FAMILY DAY AT LIBERATION HOUSE

The smoky scent of barbecue reached a block away, farther than the
music. The first Sunday in June was mild and overcast in the morning,
but the sun emerged at noon. Rain remained a possibility.

It was Family Day at Liberation House, a residential drug treatment
center in Stamford. The depressed stillness of the Main Street
building took on an air of uneasy celebration. The men, cooped up for
weeks or months as they tried to shake their drug dependencies,
visited with mothers, wives, girlfriends and children. Those without
visitors sat together, eyeing the scene skeptically.

The only cause for celebration was that the men were still alive.
Despite the balloons, sun and music, a feeling of formality and
discomfort mixed with the smoke in the parking lot. Children lined up
to have their faces painted by a pair of clowns.

Liberation House Director Hugh Clark greeted the families and alumni
and announced that they were welcome as long as they behaved.

alone with memories

Jose Martinez sat on a planter, lost in thought as people jostled by
him. When people came close, he tilted his freshly shaved head up and
smiled generously. When they passed, he seemed relieved to draw inward
again. The children running around the lot triggered a memory of a
time before everything fell apart.

Jose recalled a day he took his two sons, Anthony and Matthew, fishing
near Waterbury, where the family lived before moving to New York. They
made fishing poles out of sticks. Matthew tried to throw out a line
and the hook caught on his pants, making everyone laugh. For Jose, it
was a good memory, but it brought him sadness. He was one of many men
who steeled himself for a family day without visitors.

Jose was luckier than most. He was mending his ties with his family
and had spent the previous day visiting his ex-wife and children in
New York. It had been his second day pass to Manhattan in his six
months at Liberation House.

"It was strange going back," Jose said. "I was getting nervous on the
train. They were having trouble with this guy standing near the doors.
He didn't look so good. I was looking right at him and I was like,
'I'm glad that that's not me anymore.' I just closed my eyes and
listened to my Walkman, but I kept saying to myself, 'Thank God it's
not me right now.' "

Jose said talking to his ex-wife was like spending time with a friend
he hadn't seen in a long time. With a month left at Liberation House,
he hoped to move back in with his family, if his ex-wife would allow
it.

Jose pulled his wallet from his back pocket and took out his last two
driver's licenses. The first one, a 1995 Connecticut license, showed
him before his divorce. He had a full head of hair and a slimmer face.
The other, a 1999 New York identification taken two years after his
divorce, showed him bald and bloated -- a reflection, he said, of the
drinking, cocaine and worry.

He put the cards away and slipped the wallet back into his
pocket.

"I have to settle for yesterday, which is way better than nothing," he
said.

united for a day

The music at the barbecue switched from heavy metal to rap to soul to
salsa, as the men and their families pushed their tapes and compact
disks into the hands of the person manning the stereo.

The men paid for the festivities out of the $1,200 they earned the
weekend before in a car wash.

"They are celebrating that they are doing something right," said
Clark, the director. "They are not drinking, they are not getting
high. How many times have these guys gone to a barbecue not wasted or
looking to get wasted? They can see now that they can have fun without
getting high."

Michael Rodriguez, a Stamford native who entered Liberation House in
February, sat at a table with his family. Michael was living in New
York with the woman he calls his wife and their daughter when he was
arrested in 1999 in Stamford on an outstanding warrant. He was
sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Clark, scanning the men, noticed Michael wore an earring, which is
against house rules. Clark whispered to another resident to tell
Michael to take the earring out. Michael, receiving the order, glared
at Clark and stayed seated.

"Don't get crazy, bro," Clark yelled to him. "Go do what you need to
do. You know that's inappropriate."

"I'm outside, though," Michael protested, walking across the lot to
Clark.

"Go do what you need to do."

Michael sat with his family again, earring in place.

"Hector, go tell Mike I don't want to have to embarrass him," Clark
told the man next to him, angry at the show of defiance.

"See what happens?" Clark said. "They come into treatment and the
minute they get out the door, they regress right back. I don't want
them to forget. When they get back into society, this is what they are
supposed to do -- have a barbecue, family comes over, have a good time
without getting high. Right now, I've got to look out for them. But
when they get out there, hopefully they can look after
themselves."

At a white picnic table in the middle of the lot, Michael, without the
earring, was surrounded by family. He hadn't seen some of them in 18
months. His silver rings glittered in the sun.

Maria Rivera, whom Michael calls his wife though they were never
married, visited Liberation House almost every Sunday with their
daughter, Marissa, 5. Maria supported their daughter, who often cried
for her absent father, but the extra load was hard, she said. It was
impossible not to resent him.

"It's good to be reunited," Maria said. "We're a reunited family
today."

In addition to Maria, Michael's mother-in-law, brother-in-law,
daughter, nieces and nephews sat with him eating hot dogs and
hamburgers. Michael ate the Spanish rice they brought him. His two
nephews had slim beards painted on their faces, similar to Michael's.

"They want to be like me," he said.

After the meal, Michael led his family across the street to a second
lot, away from the bustle of the party. Maria braided his hair while
other family members stood close by.

"My sister is handling it pretty good right now," said Maria's
brother, Ricardo Rivera, 39, a resident of Brooklyn, N.Y. "It's hard
on the family, though, especially with a little girl. She misses
daddy. He's doing what he needs to do. He needs to take care of
himself first, before he can take care of his family."

Marissa climbed into Michael's lap, her face in a pout.

"Oh, so serious, why so serious?" Michael asked, cradling his daughter
in his arms.

thinking about home

Elliot McCoy stood in the corner of the lot, watching the party,
savoring good news.

With a gentle smile on his broad face, he swayed slightly to the
music. He had learned that his family was coming to the party from
Norwalk.

He felt uncomfortable around so many people and wished he could stay
in his room until his guests arrived. But all the men were required to
be in the lot.

Elliot was glad his family would come, but it would not be a complete
reunion. His 16-year-old son, who shares his father's name, was in
jail.

When his family arrived, he brought them plates of food. His son's
mother, Sandra, stayed for less than an hour, then left to shop at the
Stamford mall. They had not talked in a couple of months because each
blamed the other for their son's troubles. Elliot walked her to the
corner to say goodbye.

"Sandra's a good lady. She's always been there for me," Elliot said.
"We've had our problems in the past. We have to talk about our son."

When Elliot arrived at Liberation House six months before, he didn't
know how to read, so he worked with his counselor and a weekly tutor.
He was due to leave the program in July, but he was worried. A
half-day leave to visit home had been unsettling.

"I don't want to go back to Norwalk," Elliot said, standing on the
street outside the barbecue. "I was there yesterday for four hours and
I felt funny. Everybody's the same, and I got this scary feeling. Old
memories pop in my head. It's that easy. I see guys I was locked up
with and guys who have left here, running the streets again."

For similar reasons, Geritt "Dustin" Walker was not in a good mood
during the barbecue. He sat to the side, staring impassively at the
festivities.

Dustin said he was tired from lack of sleep and disappointed that his
mother, who planned to attend the party, had to go to work instead.
But something bigger weighed on his mind. He had been at Liberation
House for 10 months, longer than anyone in the program, and was two
weeks from freedom.

The day before the barbecue, Dustin took a 24-hour pass to go home to
Danbury. He looked for apartments and spent the evening with Jesse
Landa, an old friend and recent alumnus of Liberation House, playing
pool and trying to get phone numbers from women.

"It was miserable," he said as he stood in the Liberation House lot.
"I want to do so much more. I want to have a drink. I want to stay out
until four in the morning."

A former Liberation House resident who goes by the name Tex walked up
to Dustin at the barbecue. Tex completed the program in January.

"How was pass?" Tex asked.

"It was horrible," Dustin said. "I want to use."

"We all do," Tex said, "but you know the consequences."

"Yeah," Dustin said, repeating a catch phrase. "Institutions, jails
and death."

"And we're lucky if we die," Tex said.

As the party continued into late afternoon, Dustin sneaked up to his
room to sleep. He was exhausted and depressed, he said.

"If my mom or my family was here, I'd like it a little more," the
23-year-old said in his room. "And I have a lot on my mind about leaving."

a late visitor

The party was winding down, and visitors were beginning to drift away
when Jose's fortunes changed. His ex-wife arrived, surprising him. He
made her a plate of food, and they found a quiet corner to sit. An
hour later, she left for work at a Stamford bar. After she left, Jose
chuckled at how he moped earlier.

"I feel pretty happy," he said. "Things weren't going so good for a
long time. Yesterday when I visited was the first time it felt
different. Same house, same person, but different."

The visit home made him realize how much his drug abuse had separated
him from his wife.

"Always having your mind on drugs and alcohol," he said, "I don't know
what it is, but it just takes you to some stupid land where they only
speak Budweiser."

Jose was due to leave Liberation House in a few weeks and wondered
whether returning to New York would trigger a relapse or give him the
support he needed.

"Things are getting better," Jose said. "I'm not getting any younger
and neither is she. But there's one thing that I got to think about
first, and that's my recovery. I can't go back to being like that."