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Rising from rock bottom: Former drugabusers here for Cocaine Anonymous
convention

By: CHRIS TAYLOR

Darlene P. remembers when she finally hit rock bottom, after 27 years spent
in a haze of cocaine and heroin abuse.

"I did three or four overdoses in one week, and there was always someone
there to revive me," she said yesterday at her Montreal home.

"Then I realized that one day, there wouldn't be anyone there."

Fed up with her life of needles and crack pipes, she joined Cocaine
Anonymous three years ago and kicked the habit.

Now Darlene, who like other members uses only her first name in the group,
is cochairman of CA's annual regional convention, which starts today at
the Hotel du Parc.

More than 750 recovering addicts and concerned relatives from across Quebec
are set to meet for a blitz of discussion groups, workshops and therapy
sessions on how to deal with the deadly drug. The 11thannual convention
continues through Sunday.

At the core of the workshops is the group's 12step recovery program,
similar to that of Alcoholics Anonymous. It stresses belief in a higher
power to help drugusers get clean and sober.

Among those attending the convention will be Alexandre, 29.

Alexandre recalled yesterday how his need for the drug chewed up a
promising law career.

"I started to use cocaine at work,'' he said. "I had to have it daily,
whether in the morning, at the courthouse, or at any number of occasions.
There weren't any limits.

"I was consuming constantly, and my intellectual faculties were declining.

"My life wasn't anything like it was. I tried to stop, but I couldn't."

Robert lost his job and found himself struggling with mounting bills his
rent payments fell months behind, his hydro was cut off. He didn't even
wash his clothes for a full year.

Then he went to his first CA meeting in June 1994, kicked the habit on
March 10, 1995 he still remembers the date and has been rebuilding his
life ever since.

Gail Gauthier has seen her share of similar success stories. As director of
the Montreal General Hospital's addictions unit, every year she helps treat
more than 350 addicts who come to her for help.

They're dependent on any number of substances: alcohol, prescription
medication, heroin, cannabis. And, for a quarter of them, cocaine.

"We're getting more and more people who are freebasing" using cocaine
that has been treated with ether and heated "and that's certainly a lot
tougher case than people who are snorting it," she said.

"Often it's a progression: people will start out snorting, and then move to
freebasing and then IV. With the latter stages the hit works very quickly,
and that's what makes it so addictive."

Gauthier's program consists of six weeks of care in hospital, and 10 months
of group therapy as an outpatient.

She encourages her patients to take part in the CA program as well, to help
avoid the relapses that are frighteningly common.

Alexandre, for one, hasn't gotten back in the habit. After blowing $500 a
day on cocaine at the height of his addiction, he's off the drug and off
the welfare rolls. He now works for a community organization, and even
hopes to restart the law career that cocaine sabotaged.

"I entered therapy as a totally beaten man," he said. "It was at that point
that I learned to function again one day at a time, one week at a time.

"Now I've been clean for two years."

D Tickets to the convention cost $15 for adults, $5 for those age 18 or
under. For information, call Cocaine Anonymous at 9325287.