NEXT STEP: FACING THE REAL WORLD

Recovery Can Be Tough, Expert Says

Through nearly three months at MONARCH treatment center, Gina Alexander
recovered from methamphetamine addiction by working The 12 Steps.

She admitted she was powerless, leaned on a higher power, inventoried her
life, sought to make amends, prayed for God's guidance.

Now she must take that next step -- making her recovery stick in the real
world.

The 29-year-old, addicted to methamphetamine for two years, got to leave
MONARCH 10 days before her original release date. She will live with her
father in the Pittsburg County town of Arpelar until she finds housing and
a job.

A drivers' license also would help. Alexander said she cannot go to
Narcotics Anonymous meetings 12 miles away in McAlester -- or do much of
anything -- unless someone takes her.

"Who wants to wait up for an hour while I go to a meeting?" she said
Thursday. Meantime, "I've been cleaning out the garage, where my stuff was
stored, and a lot of stuff is ruined."

Recovery can be tough for women leaving MONARCH's cocoon.

"It's a hard transition," said Gay Wheeler, clinical director at Monarch's
Residential Treatment Center. "They're here for 90 days and they're out.
It's very hard for them. I won't lie, and we let them know it's going to be
hard."

Women leaving treatment must find a place to work and a place to live,
often in spite of tight job and housing markets and outright
discrimination, Wheeler said. They often do not have family support or even
a driver's license.

"A lot of the women do not have a work history," she said. "And employment
is kind of hard, especially if the women have a criminal record."

Alexander spent nearly nine months in prison for stolen vehicle, conspiracy
to commit arson and parole violation. She is on probation until 2008. She
also has a couple thousand dollars in fines to pay before she can get her
driver's license.

Practical Matters

Much of the problem recovering addicts and ex-inmates such as Alexander
face in finding work is the employer's attitude and prejudices, said Mark
Barnes, program manager for the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services.

People in recovery also must learn to get back into the world of work,
Barnes said. "It's getting up on time, going to work on time, getting used
to living with rules, working with a boss."

The department offers a "job club" through Green Country Behavioral
Services for recovering substance abusers and people with mental illness,
Barnes said. The program helps clients, including many MONARCH women, with
job training, getting an education and finding work. The program also
follows through with clients who find jobs to make sure they keep them, he
said. Alexander knows she faces a challenge. She said she found a job at a
convenience store in Arpelar.

"I know I have to retrain myself," Alexander said earlier. "My first step
is to get my GED."

After that?

"Honestly, I don't know," she said. "I know I don't want to be a waitress
all my life."

Housing is another obstacle.

Apartment complexes and landlords often turn down people with criminal
records, said Donna Woods Bauer, executive director of the Oklahoma Citizen
Advocates for Recovery and Treatment Association (OCARTA).

"It has been my experience that apartment complexes do more intense
screening than private landlords," said Lora Sellers, Section 8 project
director for the Muskogee Housing Authority, which helps provide housing
for people on low incomes, including many MONARCH clients.

Sellers said clients convicted of drug-related offenses must prove they
have gone through a certified recovery program or wait at least three years
before seeking public housing. Federal law forbids people convicted of
manufacturing methamphetamines, or convicted sex offenders, from obtaining
federal public housing, she said.

Sometimes MONARCH or other agencies do not provide the authority with
updated addresses of former clients, she said.

Like many on low incomes, former clients often cannot come up with deposit
or rent or get utilities turned on, Sellers said.

Still, most of the landlords working with the Section 8 program know
they're working with people facing a variety of hardships, she said. "We've
had landlords go above and beyond what landlords normally do."

Recovery Help

More than a job, more than housing, "staying clean is number one,"
Alexander said. "That's my first goal."

That's why she said she doesn't want to stay in Arpelar, near those who
used to do drugs with her.

"It's a small town" she said. "I went in there high and the people I went
in there with were high."

Alexander was a high school sophomore when she met a young man at the
Lighthouse of Prayer, married and quit school. She said she started
drinking and smoking pot around that time.

About two years ago, her husband left her for another woman, she said.
That's when she discovered methamphetamine.

"I was looking for a way to ease the pain, looking for release," she said.

The "release" hooked her and led her on a downward spiral of shooting or
snorting crank, living in abandoned houses and piling up mountains of fees
before landing at the Eddie Warrior Correctional Center one year ago.

"You work so hard with God on one side and Satan on the other," Alexander
said. "You hear the phrase 'fake it until you make it,' but you can't do
that. I faked it until I went to the penitentiary."

In that respect, an addict cannot go home again, Wheeler said.

"When they leave here, we encourage them to stop using people," she said.
"We tell them not to go back to their old playgrounds. Hopefully, we can
encourage them to go to new places."

Until she finds work and housing in Muskogee, Alexander is looking for ways
to get to recovery meetings.

James Dixon, clinical director of the Oaks Treatment Center in McAlester,
said the center used to offer rides to outpatient treatment and meetings
until it had to cut the program because of tight budgets. The center does
offer a "buddy" ride-share program in which people coming to meetings can
ask for rides. People also might be able find transportation through
Ki-Bois Community Action Partnership, he said.

In the meantime, Alexander said, "I'm staying here listening to Bible
tapes, trying to stay in the word."

Wheeler said recovery is less daunting if women "do it day to day; keep it
simple."

Women leaving MONARCH take a box full of self-help material, letters and
journals they can refer to when things get tough, Wheeler said.

Alexander said she recently received a letter from one of her MONARCH friends.

"That helped me out a lot," she said. "It made me think I at least touched
somebody's life."

She said she also has talked to her counselor.

MONARCH also does follow-through to help women find meetings, counseling,
jobs or housing, Wheeler said.

But Alexander said she knows much of her recovery is up to her and God.

"They say most people, when they're out of prison, go back to using,"
Alexander said. "I want to prove them wrong. I want to prove it to them but
also to myself."