Adrian came out of three-and-a-half years inside carrying paperwork, a tag on his ankle, and a wife who hadn't given up. The BTO key was the easy part.
Adrian is forty-five. By the time he was released on tagging in July 2024, he had been sentenced twice for forgery — a short three months in 2019, then three-and-a-half years from 2023. His wife had spent those years holding the family together. His daughter had spent them waiting. When he finished his full restrictions in June 2025, the world he stepped back into was both familiar and unrecognisable.
In June 2025, he and his wife moved into their first BTO together. He told us it felt symbolic — a fresh start, with the walls still smelling of new paint. But he also told us, with the honesty of a man who has stopped pretending, that the marriage was “on the verge of breaking down” before his release. The flat was the easy part. The home was the work.
What employers told him
Adrian is a trained chef. He has run large kitchens. He has managed teams. None of that protected him from what came after release. “Oh, you've been in before,” employers would say — and then offers came in dramatically lower than what his skill set warranted. Some companies wouldn't hire him at all because of a past bad experience with another ex-offender, as though one man's relapse was a verdict on every man who carried a record.
A church friend connected him to The Caffeine Experience. We told him what we tell everyone: You are not your past. You are who you are choosing to be today.
The coping tool nobody teaches you
Adrian's go-to coping tool, he confessed, is to complain to his wife. One evening he announced his grand plan to take Thursday and Friday MC and enjoy a long weekend. His wife, deadpan, replied: “Okay, then I don't need to iron your clothes or prepare your things for tomorrow.” The next morning, after a quiet trip to the toilet and a long think, he came out and admitted: “No choice — I must go to work. Too many people MC already.”
He went to work. He went the next day. And the next. That, brothers and sisters, is what restoration actually looks like. Not a montage. A wife who teases, a husband who shows up, a working week that nobody films.
Who he is becoming
The Adrian we see today is not the man who walked through our door a year ago. He has mellowed. He chooses his words. He stays calm through manpower shortages, last-minute changes, difficult days. He leads. He mentors. He carries the trust of a team. He has, in his own quiet way, become the husband his wife waited three-and-a-half years for.
If a man can come out of prison, walk into a BTO, take his anger and lay it down piece by piece — then no marriage in this city is beyond repair, and no man is beyond rebuilding.
He used to set his expectations too high and feel demoralised when life didn't meet them. Now he adjusts. He focuses on what he can control. The trust placed in him has done the rest.— Matt, Founder
Soli Deo Gloria — to God alone be the glory.