Pubdate: Mon, 16 Jan 2006
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: A01 - Front Page
Copyright: 2006 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Authors: Yolanda Woodlee and Lori Montgomery, Washington Post Staff Writers
Note: Staff writer Hamil R. Harris and researcher Bobbye Pratt 
contributed to this report.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Marion+Barry
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Test)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

RECOVERY A CONSTANT CHALLENGE FOR BARRY

Late one night in 1996, suspicious that Marion Barry was using drugs
again, boxing promoter Rock Newman sat him down and told him that he
should resign as D.C. mayor and focus on beating his addiction. Newman
said Barry cried in his arms.

He remembers Barry telling him: "I love you, man. I know I betrayed
your friendship." Barry agreed to leave town for a while and take a
second stab at treatment. But he wouldn't give up politics. "He felt
if he wasn't the mayor, he wasn't nothing," Newman said.

Newman is out of Barry's life now; he dropped away after questioning
the sincerity of Barry's efforts to stay sober and clean during his
fourth and final term as mayor. A few years later, Barry's wife, Cora,
left him, too, after he derailed a comeback council campaign by
getting caught with a $5 rock of crack cocaine in his car. By 2004,
when Barry won the Ward 8 council seat, many of his old friends had
abandoned him.

For 25 years, Barry has, by his own admission, battled addictions to
drugs, alcohol and women even as he repeatedly sought and won election
to public office. He found relief in New Age healing and spiritual
guidance as well as medical treatment. But whatever strength he drew
from those sources apparently didn't last. In November, a
court-ordered urine test came up positive for cocaine, the drug that
pulled his life apart and sent him to prison.

Now, Barry faces the possibility of another jail term and the
potential loss of the political prominence he fought hard to regain.
Some longtime friends doubt that he was ever fully committed to his
own sobriety. However he came to use cocaine at age 69, Barry is not
unique. More than 50,000 people over age 50 sought treatment for
illegal drugs in 2002, the leading edge of a trend that is expected to
worsen as the Woodstock generation ages.

Other people might be humiliated by revelations of drug use,
especially if they had, like Barry, traded publicly on a record of
recovery and redemption. Last week, Barry called a news conference. He
emerged defiant from Howard University Hospital, where he was treated
for diabetes and hypertension, and chastised the reporters who had
gathered in the rain.

"I don't wish these things on me. I wish I didn't have them," he said
of his illnesses. "So I wish y'all would stop sensationalizing the
human frailties of human beings."

Barry refused to discuss the drug test, saying, "I don't want to talk
about that." His health is good, he said; his spirits are "high and
great." Barry pleaded guilty in October to two misdemeanor charges of
failing to pay federal income taxes, and the drug test was part of a
routine screening process for defendants awaiting sentencing. Sources
said Barry has entered a private treatment program in hopes of
persuading a judge to grant him probation.

Yesterday, Barry asked a Washington Post reporter to meet him at
Temple of Praise in the Washington Highlands neighborhood in
Southeast, where he was attending services. In an interview at the
church, he said he is trusting in God to help him weather "a storm."

"I think all of my life and all of everybody's life we have had
struggles," he said. "You can act like the storm doesn't exist, you
can go through it or you can go above it. I have chosen to ride above
the storm, and God will carry me over to the other side."

Barry again would not talk about the drug test, saying that "for legal
reasons, I can't discuss my own situation at this time." He said he is
attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings two or three times a week.
"When we talk about recovery, 90 percent of the people lapse one or
more times," he said. "It is the nature of the disease."

Darryl Colbert, who has served as Barry's sponsor in recovery for more
than a decade, said Barry has called him almost every day since
failing the test.

"He does what a person that wants to stay clean does: He talks to me,"
Colbert said.

Did Barry ever stop using drugs? If so, what happened? It's impossible
to know.

Colbert said Barry probably started feeling good again. "When you've
been off a mood-changing chemical for a while, your health comes back,
your skin color comes back, you feel healthy, and your body and your
mind tell you that you're not that bad. You're okay."

In January, Barry returned to city hall, the backdrop for his days as
power broker and wheeler-dealer, when he sometimes stayed out all
night, drinking cognac and chasing women. Experts on addiction say the
situation could trigger a desire for drugs along with feelings of
invincibility.

"People start thinking, 'I'm different. I can still do it. Look, I'm
mayor. I can get elected to the city council. I can control my use,' "
said Frederic Blow, a psychiatry professor at the University of
Michigan. "You might start using a little bit here, a little bit
there. And then it gets out of control."

Blow studies substance abuse among older adults, who are seeking help
for drug addiction in growing numbers. In 1992, fewer than 3,000
people over age 50 sought treatment for cocaine, for example; by 2002,
that number had swelled to nearly 13,000, according to a survey by the
U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

In part, the numbers reflect a larger elderly population. But
statisticians say they also signal changes in the elderly population,
as baby boomers who experimented with illicit drugs in their youth
return to those drugs to relieve the boredom and depression of
retirement and old age. The oldest baby boomers are turning 60 this
year; Barry will be 70 in March.

Cocaine can be more dangerous at 69 than at 29. It hits harder, its
effects last longer and it can aggravate other chronic conditions,
including diabetes and high blood pressure. Anytime Barry uses the
drug, one health specialist said, he is risking a heart attack.

But older addicts who seek help tend to do well, Blow said. "Many
people say they really want to work on recovery again because they
don't want to die an addict."

Three of the people most familiar with Barry's recovery -- his wife,
Cora Masters Barry, and his onetime spiritual advisers the Rev. Willie
F. Wilson and the Rev. Barbara Williams-Skinner -- declined to be
interviewed for this story. Several other friends also declined to
talk about Barry publicly, saying they were too disheartened by the
news.

Newman, who once ranked among his closest confidants, is not
optimistic about Barry's commitment to recovery. In a telephone
interview from his home in Las Vegas, Newman described Barry as
brilliant but undisciplined and "extremely spoiled," a thrill-seeker
with "an incredible sense of entitlement" who revels in outwitting
those around him.

"There's always a fine line between genius and self-destructive
insanity. Marion has often walked that high wire," he said. "I'm
absolutely convinced, after being close-up and personal . . . that
part of the continuing allure and fascination [of drugs] for him has
been the cat-and-mouse game."

D.C. police were first tipped off to Barry's alleged cocaine use in
1981. Their suspicions were confirmed in January 1990, when the FBI
videotaped the mayor smoking a crack pipe and fondling a former model
named Rasheeda Moore in the Vista Hotel (now known as the Wyndham Hotel).

Four days later, Barry entered drug rehab for the first time, checking
into the Hanley-Hazelden Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. He 
continuedto serve as mayor, however, and conduct city business, and he
complained that a media stakeout was violating his privacy. He moved
to a more secluded South Carolina facility, where he stayed until
March 13, his longest publicly acknowledged period of residential drug
treatment.

Barry was sentenced to six months in prison for cocaine possession, a
misdemeanor. He was released in April 1992 and immediately started
running for the D.C. Council. Two years later, he waged a successful
campaign for mayor on a platform of personal and political redemption.

His first year back in the mayor's office was a disaster: The city was
insolvent. A congressionally-appointed control board took over. And
Barry found out he had prostate cancer. Meanwhile, "Barry started
being seen at places that concerned his supporters," Newman said.

Barry denied using drugs, but Newman and others didn't believe him.
Newman told Barry that he would publicly call for his resignation
unless he sought help.

In April 1996, Barry announced that his behavior was showing "the
telltale signs of spiritual relapse and physical exhaustion" and left
for private retreats in rural Maryland and St. Louis.

Newman found Barry's comments less than candid, and he told reporters
at the time that Barry had not halted "the maddening process toward
relapse and personal destruction." When Barry returned from St. Louis,
Newman told Cora Masters Barry that he could no longer act as an ally.

"Part of what angered me was that kind of perpetual con," Newman said.
"You couldn't have personal integrity and stay on that train. This is
a train wreck."

Barry finally left the mayor's office in 1999. He stayed mostly in the
background, working as a consultant, until 2004, when he decided to
challenge Ward 8 council member Sandy Allen. Barry looked gaunt and
frail -- his complexion was ashen -- and rumors of drug use quickly
resurfaced. Barry said doctors had him on the wrong diabetes
medication. Still, longtime supporters shied away, including Wilson,
who endorsed Allen.

"People who had supported him in the past just weren't there. He
couldn't find a treasurer," said Dion Jordan, who served briefly as
Barry's campaign manager. "I was like 'Wow -- Where are the people?' "
Radio talk show host Joe Madison was one of the few prominent figures
at Barry's kickoff. Madison said that he thought Barry was the best
candidate and that Barry had assured him his drug days were behind
him.

Last week, when Madison heard that Barry had tested positive for
cocaine, he said he felt as though he'd "been kicked in the stomach."

Some people are ready to rally around Barry and blame his latest
troubles on the criminal justice system. As Barry left the hospital
last week and climbed into an aide's Jaguar, Howard Jackson, a
self-described ex-pimp, was among a small group of admirers whooping
and hollering.

"He didn't fail that drug test. They planted it on him," he
insisted.

Callers to Madison's radio show have expressed similar support for
Barry. "We have to continue loving Marion Barry," one said.

But Madison is not so sure. "We might be loving him to death," he
said.

Staff writer Hamil R. Harris and researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed
to this report. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake