Pubdate: Tue, 23 Jan 2001
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2001 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053
Fax: (213) 237-7679
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Author: Douglas Haberman
Note: News from Inland Valley in the Times Community Newspapers

DISCIPLINE, SUPPORT HELP ADDICTS IN FIGHT

Drug Court Participants Encourage Others Through Their Own Success That They
Can Reverse The Downward Spiral Of Abuse.

Joey Diaz, 43, is a drug court client who is succeeding, despite more than
25 years in and out of prison struggling with heroin addiction. He expects
to graduate from the yearlong program in February.

"I lived for it," he said of heroin. "I woke up for it. All my crimes were
committed for heroin."

But he wasn't getting any better in prison and he knew it.

"I needed help," Diaz said.

Judge Dennis Cole offered him the chance to go to drug court and Diaz
grabbed it.

It's been tough, he said.

"It's a very intense program," Diaz said. "I never knew what it was to
follow directions. This program taught me discipline."

It also taught him he wasn't a bad person; he'd just made bad decisions,
Diaz said.

Now the Hemet resident has cast aside his old life, found God, asked a woman
to marry him, and begun courses at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut to
become a drug and alcohol counselor, he said. He's grateful to everyone in
drug court and he still regularly goes to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, he
said.

"I know what's kept me clean this year," Diaz said.

Not everyone who agrees to go through drug court exhibits the same wisdom.
On Jan. 5, the drug court "judge," Commissioner Ronald Gilbert, sent
19-year-old Kristina Martinez to jail for a week after a urine test showed
she was trying to use a substance that would camouflage her continued drug
use.

"It's not a good choice, who you're hanging out with," Gilbert told her.
"You have a long prison career ahead of you."

Martinez seemed almost cavalier as she went off to jail.

The next Friday, she was in jailhouse orange, her eyes puffy from crying as
Diaz counseled her quietly in a corner of the courtroom. He told her that
child protective services would take away her child if she didn't straighten
out, Diaz said.

While Martinez struggles, Alfred Adams of Montclair is celebrating two years
of sobriety. Now 50, he got hooked on black tar heroin 28 years ago and
managed to support five children and a $150-a-day habit with a job in
tunneling.

His co-workers didn't see the telltale needle marks of a heroin addict
because "I always wore long sleeves" on the job, Adams said.

When he first got to drug court, he didn't think he could succeed, so he
walked out. But he returned.

"I was tired. I was just plain tired," he said.

He vomited for nine straight days when he stopped shooting up and had
trouble sleeping.

"After 30 days of being clean, I realized it wasn't so bad," Adams said.

He's started a lawn mower business and designed Halloween costumes and plans
to sell humorous baby pacifiers of his own creation.

None of it would've been possible without drug court, Adams said.

"If it wasn't for them, I'd be a dead man," he said.

Adams flashed a big smile and threw his arms wide.

"Life is beautiful," he said.
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