Beyond Addiction

It took 13 years, but I finally appeared on a stage in front of an audience on Broadway.

The Capri Theater on Broadway Avenue in a gritty stretch of North Minneapolis was filled with politicians and civic leaders, ministers and a couple of donors with deep pockets. My real affinity was for everyone else in the crowd — the crack addicts and alcoholics, who share my illness.

"When I ain't clean, I'm on the streets, and been on the streets more them last four years than I want to be, except when I been locked up in the joint," said Howard, 47, shifting nervously in his seat in the last row. "I'm getting too old for the streets, too old for the drugs. That's why I'm here. Got to get clean, stay clean."

Howard and I, along with everyone else, were there for the premiere of a new video, "The Turning Point: Breaking the Cycle of Addiction and Incarceration." I made some brief remarks ahead of time because it was co-produced by Hazelden, where I work, and Turning Point, two programs on opposite ends of the human spectrum of addiction treatment.

Howard is one of about 1,000 people who are treated at Turning Point each year. Few have jobs, much less health insurance or other resources to pay for treatment. Many of them are people of color other than white who have known homelessness, and nearly all have been on the wrong end of the law while under the influence of drugs, ending up behind bars.

The video features 25 African-American men in different stages of recovery and reintegration into the community. All of them have known the desperation of addiction and the hope of recovery through treatment at Turning Point. They are proof that sobriety is possible, even in the toughest urban neighborhoods.

"There is this attitude out there that poor black people just don't ever find recovery, can't or don't want to stop doing dope," said Peter Hayden, the founder and president of Turning Point.

"It's not just a white attitude; it's a black attitude, as well. I mean, it's true that in the inner cities, without the economic resources, the social infrastructure, it makes it tougher. But treatment does work; recovery is possible, even here in this community."

Hayden's personal experience is his guiding beacon. Clean and sober for 36 years now, he once roamed the streets looking to get high or stay high, before he found help at a county-based treatment program not far from where he started Turning Point three years later, in 1976. Today he's a national expert in community-based treatment for people who cannot leave their neighborhoods to get help.

A key component of Turning Point's program is the "Circle of Sobriety" approach, which links drug treatment to other social service agencies to provide a continuum of support for clients. This includes housing, educational training, AIDS counseling and health and family wellness programs. "For our clients, treatment won't work if they don't also have job skills, an education and a place to live, too," Hayden said.

Howard is one of them. In and out of treatment a few times, he's had some success in sobriety, too. But he slips and starts using again because "when times are hard, it's easy to run away with the drugs." With the help of his mother, a minister in Louisiana, Howard says Turning Point has helped him to turn the corner this time.

"I got a daughter. She's 17. And when I am using drugs, she calls me 'Peanut,' my street name," he said. "Now she's calling me 'Dad' again. I'm going to make it this time."

William Moyers is the vice president of foundation relations for the Hazelden Foundation and the author of "Broken," his best-selling memoirs, and "A New Day, A New Life." Please send your questions to William Moyers at wmoyers@hazelden.org. To find out more about William Moyers and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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