Published: April 25, 2008 11:33 am            

Alternative Clark County treatment offers a new chance for drug offenders

In an inconspicuous apartment complex that looks like almost any other, with buildings housing nine apartments each, a staircase on either end, and nondescript doors with brass numbers, Susan sits on the couch in her living room explaining how she went alcohol addict with a long criminal history to holding a full-time job, and on her way to purchasing her first home.

She has the whole apartment to herself, and keeps it unfailingly clean, with a sliding-glass door she keeps open more and more as the weather changes.

It is a far cry from the halfway house she was living in a year ago. And the odds were against her — 80 percent of people who have been in prison return. Often sooner, rather than later, and like any addict, even when she’s clean this is a fight she’ll continue for the rest of her life.

“I was one of those people that suffered consequences and kept bumping my head — but there is a solution,” she said. “It’s been hard work, but it’s paid off.

“Nothing changes if nothing changes, and I changed everything.”

Susan’s initiation into crime was at the age of 13, when she got in trouble for stealing cases of Little Kings Ale from Nahan’s Beverage Co. She was small enough then to slip under the loading door, and she unloaded almost 13 cases before she got caught.

Like touching the first domino and sitting back to watch the rest fall, her first offense began a series of events that kept her coming back to court, and jail, for the next 22 years. A process that, Susan said, seemed unstoppable.

It’s a process many addicts like Susan find themselves in, and one they have a hard time finding their way out of.

“I didn’t know any other way to live, and my mind told me there wasn’t any other way to live,” said Kim, a Clark County Drug Court graduate, and Susan’s sponsor in the program. “I started going to bars at 15; it progressed to a high-end prostitution ring, to a low-end prostitution ring, to me standing on a corner.

“I would steal money out of my mother’s purse, my dad’s wallet, my brother’s piggy bank.”

By her own account, Kim’s early life was not one that should have ended in multiple arrests and drug addiction. But an alcoholic father, her parent’s divorce and their subsequent bankruptcy made it easier for her to turn to drinking and drugs in high school, filling a hole that only grew bigger.

She and Susan used together before they both got clean and found each other again, only this time on the other side of addiction. Two years ago, Susan showed up in drug court in front of Superior Court No. 2 Judge Cecile Blau for a possession charge. Blau sentenced her to drug court this time, instead of jail or prison time.

When she saw Kim in counseling, she knew she found her sponsor.

“I thought, she’s got what I want and that’s how I chose her,” Susan said. “They don’t just talk the talk, but they walk it, too.”

Kim gave the keynote address at Susan’s graduation Thursday, reminding everyone of not just how far she had come, but how far the three graduates had come as well.

Now sober, Jared is fighting to get custody of his son. Before drug court, his methamphetamine addiction made his decisions for him. But now, he said, he is in control and his son is the first thing on his mind.

And the other graduate, Dave, owns a condominium and a car, beating a methamphetamine addiction that placed him facing the other side of the courtroom before. He gave his speech facing the courtroom auditorium Thursday, instead of facing the judge’s bench.

“Bear with me, I’m nervous,” he said. “I’ve never been in a courtroom and not be nervous, though.

“I’ve never been in a courtroom facing this way, either,” he said, eliciting laughter and applause from the crowd gathered to praise the graduates for coming so far.

Drug court participants are typically in the program for about two years. They are required to call the court administration every day between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. They get random drug tests, and they meet before Judge Blau, and the rest of the staff — Robert Bottorff, deputy prosecuting attorney; Jeff Stonebreaker, public defender; Mike Webb, drug court case manager; Allison Juliot, the program administrator; a police officer; and a treatment provider — once a week.

“No program or jail sentence can guarantee an addict will not use drugs again, but the drug court program of Clark County provides the best chance of helping individuals develop the tools to combat the disease of addiction,” Blau said. “Addiction is a lifelong battle and drug court participants develop the tools to combat the disease of addiction.

“Each day of sobriety for the participants makes this community a safer and better place to live.”

Some participants receive financial counseling, some parenting skills, but all get the tools to live responsibly and without drugs and alcohol. Since the program began in 2002, 97 participants have been enrolled and 34 have graduated, including Jared, Dave and Susan, who graduated Thursday.

Susan is hoping to reach phase two of the program by July and qualify for a first-time homebuyer’s loan. The program has changed her life, she said, but it wasn’t always easy.

“Drug court for me was like a death sentence,” she said. “I thought, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this, I have no work history and a criminal history — I have no self-confidence.’ But what it instilled in me was accountability and responsibility.

“It takes a village — I have a huge support group,” Susan said. “We have all been to each other.”

        

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