FINDING THE ROAD TO RECOVERY

Project Helps Women End Drug Abuse, Get Back Kids

NATIONAL CITY -- Wednesdays are group therapy days at Healthy Beginnings, a
rehabilitation program for alcoholic and drug-addicted mothers.

As the lunch break draws to a close, the women take a last gulp of soda or
a final drag on a cigarette and make their way back into an outbuilding at
Paradise Valley Hospital. The laughter of the lunch hour gives way to
somber expressions of concentration. That's when Silvia Ybarra announces
she's changed her mind. She would like some extra support from the other women.

Some of Ybarra's children moved in with their adoptive parents the day
before. This amounts to eight of her nine children who have been
permanently removed from her custody because of her drug use.

Ybarra will go to court to ask for a goodbye visit.

"I've been so used to going to court alone," she said. But this time she
would like two of her peers to go with her.

Ybarra is one of about 40 women enrolled in Healthy Beginnings and another
program for women who speak only Spanish, Nueva Esperanza. Most are
referred to the program by the county Children's Services Bureau after
temporarily losing children to foster parents because of their drug abuse.

The National City-based program is one of 11 county-funded programs to help
mothers end years of drug abuse. The women in the program will strive to
learn parenting skills, build new relationships outside of the drug-using
community and build new relationships with their children -- all within the
space of six months to a year.

Those who succeed will one day be reunited with their children. Those who
do not risk losing custody forever.

And yet only about half of those who enter the program stay through
graduation, program manager Maria Pease said.

As Pease observed in a recent group therapy session of Nueva Esperanza,
"The addiction says use, tell them you didn't use so they return your child
and then continue using."

But when women drop out of the program, there are others waiting to take
their place.

"I didn't realize how great the need was until I really heard from our
clients what their environment is like," said program coordinator Leela
Montella, describing multigenerational drug problems and large families
where virtually every sibling has a history of drug and/or alcohol abuse.

For many in the program, drinking starts at age 10, 11 or 12, Pease said.
By 14, some are already mothers, she said.

Healthy Beginnings client Mayra Cervantes starting drinking at 15. She had
her first child at 17, and first used crystal methamphetamine a few months
later during a visit to Tijuana.

She said she found alcohol did little to ease her depression after fights
with her boyfriend, whereas crystal helped by making her "feel nothing."

Cervantes joined the Healthy Beginnings program after a potent dose of
crystal meth caused her to lose consciousness.

"I was afraid to go back out on the streets," Cervantes said.

Like many in the program, Cervantes hid her drug problem from family and
never discussed her parenting problems with fellow drug users. Until she
found Healthy Beginnings, she said, there was no one she could confide in.

"I listened to the rest of the girls and everything they had done, I had
done," Cervantes said. "This is my first time having real friends."

But the Healthy Beginnings program is about much more than making friends.
From 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. each day clients are in group sessions or
other classes.

They must complete research papers on their "drug of choice," write an
autobiography and present it to the group, take classes on relapse
prevention and complete a variety of hands-on parenting classes that teach
everything from the developmental stages of infancy to the basics of nutrition.

"A lot of them don't now how to be moms," said Sylvia Perez, who teaches
parenting classes at Healthy Beginnings and uses the program's day-care
center as a learning laboratory for clients. "They don't know how to play
with their kids. They don't know their kids' needs."

Many of the women in the program are trying to raise several children with
no father and little or no family support, Perez said.

Outside of program hours, clients have to stay clean and attend all
scheduled meetings with their children. They must attend Alcoholics
Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous weekly and build a relationship with a
recovering addict who will agree to sponsor them.

Those who stick with the program say the hardest things to overcome are low
self-esteem, guilt and the constant allure of drugs.

Debbie Herrera, 39, started using crystal methamphetamine as a teen-ager to
control her weight. She got deeper into the drug later, to keep up with her
demanding schedule as a nurse.

"When you do something for so long, you don't think you can stop," Herrera
said. "It's too normal.

"I probably could have done it without drugs, but I didn't know that at the
time."

Last year, Herrera suffered a stroke because of her drug use, and her
children were placed with foster parents. After eight months in the Healthy
Beginnings program, Herrera hopes she will soon get approval for
unsupervised visits with her children -- an important step toward winning
custody.

Many women will be reunited with their children whether they finish the
program or not, Pease said, but graduates are less likely to relapse into
drug use.

Healthy Beginnings is seeking another grant from the county that would open
the program to adolescents this summer and double its size. The earlier
women can get intervention the more likely they are to grasp the
responsibilities of parenting and build new, drug-free lives, Pease said.

It's a lesson Pease learned the hard way. One of her older brothers died
from alcoholism, another from heroin use. But Pease says it wasn't until
she was in her 20s that she realized her brothers needed help.

On May 8, there was a graduation ceremony for three Healthy Beginnings
clients. One has found a new job, another is moving with her family to the
Midwest to start anew. One completed the program after she lost custody of
her 2-year-old son.

"I have lot of mixed feelings," Pease said after the ceremony. "We have
seen their lives be changed. But this is the real thing. They're on their
own now."