RECOVERING ADDICTS FIGHT STIGMA

More Than 100 Gather At Downtown Festival

Once upon a time, a prominent television news anchor couldn't keep a
job, a graduate student couldn't stay out of trouble and two
Louisville women couldn't keep custody of their children.

These aren't Brothers Grimm fairy tales, but each has a happy
ending.

Those four people were among more than a hundred yesterday who
gathered in Triangle Park to celebrate recovering from drug and
alcohol addiction at RecoveryFest, part of National Alcohol and Drug
Addiction Recovery Month.

With a backdrop of hugs and hamburgers, they spoke out, hoping their
stories will curb society's discrimination against addicts and inspire
current addicts to reach out for help.

Giving help he rejected

Beneath a sign reading "Recovery Is a Reality," former WLEX-TV news
anchor Mike Barry spoke of how his success in television news and
radio by age 35 spiraled out of control because of alcohol.

"By age 45, I gave up all those jobs, gave up my house, gave up my
family and children, was one step away from living on the streets and
did finally find myself living in a homeless shelter in Louisville,"
Barry told the crowd.

"Alcohol had become my god," Barry said, acknowledging that he
attempted suicide.

He said his notoriety created an obstacle to recovery.

"If I admitted my problem I was likely to lose my job, and if I didn't
do something about my alcoholism I was likely to lose my job," he
said. "I had every intention of cleaning up my act, but couldn't get
the help for fear of exposing myself."

Now Barry seeks to offer to others the help he once
shunned.

As chairman of Kentucky's People Advocating Recovery, Barry said he
hopes to bring a voice to those who are discriminated against because
of their past addiction.

"If I had a couple of hours, I could start listing the problems of
discrimination faced by those who are in recovery," he said.

Child addict

As a past felon, Vicki Horseman knows about the discrimination of
which Barry spoke.

Horseman's past with drugs and alcohol began before her teenage
years.

"Drinking made me feel like I fit in," the 41-year-old said. Soon she
began smoking marijuana.

"By the time I was 15, I was a full-blown alcoholic and started
getting incarcerated," she said.

She wound up in prison, where she earned an associate's degree. Once
free, she earned a master's in social work at the University of
Louisville, but she still suffered from her addiction.

"I started getting drunk and high as soon as I got out of prison," she
said. "By the time I graduated, I was really strung out."

Her life changed, though, when police knocked down her door and took
her two children. She wound up in an alternative sentencing program,
during which she completed a two-year treatment program.

By 1995, she had started working at the Chrysalis House, a residential
treatment program for women with alcohol and drug addictions, where
she completed her treatment.

Even though she had successfully fought addiction, she remained
stigmatized, which she attributes to people not understanding the
nature of addiction.

"Drug and alcohol addiction is a chronic, yet treatable, medical
condition," Horseman explained. "It's not a moral weakness or a sign
of intrinsically bad character."

Still, she faced trouble finding housing and had to work to regain her
voting rights.

"Here you are with your kids trying to start your life over again, and
everywhere you turn somebody's shutting a door in your face," she said.

Today, after much work, this role model to other recovering addicts
owns her own home, votes and works to help others.

"All I ever wanted to do once I got sober was to help other people,"
Horseman said. "Now my life is better than I ever thought it would
be."

On the road to recovery

While Barry and Horseman are approaching a decade of recovery, several
at yesterday's event are in their first few months.

April Strange, 29, and Lisa Gray, 28, both share a similar case --
they lived in Louisville, battled drug and alcohol abuse, and both
lost custody of their children.

Today, both are about halfway through a six-month program administered
by the Hope Center Recovery Program for Women.

They quickly became friends, relying on each other for help.

"I try to surround myself with people who are recovering," Gray said.
"It's good to have any number of people I can call any day who I can
talk to, who can understand me and know what I'm going through."

And while Horseman's children were her motivation to seek treatment,
Strange and Gray said it took more.

"You would think they would be a motivating factor, but when you're
caught up in that lifestyle, they're not," said Gray, whose three boys
live with her father.

Strange's four children live with her mother.

Many of those filling the park yesterday hope they can work to ease
the road to recovery on which people like Gray and Strange find themselves.

Barry encouraged people to write letters to newspapers and call their
elected officials to let them know, "Real people really do recover."

"In recovery we know that alone we die, together we live," Barry said.