FROM ADDICTION TO RECOVERY -- A DAY AT A TIME

Looking At The Face Of Recovery From Drug And Alcohol Abuse.

Tom Aswad: Personal Struggle Makes Him An Advocate For The Addict When
Helping To Develop Drug Policy

FOR MANY, the faces of addiction reflect the faces of loss. Missed
opportunities, broken dreams, criminal records and cycles of
destruction mark lives that are scarred by drugs and alcohol.

But hidden among the faces, amid the failures that grip headlines, are
people who wage a successful battle against addiction. People who turn
their lives around and defy the odds, those who take control and will
no longer be controlled by the substances that once ruled their destinies.

People in recovery, just like addicts, are found in all walks of life,
in all neighborhoods and in all cultures. But unlike addicts, those in
recovery display a strength of inner character that would leave others
quaking.

They'll never fully conquer their addictions, but they've learned
recovery means not giving in. Addiction is a way of their life, and if
they don't want to get sucked into its deadly vortex they must fight
that battle every time it surfaces.

"You need to put as much effort into your recovery as you did in
using," says Tom Aswad of Walnut Creek, who has been in recovery for
11 years.

There are nights when he's tempted to ignore the support systems of
recovery, to go on as if everything is just fine. But then he
remembers an earlier time, a time when he'd move heaven and earth just
to quench his addictions, and so he puts the same effort into his recovery.

"No one has more will power than addicts," he explains.

But while the negative effects of that willpower is well documented,
when it is devoted to recovery, it isn't publicized, ironically
because many recovery programs succeed because of anonymity.

"Our successes are anonymous," says Aswad, "our faces are failures."
It's the Richard Downey Jr.'s of the world who get the media
attention, but their failures are but one aspect of a complex situation.

"I know a lot of people in this county that are in recovery that very
visible, successful people," says Aswad. "(However) The recovery
community is not organized to advocate for itself."

As an active member and former chairman of Contra Costa's Alcohol and
Other Drugs Advisory Board, Aswad personally knows how hard it is to
get help for treatment and recovery programs.

Part of the challenge is that addiction is too often viewed, both by
society and government officials, as a moral and social issue, rather
than a physical problem.

It's been 45 years since the American Medical Association classified
alcoholism as a disease, explains Aswad, yet stigmas still remain. And
those stigmas are part of the reason assistance has been slow in delivery.

Officials estimate that 80 percent of alcoholics and 70 percent of
drug addicts are gainfully employed, but people still equate abuse
with the homeless man living near the railroad tracks.

"Denial is a big factor in all this," says Harold Parsley, current
chair of the county's advisory board.

And it's not only the addicts who are in denial.

"There are so many people who don't think there's a drug and alcohol
issue in their community, that it will affect their children" says
Parsley. "In the more affluent parts of the county, the denial is
there. There's no area in the county that the people should be in that
state of denial. There's no community that is not susceptible to this
type of thing."

Yet even while he is explaining the problem of denial, Parsley won't
identify for a newspaper article specific communities where he'd been
told there are problems.

When pressed, the most he'll says is there are several areas,
including some in south Contra Costa, where drugs and alcohol are
being abused by youth. He admits that cloak of secrecy is incongruous
to people talking about the problems, but doesn't quite know how to
address the situation.

"You'd be surprised at the number of kids who come home at night, both
parents work, the kids come home, the parents are in bed, they have no
idea what their kids were doing that night. It isn't only the poverty
stricken that are the ones afflicted. When there's more money ... the
kids have access to drugs and alcohol."

Aswad knows first hand the difference between being an addict with
money and being an addict without money.

"If you come from a family that has money, you get treatment," he
says. It's an inequity he's battling, because he knows that although
law enforcement may treat the wealthier better, and more treatment
options exist, addiction is a disease that strikes equally hard,
whether you're rich or poor.

"This disease will pick you up wherever you are in life and drop you
off at the bottom," says Aswad.

For him, the bottom came when he was 31 years old. His successful real
estate business, beautiful house and beautiful cars portrayed a
fulfilled life by all traditional measures.

"But I had nothing. My life was ruled by things that weren't healthy
for me," he says. "It was out of control."

It had been almost 20 years since he started partying in junior high,
and he was determined to change the path he was traveling down.

His 11 years in successful recovery, using the 12-step programs, have
given him a perspective that many people developing policies don't
possess, and it's made him an advocate for all addicts in the county.

Aswad was outraged that it's taken three years to finally get a
commitment to place a bathroom in a building that houses a support
program for pregnant addicts, so their children can be born drug free.

When a 1997 study revealed that only 99 children were receiving
treatment with county-subsidized funds, he fought to redirect
priorities. For 2000-2001, that number increased to 421 youth, but
he's frustrated there's still a 200-person waiting list for adults
seeking treatment beds.

"Where better can we spend our money?" queries Aswad.

He explains that alcohol and drug abuse are the root of many problems
our government addresses, including homelessness, domestic violence,
criminal activity. He hopes that at some point, more effort will go
into prevention and treatment, as well as recovery, because a life
without drug abuse is a life worth living.

"I'm inspired by the lives, I see changed. It's a blessing to be part
of that."

Veronica King:

After Years Of Denial, Her Healing Began With Honesty

VERONICA KING knows all about denial. She knows all the symptoms, all
the drawbacks, all the end-runs around this most basic emotion.

"I didn't consider myself an addict," she says. "I was functioning.
... I had all the 'look goods,' the things that made me socially
acceptable."

For almost 20 years, since she was 14, she'd been using drugs. Her
teen-age experiment with smoking weed evolved until cocaine became her
drug of choice.

"I was basically a shy person and coke gave me that extra courage to
be outgoing -- that's what coke did for me originally," she said. "In
the end it gave me isolation."

By the time she had her first encounter with the law, at age 34, King
had stolen from her family, sold herself on the streets, dropped from
180 to 102 pounds in a year, and hurt the people she loved. But still
she thought everything was under control

"I was too far gone to see I wasn't OK," she said. "We see things one
way and that's how we believe things are. Everyone I was surrounded by
was doing the same thing."

King's first encounter with the law landed her in jail for three
months. She emerged an unchanged woman. "I was too scared to reach
out," she said.

But four months later she was arrested again and something finally
snapped. "That's when I'd seen what I'd become. Maybe it was the idea
of going back to jail, the isolation. Maybe I was just tired."

Whatever the reason, in 1992, at age 34, King knew something had to
change.

"Prior to that, there were so many times I cried, saying I wanted
something different, but I didn't know what to do."

The answer was painful, but she discovered the crucial first step to
recovery: honesty. Deep-rooted honesty not only with herself, but also
with someone who could help her.

King's probation officer was the key. "I just got honest and she kind
of guided me in the right direction. That's when I started right in
the program."

Her intensive, residential treatment program was a painful process.
Not only was it a challenge to do the daily tasks, to conform, to
follow rules, to get up every morning and fix breakfast, but the
personal journey was also difficult.

"When I started to open up and started feeling things, it wasn't fun,"
recalls King. "It didn't feel good, looking at the people you'd hurt,
the things you'd done. A lot of times I didn't know what I was
feeling, I just knew I was feeling uneasy."

There were times she wanted to stop the treatment and recovery
process, but, thankfully, her support network had become too strong.
"I had women around me, telling me that it was going to be OK. Those
are things I'd done, but that wasn't what I was."

Despite the pain, King remained in the treatment program for more than
six months. "I started to believe it would get better, and yes, it got
better."

When she finally left the program, King knew she couldn't move back to
her Richmond neighborhood. Entering that environment was just too
tempting, too dangerous. Instead, she moved to East Contra Costa and
spent two years rebuilding her life, but it was lonely and she was in
turmoil.

And then, finally, one day while riding BART to visit her mother in
Richmond, she had a revelation. She admits it sounds wacky, but it was
a moment that changed her life.

"A voice told me it was OK to go back to Richmond," she says. The
insight proved to her what was already obvious to the people who'd
helped King through recovery. "You're not the same person going back
who you were when you left."

She moved back to Richmond and immediately surrounded herself with a
support network that would be there, should she be tempted to use
drugs again.

"It's so important to reach out and feel OK to who I'm reaching out
to," says King. "A lot of times I feel guilty and, on the other hand,
I feel blessed."

Her life experiences have brought her from a role as an assistant in
the Ojima treatment program to her current position as a counselor at
the methadone drug clinic.

"I bring understanding and compassion," King says of her job. "I care.
I sincerely, honestly care about the quality of people's lives. ...
And most important, I try to make them see they're somebody and
they're important and they do count."

It's a message that fell deafly on King's ears for years, which is why
she is now so adamant about compassionately, but deliberately,
delivering it to the people she counsels.

"When I was down, I just felt like no one cared about me," she says,
choking up at the memories. "I think they did, but when you feel like
that, even when people do (care) you don't see it.

"One of the biggest things I had to do was make amends to my family.
Because of the damage I did, I feared they wouldn't accept me back.
... (But) over time I earned their love and their trust back."

And being a counselor in her hometown has its own rewards.

"It's more meaningful for me," says King. "I feel like I'm giving back
to the community I took from."

But even though she now guides others through treatment, King knows
her own addictions, experiences and vulnerabilities don't go away.

"I'll be in recovery the rest of my life."

Shayne Kaleo:

After Past Failures, She Now Has A Better Understanding Of Addiction
And Recovery.

WHEN SHAYNE KALEO'S boyfriend called the cops on her, just one emotion
surfaced: anger. How dare the man she loved, whose child she had
borne, betray her in such a manner?

"Believe it or not, it was the best thing," admits Kaleo. The arrest
hurled her on the road to recovery, a route she'd traveled down -- but
unsuccessfully -- before. This time, with her two youngest children
placed in protective custody, Kaleo finally pursued recovery with
newfound fervor.

"I thought I could do it by myself," she says. "I had a lot of
mistaken beliefs."

In fact, when the 90 days of her treatment program were completed,
Kaleo asked to stay an additional month. This time around, she wants
to get it right. The mother of five (the three oldest live with family
members in Hawaii) never wants to risk losing her children, now ages 6
and 2, to the foster care system again.

"It's not like things are hunky-dory, but I'm working toward getting
it there."

Like most addicts, Kaleo, 32, was able to hold down a job and
therefore assumed she didn't have an addiction problem. "I thought as
long as everybody was provided for, it was cool, it was OK."

The residential treatment program in Bay Point taught her that wasn't
the only misconception she harbored. "My biggest mistaken belief was
that abstinence was just it, that's all it was to recovery."

The treatment program helped her get to acknowledge her denial. "I
started to understand what my addiction is about." Kaleo's childhood
was guided by a mother who'd serve her children a Flintstone vitamin,
a teaspoon of castor oil and a shot of beer.

"I can't ever remember not drinking," says Kaleo. As a teen-ager she
started smoking pot, but quit years ago. However, she turned to crank
after the birth of each child, as a fast way to lose weight. The
combination of alcohol and drug abuse took its toll.

"I really think I was slowly trying to kill myself," she now
admits.

Since graduating from the treatment program she and her boyfriend are
working on getting their family together. He's also in treatment, and
although her temporary job as a delivery person will expire after the
holidays, in January she'll join him at the local community college,
taking classes toward an associate's degree.

"We just know, right now, to take it one day at a time."