STRUGGLING DRUG ADDICTS DESCRIBE LIVES OF VIOLENT DESPERATION

DURHAM -- The brightly colored mural, painted on a white concrete wall on
the second floor of the Durham County Jail, depicts the cycle of addiction
with an ironic twist.

In the first scene, men and women use drugs, standing ankle deep in human
skulls. In the background, faceless suits walk unaware, behind the users
and in front of a painted jail.

In the next scene, inmates are shown sitting in jail, playing cards in
orange suits. Then we see the STARR program, designed to get inmates off
drugs. A painted scene shows inmates accepting their STARR graduation
certificates.

The final scene is recovery. But ironically, the artist left before it was
finished. Only a few half-painted faces look out from a block of blank
concrete wall.

One wonders whether the artist who left the painting unfinished completed
his own recovery? Or did he return to the land of skulls?

STARR provides a 28-day chemical dependency program that includes group
counseling and information about addiction. After inmates graduate, a
follow-up program called GRAD is offered, which continues the counseling
and classroom schedule for another 28 days.

Thirty-one inmates graduated from STARR in August. Courts ordered about a
third to the program; others volunteered. Some have taken the class more
than once.

The typical STARR participant is a 21- to 30-year-old black man with less
than a high school education. About 250 inmates graduate from the STARR
program each year.

In the STARR classroom, about 15 participants spoke to The Herald-Sun about
their addictions. They agreed to "keep it real" and The Herald-Sun agreed
not to use their names.

Only three graduated from high school. Eight said they witnessed domestic
violence in the home in which they grew up.

As in the painting, they wore orange jumpsuits. One young woman was still
in detox. She sat quietly trembling. When asked why she was so quiet she
said, "Look at me. I am a mess. I don't know how to talk without it."

All named marijuana or alcohol as their first drug. Three tried one or the
other before they were 10. Some used drugs with their mothers, brothers,
cousins and neighbors.

They could spend from $600 to $3,000 a day on drugs.

Twenty dollars would "last a flick of a lighter." They made their money by
stealing, charging on company credit cards, selling drugs and sex. They
believed their children would learn from their mistakes and not repeat them.

What happened when they hit rock bottom?

For one, it was eating out of garbage cans.

Another said he stabbed a man 15 times.

Yet another described his rock bottom as telling his son he couldn't give
him $4.50 for the straps on a football helmet because he wanted to spend
the $25 in his pocket on drugs.

A fourth said rock bottom was selling drugs to his mother.

Men said they could control women with the drugs in their pocket. Women
said they sold sex for $5.

Drugs gave them self-esteem, they said, allowing them to forget the lost
job or the mother who wouldn't get off their back.

"I succeeded when I was getting high," one man said.