FAMILY DRUG COURT PROGRAM SETS MOTHER ON SOBER, PRODUCTIVE PATH

Brenda Vickers To Get Makeover At Level 3 Before Looking For Job

Because of her addiction to alcohol and cocaine, Brenda Vickers lost
custody of one of her children, but it looks like she's going to get a
break through the courts.

Vickers, 36, has completed three levels of the four-level Madison
County Family Drug Court Program. To give her self-esteem an extra
boost, a dentist and a beauty salon have agreed to help with a
makeover before she goes job hunting next month.

Helping people with anything that will make them successful is what
the family drug court program is all about, said District Judge Lynn
Sherrod, who presides over the drug court. "Our goal is to help make
them self-sufficient, productive citizens of the community," she said.

Charges against defendants in the family drug court are dropped if
they complete the court's rehabilitation program.

A native of Morgan County, Vickers and her family moved to Louisiana
when she was about 7.

Her father drank, and so did her older sister's husband.

"We had to stay with my older sister, and her husband drank
continually," she said Friday. "There was an awful lot of fighting and
stress in that house."

When Vickers was 14, she started sipping beer. She was just shy of her
18th birthday when she met the man who would become her first husband.
She has been married twice and has given birth to four children.

She gave birth to a daughter within a few months. But after about two
years, the marriage became rocky. She had begun using drugs.

"I felt that something was wrong," she said. "Maybe I was just getting
tired of that life."

After six and a half years, Vickers filed for divorce in 1989. The
couple parted, and Vickers lost custody of her oldest daughter, now 19
and living in Florida with her father.

"I haven't seen her in all those years," Vickers said.

Vickers moved to Texas and was in several relationships before she
moved back to North Alabama in the mid-1990s. Along the way, she had a
daughter, who is 10 now, and a son who died when he was 2 months old.
He would have been about 7 now.

She married again in 1997. She also started using crack cocaine and
doing whatever was necessary to get the highly addictive drug.

"I don't like to think about or talk about it," she said. "It's bad
once you get on it, and you are going to go with it."

In December 2001, she gave birth to another daughter. But Vickers was
basically living on the streets and in homeless shelters in
Huntsville, she said.

The state Department of Human Resources had placed her older daughter
in a foster home in Morgan County in early 2001. She voluntarily gave
up her baby on the condition the child could be placed in the same
home with her other daughter, she said.

A DHR social worker told Vickers about the family drug court program
early last year, and she entered the program in March.

The drug court has helped her get a grip on herself, Vickers said.
Through counseling sessions at Bradford Health Services, she learned
that she suffers from bipolar disorder. "Until then, I didn't realize
why I'd done some of the things I've done in my life," she said.

She also started going to Alcoholics Anonymous. "She has been sober
nine months," said Vickers' sponsor, Lisa Jackson of Monrovia.

Jackson has become a friend. In addition to talking with Vickers and
leading her through AA's 12-step program, she has allowed Vickers to
move into her home.

Sherrod said she is impressed with Vickers' progress. "Brenda is a
very special person, and she has come an awful long way with us," she
said.

On Friday, Sherrod gave Vickers a gift certificate from Salon
Solutions for a free hairdo, facial and manicure.

Dr. Richard L. Halbury has consented to take care of some of Vickers'
serious dental needs, said Yvette Kubik, county court administrator.
Kubik said she will make the appointments for Vickers and arrange
rides if needed.

"I love how the community is becoming involved in supporting the
program," she said. "That really extends our outreach."

Despite her progress through the family drug court program, Vickers is
not sure about her footing in getting her children back. "I'd love to
have my little one," she said. "But that family has already adopted my
10-year-old. She calls them Mother and Daddy. I don't know whether I
should mess things up for her."

When she looks at the past, Vickers gets scared.

"Part of what's keeping me clean," she said, "is thinking about what
I've come through."