CALIFORNIA ENDOWMENT GRANT WOILL BOLSTER A PROGRAM'S WORK TO HELP FEMALE
DRUG ABUSERS

Audrey Riley, the chief executive officer of the Spirit of Woman
substance-abuse program, was still high Wednesday afternoon. Not from booze
or meth or cocaine. No, this buzz came from recognition.

Riley sat at her desk in a small office located in a converted apartment
complex that is now Spirit of Woman and smiled. Resting on a nearby
bookshelf was a 3-foot-long cardboard check. It was made out to Spirit of
Woman in the amount of $261,764.

The California Endowment, the state's largest health foundation, had
awarded the grant Tuesday to the nonprofit substance-abuse program, which
is devoted to "giving a voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless."

Dr. Bob Ross, chief executive officer of California Endowment, was deeply
moved and impressed by what he saw during a tour of the Spirit of Woman's
Residential Transitional Center near California State University, Fresno.

"It gives us a great deal of pleasure to support a program like this," Ross
said as he handed the blown-up check to Riley. "This is a program about
community leadership working with the disenfranchised. They are giving
these women a shot at the future."

Spirit of Woman opened in January and houses 27 women, many of them with
children, in two facing apartment buildings on San Bruno Avenue.

"Yesterday was a wonderful day," Riley said, "an honor." She said the
program will use the money to hire more staff members and be "more
creative" in dealing with women and substance abuse.

Riley, who has a bachelor's degree in women's studies, said she was
battered during her first marriage and that experience has motivated her to
help other women.

"I promised myself I would devote my life to those women who had no voice,"
said Riley, who draws much of her inspiration from her second husband,
Clifford, who died of complications from AIDS. "What I want to do to these
women is to show them respect. And I want them to respect themselves."

Woman after woman told how Riley's program, which emphasizes therapy and
group discussion and usually last six months, has helped them

Loretta Linderholm, 38, said she landed in jail for beating up her husband
after she returned to Fresno from Lompoc. "There's something about Fresno,
but I just start drinking when I'm here.''

Linderholm said she "just tore up" her husband after she was drunk and he
accused her of an affair. After spending 47 days in Fresno County Jail, a
judge let her enter the Spirit program.

"It's excellent here," she said. "I have learned a lot about myself. This
place has given me serenity."

Classes deal with domestic violence, anger management, relapse prevention,
health issues and creative writing.

From the writing class, the program has put together a pamphlet of poems
the women have penned. One of them is called "Another Night With Jack,"
which talks about a woman's close relationship with a warm bottle of Jack
Daniel's sour mash whiskey.

"Jack got me into a lot of trouble," said Michelle Teague, author of the
poem. She said she and a friend would put away three 750-milliliter bottles
of Jack Daniel's a day as her alcoholism hit a blurry crescendo.

She started to get blackouts. She got into trouble with Child Protective
Services, which she said came close to taking her daughter. This year, she
got into Spirit of Woman.

"I really needed this place," she said, sitting in the courtyard that
divides the two two-story buildings.

She gives much of the credit to the staff, which she describes as "awesome
and very supportive."

Candis Bazley, the program's administrative assistant, said the joy she
gets from her job is seeing the women change.

"To witness the reunification of the women with their families, to see
their street attitudes changes, it's a wonderful thing," said Bazley as she
walked through the complex, talking to the women.

The program has not only changed the attitude of many of the women but of
some workers, Bazley said.

"It's changed my view of the stereotypical drug addict," Bazley said. "The
women are wonderful, loving mothers. It goes against the perceptions of the
standard drug addict."

Many of the women come here low on self-esteem. They feel they're failures,
drowning in alcohol, escaping on drugs. Spirit of Woman tries to change that.

One woman said she was ordered here after the child she recently gave birth
to was found to have traces of cocaine in her bloodstream.

CPS assumed custody of the baby, but Roberta Walker, 22, was given a
chance. She got into Spirit of Woman. After proving to authorities her
determination to stay clean and sober, CPS gave her child back. Now she has
high hopes.

"It's just the beginning for me," said Walker, who finds the group therapy
sessions the most helpful. "I came in here with nothing, but I'm gonna
leave with everything. I'm gonna leave with my baby and me."

As for Teague, the former whiskey drinker, what about Jack?

"Jack, he's not even an option anymore," she said. "Jack is out of my life.
Thanks to Audrey. Thanks to Spirit of Woman."