YEARS OF ADDICTION END WITH PRISON, 12-STEP PROGRAM

Porter County Has Strong Recovery Community, He Says

Sam grew up in Aurora, Ill., and ran away to San Diego at 14 to get
away from his alcoholic mother.

"I'd find her passed out naked on the toilet," he said. "Instead of
dealing with what I saw, my M.O. was to run." Sam tried a host of
street drugs while living with other users on San Diego's Mission
Beach. He was addicted to methadone by age 16 and turned to heroin
the following year.

"The funny thing is, for the next three years from that day forward,
I used (heroin)," Sam said.

"It was like, 'It's on. I found something new. Let's roll.'"

Sam asked that his last name not be used because of his work with a
local 12-step program.

Eventually, he tried to come home to the Chicago area to get clean.

"I'd been locked up at my mom's house many times, but I always would
take the easy way out," Sam said.

"The methadone was the easy way, and I wanted to go that way."

The methadone drew him back into using heroin. He went to Chicago's
West Side -- "K Town" -- to buy his drugs.

He soon needed more money to support his habit, so he got the girl he
was dating addicted, too.

"I'd tell her if she wanted it, she had to go rob her mom's purse,"
he said. "We led this Bonnie-and-Clyde lifestyle."

It soon turned from stealing from family to robbing strangers. One
time, they got a gun and robbed some businesses and people on the
street, including two women on a bench outside a bowling alley.

Sam spent three years in Illinois' infamous Stateville prison in
Joliet on the armed robbery conviction. He got out of prison and
stayed in Illinois for two years while he was on parole and tried to
stay clean.

"I knew heroin and crack were big downfalls for me," Sam said.

"I thought I could just drink and take Ecstasy and live that
lifestyle, that I had a conscious choice of what I could use."

But he found himself drunk in Chicago and wanted more. He knew where
to go -- K Town.

He was paroled in 1997 and tried the methadone clinic again, but they
kicked him out, because he couldn't pay and because he was testing
positive for crack use.

So he went back to using street drugs.

Sam's mother -- who found sobriety through her faith -- moved to
Chesterton to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. Sam
decided to come with her and soon learned of places in Gary where he
could buy drugs.

For Sam, it was the 12-step recovery method that eventually worked.
The 12-step recovery community in Porter County is strong, he said,
adding that there is a group available for any kind of addiction from
sex and narcotics to alcohol and gambling.

He now leads a lot of the group meetings and tries to help in other
little ways, like calling police when he sees drug activity.

He recently was driving down Ind. 49 and saw a girl and a boy with a
crack pipe in the car, so he called the state police to report them,
following them until a trooper drove up and pulled them over.

"Coming from prison, you don't snitch, but I had to," he said.