time, I would end up doing something stupid. So, before I ended up going back to jail some more, I would just get out of there.”

In August of 2019, Kaus made his way to Maine, where he briefly found some stability working as a mason.

“I was making a lot of money, so I was drinking and smoking marijuana like crazy,” he said.

God grabs his attention

As Christmas approached, Kaus blew one of his checks by getting drunk. He got on a bus and traveled to a casino in Tiverton, R.I. The next morning, Dec. 22, he woke up on the floor of his casino hotel room. At that moment, he had what he believes was an out–of–body experience.

“That morning, I think I was dead. I’m not really sure,” he said. “I didn’t really know it at the time, but I was floating above my body and the only thing that was real to me was the thought, this is how your daughter, this is how your sister, this is how your family sees you. This is your life. That was the last time I did drugs or alcohol.”

Steven called his mother, who was a pastor, and told her he thought his life was about to change. He got into a detox unit in nearby Providence, where one of the nurses told him he should check out The Salvation Army. She said the Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) program had helped one of her family members.

With the world ready to party and ring in a new year, Kaus walked through the doors of the Providence ARC on New Year’s Eve 2019. Today, he calls it “the greatest thing that ever happened in my life.”

But he was wary at first. “I didn’t really know what to think,” he said. “I didn’t know much about the Lord at the time. My idea from growing up was that God was this big angry guy in the sky and, every time I made a mistake, He would kind of beat me upside the head.

“God brought me where I needed to be when He led me here to the ARC. God just lined everything up. It was the right place at the right time.”

Finding a home

Kaus was immediately enamored with Major Brian Thomas, the ARC administrator, and didn’t seem like the other Christians he had met in his life.

“I could see how much he cared about people like me who were here,” Kaus said. “That made me feel comfortable that I was in a good spot, because I haven’t been loved; I haven’t felt any of that my whole life.”

A few months later, when COVID–19 hit, Kaus was further impressed when Major Thomas moved into the ARC and did devotions with the beneficiaries each morning.

While locked down at the ARC during the pandemic, Kaus soon had two dreams that would dramatically change the direction of his life.

In the first one, he and Thomas were together wearing Salvation Army officer uniforms.

In the second, Kaus was being chased as he ran from pursuers. One of the characters in his dream told him, “Steven, you need to stop running, Your life cannot begin if you continue to run.”

The next morning after devotions, Thomas pulled Kaus aside and told him that during the service, he saw a vision of officer lapels on Kaus’ shoulders.

Steven shared his dreams and Thomas’s vision with his mother, who wasn’t surprised. She told him she had been at a conference years earlier when a woman had told her that Steven would struggle but needed to do so for God to use him to his fullest. His mother had written the prophecy in her Bible and was told not to reveal it until the appointed time.

“All of this happened within a week,” Steven says with astonishment in his voice.

God keeps working

The miracles of that week continued. Steven believes his salvation experience also happened then.

“I was just sitting privately and thinking about all that happened that week. I said, ‘God, I need You and I know You’re chasing me down. I know you brought me here for a purpose. I’m tired of running, and I just want to give You my life. I know there’s a big mess You have to fix, but I’m going to trust You to do that.’ That was a real solid and profound turning point in my life when that happened,” Kaus said. In July 2020, he graduated from the ARC program and became a “houseman,” one of the leaders who lives at the ARC and oversees the center and its beneficiaries.

Thomas calls Kaus “an excellent houseman who is filled with the Holy Spirit and compassion for the beneficiaries of the center.” Kaus teaches a men’s group on Thursdays called “Men and Integrity,” and he also leads the rules and regulations class for new beneficiaries.

Kaus has also preached in Thomas’ absence, led staff devotions, and he prays and studies the Bible on his own “to strengthen my relationship with God,” he says. He also hits the streets of Providence once a week to minister to people struggling with drugs and alcohol.

“They’re living the same kind of life I used to live. I reach out to them, buy them a coffee, give them a few books, and talk to them about the ARC program. I encourage them to somehow have a desire to do better in their lives,” Kaus said.

“I certainly have an understanding that the things I’ve had to go through, I went through so I could have this testimony that is developing, and at some point, I will be able to help someone. If I’ve helped one person because of my experiences, I think that’s a success.”

Fixing the brokenness

As his spiritual life grew, Kaus began fasting and started to see more miracles. He longed to reunite with his family, some of whom had said he was “dead” to them. Others called him “no good” and asked that he never contact them again.

Steven soon got a letter from his Aunt Cheryl. Then his mother called to say his sister, Melissa, wanted to reach out.

Nonetheless, he didn’t want to get his hopes up and continued to do God’s work. One day, he was asked to handle things while Thomas was away. “Something special happened to me,” he says. “I don’t really remember what I talked about, but I heard some positive things from the people who were there. I had a hard test from the Lord, but I think I handled it well.”

A few weeks later, on the 18–month anniversary of the day he found sobriety, Steven was playing music in the chapel when he got a text he had longed to see. His mother said that his estranged daughter wanted to connect.

“That was a revelation from God, in and of itself,” he said. “Since then, we’ve been speaking every day. She’s been blowing up my phone.”

Kaus took classes to be a member of the Salvation Army’s church. He hopes to someday become a Salvation Army officer and don real uniform epaulettes on his shoulders rather than the visionary ones Major Thomas saw on him.

“I really feel God is calling me to be an officer and to serve Him through The Salvation Army. That’s what I’m doing at this point,” Kaus says.

Seeing God’s hand

Now 44, Kaus likes to talk about the presence of prevenient grace (divine grace that precedes human decision) in his life and how God protected him as he caroused from town to town like the biblical Prodigal Son.

Though he may not have realized it then, God's people were always there to help. Like the time he hitchhiked in Colorado, expecting to spend another freezing night outside, but an 85–year–old woman picked him up and said God had told her to stop.

“I see God’s fingerprints all over my life when I couldn’t before. I look back now, and I see that God has been with me the entire time.”

by ROBERT MITCHELL

What makes the ARC program so successful?

"The people who are involved don’t do it as a job or profession or a source of income. Major Brian Thomas believes his whole purpose in life is to serve God and this is the way the Lord has called him to do it. I see his concern for other people. It’s evident that he cares, and his grace is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. You can just feel something when you come here, and you can see God once your eyes are clear and they’re open. You can see God in all kinds of situations here. It’s unbelievable."