Connect Global rehab facility founder says Andrew O’Keefe deserves another chance
The founder of the rehab centre where Andrew O’Keefe spent six months in 2022 says the TV star deserves another chance: ‘Sometimes you need to shuck an oyster several times before you find the pearl’.
NSW
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Against the din of thumping rain on the corrugated iron rooftop of a rehab camp, a noon siren summons both hardened criminals and first-time offenders to a roll call.
Pastor Ross Pene peruses the draughty room to check the crew of tattooed and gym-honed residents gathered around dining tables at his Connect Global rehab facility at Port Stephens on the state’s mid-north coast.
It is understood the family of fallen former Channel 7 identity, Andrew O’Keefe, are in discussions for him to return there after he suffered an overdose three weeks ago, and was remanded in custody for drug possession and breaching his bail conditions.
O’Keefe spent six months at the facility in 2022, battling drug and alcohol addictions.
“Andrew is welcome back here, but he has to make up his own mind to return,” said Pastor Pene, 70, a New Zealand-born former drug user, who set up the centre in 2011 with a mission to help other addicts.
“The judge was wrong when she said prison was the best place for him – you can still get drugs inside.
“Here, one strike – you’re out. There’s a thing called relapse, or ‘sneaky bastards’. We don’t tolerate this.
“This used to be an oyster farm, sometimes you need to shuck an oyster several times before you find the pearl. Andrew deserves another go.”
This is one of the few rehab centres that accepts men who are on drugs charges. Other facilities are only for those with addiction problems.
The majority of residents are bailed by the courts to stay at the rehab centre with the hope of mitigating their sentences if they show changed behaviour. Others can choose to go there ahead of pre-sentencing. Most stay there for between six and 12 months.
Anastasios Calligas, a lofty 32-year-old with a shorn head, is keen to speak up.
“My past, that wasn’t me, the only way I can move forward is to focus on my transformation – everyone makes mistakes,” he says with unexpected childlike ardour.
Calligas, from southern Sydney, is on bail awaiting sentencing, like most of the camp’s 30 residents, and has been charged with drug supply, including commercial and large commercial quantities, and participating in a criminal group.
“Being here is God giving me a second chance, to think, to work on myself,” he said.
“I have a mantra, I look in the mirror daily and say ‘I’m a great man, I’m not the man I used to be’.”
A chicken flaps past the metal building on the shores of Swan Bay as he says: “I want to make my mum proud, I’ve reconnected with her after many years. She’s my rock.”
A barista at the men-only born-again Christian facility, he’s has been sober since he arrived last August.
Grandfather of four and great-grandfather of one, Pastor Pene runs a tight ship at the facility on a dirt track at Fisherman’s Village, next door to Marine Culture oyster farm.
The day begins at 5.30am with a 4km run for everyone before the gym opens at 6am.
Many of the men will work around the facility, or lift weights at the gym, with all paying $35,000 for six months of food, a self-contained cabin, and the abstinence program.
Breakfast is cooked by former ice addict Toby Bull, 35, who successfully graduated from the camp after several failed attempts six years ago and returned to work there.
Typically, it’s soup in winter, or poached broccoli, eggs and chicken in the summer in the converted auditorium that was once Moffat’s Oyster Barn.
An 8am meeting for either Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous is dedicated to prayer and sharing testimonials.
Richie Samia, 38, tells The Saturday Telegraph: “I should have died many times, but somehow I’ve survived.
“I was doing well in real estate and sales and marketing, lived on the 40th floor of the World Tower, but my dad was a gambler and put pressure on me to lend him money.”
Richie dropped out of independent Our Lady of Lebanon school in Harris Park with depression in Year 11.
“My cold, old-fashioned dad, and depression, took me down the wrong road. The strict routine of this place, getting up at sunrise to exercise and keep focused, and warmth of my mum, has saved me.” he says.
Cleaning up in the kitchen is a daily chore. So is making coffee, lighting the combustion fire in winter, maintaining the 80ha grounds, tending the veggie patch and chicken coop, and laundry chores.
Court-ordered counselling sessions and blood and urine tests, which have to come back drug-free, are mandatory for those with bail conditions.
Connect Global works on a “five-step process to get life back on track”, concentrating on manhood, fatherhood, family, workplace and community.
Pastor Pene tells the men to make a habit of looking in the mirror after showering and brushing their teeth and telling themselves: “You are a good man and you are going to have a great life.”
There is a 90 per cent success rate for non reoffending.
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