BETWEEN HELL AND A HAPPY ENDING

If we're lucky, someone enters our lives at this time of year to remind us
of the joy and renewal that are the true meaning of the holiday season.
This year, that person for me was Janelle Bell.

I first met Janelle seven years ago in a homeless shelter that had been
started by my church. She was a petite African American woman - her skin a
rich, chocolate brown - with an unusual gift for what's known on the
streets as "talking trash." She scared off many of the volunteers, but I
liked her. And though she was wary of showing it at first, I think she
liked me too.

On the coldest night of that winter, Janelle came to me with a sudden
demand. Her best friend at the shelter had been smoking crack earlier that
day. That was against the rules. "David, you've got to throw her out!" she
said. I mumbled something about how cold it was, and how we'd investigate
the incident and deal with it in the morning.

"Do it, now!" Janelle said. It was almost a scream of desperation. "She
broke the rules. If you don't get her out of here, then none of us stand a
chance." I hadn't realized until that moment that Janelle was a recovering
crack addict herself, and that she was literally fighting for her life. My
liberal temporizing about her friend was, for Janelle, potentially deadly.

So I ordered the other woman to leave that December night. Despite the
bitter cold, she didn't protest. She knew she'd broken the rules, and I
think she wanted her friend Janelle to escape the monster that still had
its grip on her.

Over the next months, Janelle worked hard to overcome addiction and
homelessness. She was studying to become an emergency medical technician,
and that winter she got her certification. When spring came, she left the
shelter and found an apartment near the church. A year or so later, she
landed a job with the D.C. Fire Department. And for a long time, she was an
exemplary employee. She used to come visit me at The Post, dressed in her
crisp blue uniform. She was making nearly $30,000 a year, and I let myself
think that she had escaped for good.

But nothing in life that matters is that easy. Many weeks passed without my
hearing from Janelle, and then one day I got a call from Texas. She had
bolted suddenly from her job at the fire department and headed west. She
wouldn't admit it at first, but it was obvious she'd had a relapse. She
returned to Washington, but she was caught tight in this city's horrifying
drug culture.

Late one Sunday night, the phone rang. It was Janelle, calling from a pay
phone in one of the toughest neighborhoods of Northeast. She had been
beaten by another addict, and she needed help. I took her to the D.C.
homeless shelter for women on Seventh Street, where they gave her a bed and
medical attention.

As I looked into her ravaged face that night, I realized that she would die
soon if she didn't get help. There are few drug treatment programs in the
District, but fortunately she was an Army veteran. So the next day, we went
to the VA hospital, where she was admitted as an inpatient.

That day Janelle began the long road to recovery. There were many twists
and bumps along the way. She spent many months at the VA hospital in
Hampton, Va., the city where she had grown up, and months more in halfway
houses and recovery programs.

Three years ago, after she had again slipped to the bottom, Janelle
admitted to herself that she was powerless to control her addiction without
real help and embraced the 12-step program of "Narcotics Anonymous." I've
attended some NA meetings with her since then. They're easy to parody, with
their sing-song, ritual exchanges - "I'm Suzy, and I'm an addict." "Hi,
Suzy!" - but I've seen that the 12-step process works.

Janelle has attended an NA meeting nearly every day for the last three
years. I know, because I've been collecting the tokens she gives me as she
passes each anniversary marking how long she's been clean and sober. She's
been helped, too, by some wonderful counselors--including Chante Head at
Rachael's Women's Center, Melvena Boykins at the VA's "Compensated Work
Therapy" (CWT) program and Donnell White, the resident manager at the Sarah
McClendon House on 16th Street, where Janelle lives.

I tell this long story so that you will appreciate the joy I felt two weeks
ago when Janelle asked me to attend a holiday party at the VA hospital. At
the party, she received an award as CWT employee of the month and also won
a special certificate for raising her typing speed to 60 words a minute
from 20 words. She wanted me there, to witness what she had accomplished.

The guests at the party were mostly recovering addicts and alcoholics -
people who, like Janelle, had served their country in the military but
fallen on hard times. Perhaps it was just me, but I thought a special cheer
went up when this tough, proud woman stood to receive her award.

A man named Roosevelt Thompson spoke for the group when he said the VA
program "saved my life." Five years ago, he was living in parks and
abandoned buildings, "homeless and helpless." The work-therapy program
taught him job skills, and for the last three years he has been working for
Xerox Corp. He's now a senior associate at Xerox, managing the company's
account at a big D.C. law firm.

Over these last seven years with my friend Janelle, I've learned that
recovery really is "one day at a time." This isn't a world where there are
always happy endings. Human fallibility is on display every day, but so is
the determination to get better.

When I think of what it takes to overcome addiction or other afflictions, I
remember Janelle's words on that freezing night seven years ago. Do it,
now. Take responsibility for yourself and the people you love. If we don't
enforce the rules of decent behavior, none of us is going to make it.