THE LONG ROAD BACK TO NORMAL

KENT -- She has a roof overhead, a full-time job, plans to buy a house
and, for the first time in a long time, a driver's license and her own
car.

These days, thanks in part to Kent's Titusville housing program,
Sharon ``Che'' Constable looks to the holidays with joy -- and to the
future with hope.

But it wasn't so long ago that joy and hope were the last things on
Constable's mind.

Born at Redmond's Overlake Hospital and raised in Kirkland, Constable
was 11 when she started using drugs.

By her teens, her life was in desperate disorder. She dropped out of
school, moved in with grandparents in Kent and eventually found work
at a restaurant in a hotel near SeaTac Airport.

Her crowd partied.

So did Constable. She used crack cocaine and alcohol.

Eventually, she said, her grandparents died and she ended up living in
her car.

Her first drug arrest, for possession with intent to sell, came in
1989. Several other drugs arrests -- none as serious -- would follow.

She bounced around, skipping out on court appearances and other
requirements.

She found -- and lost or left -- a series of jobs.

She and a boyfriend bought a house in downtown Kent.

The truth is they never paid a dime, she said, and they lost
it.

She ended up homeless and living in a tent in the woods. By then, she
was a methamphetamine addict.

``My drug of choice was crack cocaine. I got introduced to meth and it
got me off crack,'' she said.

Then came a series of events that changed the direction of her
life.

Even now, she chokes up when she recalls what happened.

Her boyfriend, a man she'd been living with in the woods, got involved
with another woman. The other woman became pregnant.

Devastated, Constable contemplated revenge against the other
woman.

``I was planning on hurting her,'' she said. ``That's when I knew
something had to change.

``It was that and the fact one day I was sitting on the curb with only
the clothes on my back -- and there was nobody for me.

``That's when I asked God to change things,'' said Constable. ``It was
a foxhole prayer.

When she was homeless and living in the woods, Constable said, she
used to ride her bike on a trail behind apartments.

``I'd look up at the windows of the apartments and realize I didn't
even remember what it was like to live a normal life,'' she said.

A recipe for hope

Still living in the woods, she signed up for treatment through DSHS,
began attending church and Alcoholics Anonymous.

``It's an awesome program, but it doesn't get you off the streets,''
she said.

But there was hope.

One day at an AA meeting, she heard about Titusville, a transitional
housing program for single women in recovery.

The program, based in Kent, has 19 small apartments used for single
women in substance abuse recovery.

Constable applied and got her name put on a waiting
list.

Enter Jack Evans, pastor of Christ Church in Kent, and his wife, Judy.
They took her into their home while Constable waited.

``They were awesome,'' she said.

Three months later, Constable moved into an apartment at
Titusville.

Women who are accepted into the program must have successfully
completed a treatment program and must stay sober to remain a
resident. Each client pays a third of her monthly pay to stay there.

She's been there ever since, working on recovery, working on
rebuilding a life that came unraveled.

These days, she works full-time as dining room supervisor at
Farrington Court Retirement Community.

She is saving to buy a house through an Individual Development
Account, a program that matches $2 to $3 for every dollar a client
saves toward owning a home, starting a business or going back to school.

Someone gave her a car recently.

Honesty has its benefits

``What happened to me was nobody's fault but my own, I know that,''
said Constable, who regularly attends the River of Life Fellowship in
Renton.

Each morning, she eats her breakfast -- usually pancakes -- in the
common room at Titusville.

A sign there reminds her of the course she's charted for her
life.

``It says: `Honesty is being truthful to others, is being truthful to
myself, is doing what is right regardless of who's around, is being
someone others can trust,''' she said.

``I see it every day.''

New church lends a holiday hand

KENT -- They're members of a church so new it doesn't even have a
name.But that didn't keep Pastor Brian Hope and other members of the
congregation from pitching in to bring holiday cheer to women
recovering from drug addiction.

Last week, the church served a holiday meal -- pork tenderloin
complete with garlic mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables and poached
pears -- to residents of Titusville, a transitional housing program
for single women.

Participants in the program have to have successfully completed drug
treatment and have to stay sober.

Hope said the congregation, which has about 30 members, learned about
Titusville while using space at the small mall.

``One of the gals from the Multi-Service Center told me the upstairs
was basically women in transition,'' Hope said. ``I thought, What an
incredible opportunity for us to be the expression of Christ's love in
their lives.''

Traci Krieg, case manager for the program, was enthused when Hope
called. In the past, she'd organized a holiday dinner and brought
turkey while the women provided extra dishes.

This time, the church offered to provide the dinner -- as well as
gifts for the children of women in the program. That was huge, she
said.

``Many of the women have children, but since this is a program only
for single women, their children are either in foster care or living
with relatives while their mothers try to get their lives back
together,'' Krieg said.

The holidays can be an especially tough time for those in recovery,
she said.

``For most people, the holidays are a time of celebration and a time
spent with family,'' Krieg said. ``However, for the women in this
program it tends to be a reminder of the family and relationships they
have lost due to their addiction.''

It's especially hard on women who have severed relationships with
their children due to drug use, she said.