ROAD TO REDEMPTION

It's sin-free as well as drug-free for men who come to South Dallas
treatment center

In drug treatment, success is a sliding-scale concept.

At Victory Home, a faith-based rehab center in southern Dallas, the
definition is even more elusive.

Is it a success anytime an addict walks through the door?

What about a junkie who kicks cocaine but checks out of the six-month
program early?

Or the multitude of men who finish treatment and end up back on the
pipe - are they success stories?

Anthony Anderson, a 40-year-old ex-crack addict who runs the program,
said his definition is double-edged and razor-thin - there must be
both a Christian conversion and a drug-free life.

"You can't have one without the other," he said. "These guys do not
have a drug problem; they have a sin problem."

In that battle, Victory Home enlists help.

Worship, homeboy-style

It's 7:04 p.m.

The familiar roar of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle announces visitors.

Scott Stone parks his chromed-out $18,000 ride in front of Victory
Home, a two-bedroom clapboard house appraised at $28,000.

Moments later, three men step from a black Lexus sedan.

Prestonwood Baptist Church offers manpower, and its members
contribute money to the Fair Park drug-treatment center.

Several men from the Plano mega-church worship at the rehab house on Mondays.

"Those white boys are real, man," said Mr. Anderson. "They're down
here all the time ... lovin' on the guys."

Marcus Laughlin, a deacon at Prestonwood Baptist, strolls in the door
and gives a bearhug to Thomas Jacobs, a 42-year-old senior leader at
Victory Home.

"What's up, man?" Mr. Jacobs asks, smiling.

"Blessed," Mr. Laughlin responds. "We're blessed, baby."

Soon, music and baritone voices swell in the spare home.

Men stomp, spin, arms windmilling, feet possessed by percussion.

Mr. Laughlin ducks and slides sideways to the podium, signaling decrescendo.

"That's worship homeboy-style right there," he says, reciting a
Victory Home credo.

Outside the home, an inky lid slides across a twilight sky.

A teenage boy's jump shot rattles off a rim, and a white car with a
square tail backs out of a dirt driveway.

The air is still and cool.

It's 8:12 p.m.

Mr. Laughlin's sermon canters toward a close.

"This home is a home of unblended eyes," he said. "You are God's men.
He's got a plan for you ... a future and hope for you."

He asks the men of Victory Home to bow their heads and close their eyes.

"Father," he prays, "help us to be the men you want us to be ... "

A higher voice

Elliott Haynes hears voices.

God's word speaks, his fiancee whispers, crack cocaine beguiles.

After four years of freedom, Mr. Haynes thought he'd conquered his addiction.

But about two months ago during a Wednesday night church service, he
said, a thought flitted through his mind: "Why don't you go score
some dope? Why don't you go get high?"

Five days and $1,500 later, he re-enrolled in a Victory Home in San
Antonio. Pastors sent the 36-year-old to Dallas, away from familiar seductions.

It is not easy to imagine Mr. Haynes as frightened. A tattoo of
Malcolm X scores a coiled left triceps.

Wide, square shoulders appear sturdy enough to handle most loads, an
agile mind capable of mastering most problems.

But he is terrified of crack cocaine and the latent desires sown in his psyche.

Mr. Haynes said his only hope is unwavering trust in God and
unrelenting zeal to save those who are lost in their addiction.

It's 10:04 p.m.

Four drug-addicted men from Victory Home approach Second Avenue in
southern Dallas. Each night, the rehab center dispatches its devotees
into a nearby drug-infested neighborhood.

"Once we make that left," Mr. Haynes said, "it's going to get krunked
up a little bit. That whole street is demon-possessed."

The men encircle a man with glassy eyes, touch his head, shoulders
and torso, and pray out loud for deliverance.

He looks frightened and uncomfortable but thanks them afterward.

Crunching broken glass underfoot, the addicts walk past a pool hall.
A woman with a husky voice lifts a ballad into the street.

"That sounds like no good," said 36-year-old Virgil Dimas. "Without
Christ, I'd score some dope and pick up a prostitute and go to a
motel room for three or four days. And I'd be neglecting everything
in my life - my family, my kids, my job."

The Victory Home men approach TMA Grocery, Beer & Wine.

Two men linger along a darkened corner of the building, a white truck
circles, and a woman in a teal blouse nurses a bottle sleeved by a brown bag.

Mr. Haynes approaches.

"Hey sister, do you know Jesus?"

The woman launches from the wall. Unsteady, eyes wild, she curses God.

Mr. Haynes' rhetoric spins up, the words tumbling one over the other.

"Don't say that. We all know pain, sister. Jesus has got a plan for
your life. Don't worry about those bugs; just put in your time,
they'll go away."

The woman screams. Her mother died recently. She said God is uncaring
and callous.

Mr. Haynes' friends intervene, tugging him away by the arm.

His voice sounds deflated: "I don't want to let her go."

The men from Victory Home walk on.