DRUG COURT GIVES SECOND CHANCE TO YOUNG ADDICT

Given his choice between being sent to Iraq or being sent to the St.
Clair County Jail, Tim would have picked Iraq. He didn't have a
choice, though, and spent 17 days in July locked up for possession of cocaine.

Not that cocaine was the drug of choice for Tim, who said he started
smoking marijuana in junior high school and quickly expanded his
drug menu. "Ecstasy, mushrooms and acid were the drugs I really
liked," he said.

He talked about his drug use Wednesday morning while waiting to make
his weekly visit to drug court. He's one of four people who have
qualified and agreed to participate in the program, which the county
began in July. That means he pleaded guilty and agreed to make
weekly visits to court. He's tested for drugs twice a week, and
required to go to at least one Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics
Anonymous meeting a week. Tim's been going to at least two or three instead.

In the song "Mama Tried," Merle Haggard sang "I turned 21 in prison
doing life without parole." Tim turned 21 in jail doing 17 days and
doesn't want to spend even one more day behind bars.

Tim dropped out of Belleville West High School a few years ago. His
mother kicked him out of the house. He used drugs, took her car
without permission, partied constantly. Often he would come home in
the morning just as she was getting up for work. He drifted
from the homes of one friend and another. He wound up being asked
to leave, in his words, "because I was too messed up on drugs to be
in their houses."

Eventually Tim earned his GED. He joined the National Guard when he
was 19 and got trained as a truck driver in the 1344th
Transportation Company. But he never stopped using drugs.

Police arrested in him in February for drug possession. He initially
agreed to report other drug activity, but he said he never followed
through and continued his drug use. When police called to tell him
there was a warrant for his arrest, he turned himself in.

After his uncle helped arrange his release, Tim said, he knew he had
to make changes. As a nonviolent offender, he was offered a spot in
drug court. His case was transferred there this month. St. Clair
County State's Attorney Robert Haida said that so far, Tim looks
like he could be a success.

"He's got every reason to stay out of trouble, and he's worked at it
so far," said Haida, who stood in the courtroom while Judge Andrew
Gleeson talked to Tim. Tell me something you've learned from these
support group meetings, the judge said.

Tim answered quickly. Honesty, he said. He told the judge that most
of the last 10 years he has spent lying and blaming other people.
The AA and NA meetings have taught him that he is responsible for
his own actions.

He lost his job last week, he said, when he told his boss that he
couldn't work Mondays or Wednesdays because of his drug court,
drug-testing and support group commitments. He plans to find another
job, quickly, and meanwhile use his free time to study for the
commercial drivers license test.

He never would have been so motivated unless he was arrested. Had he
not spent part of his summer in jail, he said, "I would have gone
right back to using drugs. I'd just get in trouble again and it
would be even worse."

He knows he's an addict. Each morning, he said, he wakes up and
prays he can make it through the day without drugs.

More than anything, he said, he wants to graduate successfully from
drug court. If he does that, he will have no conviction on his
record, Haida said. Tim wants to be available to his Guard unit when
there's another Iraq deployment. He thinks he could be there by early 2008.

Under his contract with drug court, Tim might spend up to 24 months
coming to court and being tested for drugs.

Because drug court is new to St. Clair County, in some ways Tim is
an experiment. The courts will keep an eye on him. His family will
keep an eye on him. And it's fine with him, he said, if the
Post-Dispatch watches him. "A year or so from now, I'll be a success
story from this court," Tim said. "I can guarantee that."