Tracey is a client at Fellowship House, a large residential treatment program in Birmingham, Alabama.

Q: How did you get to Fellowship House?

I got tired of myself. And my mother. My mother’s help. We went through I want to say it was TASC- I wasn’t on TASC, but we called and asked for help. They gave me this list and told me to call the Alethia House. I did my assessment there and sent my assessments out from here to Montgomery. I was desperate, I was willing to travel to anywhere I needed to. But FH ended up calling me and said they had a bed available. But in the time of me putting my assessment in and the bed becoming available I had caught two felony charges on drugs. So now, it’s kind of like, “Court II,” I guess.

Q: How long was it between calling TASC, doing the assessment, and getting the call here?

It was about four months. June, she works here, was like, it was only by the grace of God that we called you- we just hold assessments for 90 days usually.

I’ve been here for five weeks.

Q: What were the two felony charges?

Burglary 3rd and fraudulent use of a credit card.

Q: So did use continue while you were waiting to get in?

Oh yeah! Oh yeah. I would try to go to my mom’s and be okay and be okay for maybe a week, but there I’d go. Right back out the door.

Q: So you would try to stay with her?

Oh yeah. I would try to get clean on my own. I tried that for so long and it never worked.

Q: Why not do you think?

Because of my self-will, me, I can’t; do it alone. The more I try to do it alone, the worse my addiction got.

Q: What do you mean?

It was like the more I tried, to get clean, the more problems I felt like came on top of me and the more problems I got, the more I used to run away from them.

Q: What were some of these problems?

Just simple stuff. I would be looking for anything, any little reason to just run back out there. My mother, and this wasn’t really a problem, but I felt like she always cared and treated my sister in law more like a daughter than she did me, and that kind of… it hurt. And that hurt- I was covering up… with all kinds of, with drugs and drinking.

And then the problems, it would be like, you know what I mean, a speeding ticket- I would have court coming up and I would say, “the hell with it.” And I would just go back out there to my use because I didn’t want to go to court. I was scared they were going ot put me in jail for a speeding ticket. I already had that addicted thinking.

Q: What do you mean that “addicted thinking?”

Well, for me, I was constantly always thinking the worst. Like a little speeding ticket- I am thinking, they are going to look at me; they are going to know that I am smoking crack; they are going to know everything about me and put me in jail. Just over one little bee sting ticket. I would get scared and I wouldn’t show up to court. Any little thing you know in my addicted thinking. I would find anything to pursue my addiction. Anything. If my hair didn’t do right. You know? To hell with, I am going to go smoke crack.

Q: What was your drug of choice?

Crack. Crack-cocaine.

Q: Over this four month period, how much were you using on a daily basis would you say?

Oooh. I mean, it’s really hard for me to say that because there was two weeks day in and day out I didn’t sleep , I didn’t eat and I didn’t drink anything. At all. Nothing. And it got to the point where I crawled to a pay phone and just had the strength to call my mom collect. And she accepted it. And I was hurting really, really bad. Once I got to the hospital, it was at the point to where I done smoked so much crack, I done been up so long, I let my body go, you know- not eating and drinking; I got to the hospital and my kidneys were shutting down. It was like, as much as I could get, when I could get it. It was a daily thing, 24-7. On the average, I would have to say, maybe like an ounce a day- that’s in a twenty-four hour period. That’s like $800. And you know… I was doing everything I could to get that.

Breaking and entering, everything you know… Anything I could do to get it. I just had to have that. It didn’t matter.

Q: So, over that four month period, all of that money was obtained illegally?

...Yeah.

Q: When did your drug use begin looking back?

Oooh. Well, my first use of any drug was at age 14. That’s terrible because it started out with cocaine. My cousin introduced the powdered form of cocaine to me. I had no clue, I was too busy worrying about boys. I had no clue as to what I was supposed to feel- I didn’t know nothing. The next morning when I woke up, I had done cut myself. I didn’t know how, where, or what I did the night before. But that incident, it really didn’t click in my mind what the feeling was it gave me. And then I was like 16 or 17 and I started back on the powdered form of cocaine. That carried on for about two years. And then I dropped it- I mean totally dropped it because I got pregnant. And started smoking pot. From pot, I went to prison for a couple of years. I went, actually sixteen months. I went in 2000 and I came home in 2001. My crack-cocaine addiction started when I came home from prison in 2001. Up until six weeks ago, January the 30 th.

I got the call from here on February the 7 th.

The County had picked me up on January the 30 th. And my mom left me, she would not come get me because of my addiction and my problem, and when she got the call from the FH stating that they had a bed available for me and that I had to be here at a certain time, she come bonded me out. The very next morning we came here. And I am fighting to stay here because I stay in trouble.

Q: The prison sentence for pot, how old were you then?

I was about 23. Actually, at that point in time, I had nine felonies and right now I have nine prior felonies on top of my two pending felonies. The nine prior are what I went to prison for: burglary, theft of property, breaking and entering, unlawful use of credit cards… I might be better off naming what I didn’t do.

Q: What was the actual sentence?

Five years.

Q: Still on parole?

No, I actually came off parole in 2001.

Q: Were there any specific drug charges?

I never had any specific drug charges. When I was younger, probably about 17 or 18- possibly 19- in my marijuana use, a friend of mine and I had got pulled over for being in the wrong neighborhood and they searched my car and found an ounce of marijuana. They would up throwing that case out because we got clean drinking plenty of water. The judge told me, if you pass this drug test, I’ll throw it out. I passed the drug test. I don’t know why.

Q: Now, the first time, when you got the five years, did they refer you to treatment?

Well, no. No. They put me on TASC. They put me on probation. Through probation I went through TASC. I ended up breaking my probation, violating with more charges, which is included with these nine, they ended up running everything concurrent and I served sixteen months.

Q: Why do you think you came back to using the cocaine and crack in your late teenage years?

I don’t know actually. It was, at the time, with some friends. They were doing it and… I guess I just thought it was cool. I was the cat- that the curiosity killed. I was very curious, as to what it was going to do to me. Like acid. I wanted to trip, too. I wanted to see green leprechauns. I was curious and tried it. In my late teenage years, when I tried crack and the powder form, I liked it. I liked the speed and everything about it.

Q: Now, how does it work being here? Do you pay?

When you’re working, if you have a job. Other than that, you do OJT, which is like little work and stuff throughout the center. You walk around and pick up cigarette butts, or work the canteen, like you seen me doing. Work the kitchen by washing dishes. Some form or another, yeah, you’re paying a rent here.

Now, when you start working, it is like $75 a week.

Q: How do you like the program?

I love it. Personally, I love it. I am not totally locked down. I have a choice today. And it’s given me a chance to learn responsibility again, to where I know if I go out there, if I got out my front door, I am responsible for what I do. I am responsible for a lot of things. I am responsible for that. I am responsible to keep my sanity. It’s like a shelter here because I feel safe. Here. I am scared to go home, because I am not going to have someone there telling me whenever I do something wrong. While I am here, I am trying to take in perspective about my responsibilities. I think it is a good thing here because you do have your freedom. A lot of places, it’s like total lock down.

Q: Is this your first treatment program?

Well, actually, I went through a women’s place in ’98. But at that time, I was smoking pot. I had already dropped the powder form of cocaine and I hadn’t started the crack-cocaine. I was smoking pot and that was around the time I started catching my cases. So I kind of went on my own into a program, particularly to stay out of jail. I didn’t care about recovery then. I didn’t want recovery then.

I stayed out of prison and got probation, but being that I wasn’t ready for my recovery, I continued my use and caught more cases and that’s what revoked my probation and sent me to prison.

Q: How do you look back on all those charges now?

Crazy. Crazy! Stupid, very stupid. I mean, I could have gotten shot, easily. I could have ended up in a dumpster, nobody ever found my body. There were months when I wouldn’t have contact with my family or my kids- I have four kids. I didn’t know if they were okay or what and they didn’t know if I was alive or dead. It was like total insanity, total.

I know that that’s something, any of my actions, that’s something that I would have never taken into action without the use. If I would have been sober and clean, I wouldn’t have done that, none of it.

Q: Who are your kids living with throughout all of this?

My mother.

Q: And how have they responded to all of it?

It kills them. My oldest is ten. My mother and I, like I said in the beginning, I would look for the simple things so I could leave and go and use. My mother and I had gotten into a simple argument over clothes, dirty clothes or something stupid. And I got cried, I got upset, and I was squalling. And I went out the front door because we don’t smoke in the house and I was going to smoke a cigarette and my ten year old was right behind me, squalling, just as hard as I was, “Momma, please don’t leave, momma please don’t go nowhere.” And that night I didn’t leave cuz I turn around and seen his face and I seen how bad- I mean he was hyperventilating he was crying so hard. And when I seen his face I was like, “Tracey, what are you doing?! What are you doing to these kids?” I toughed it out and I stayed at home that night.

But, today, I don’t think my younger children… I have a little girl that’s six. She knows. She begs me to get better… I talked to her a couple of weeks ago on the phone. She was okay, she wasn’t crying, but she told me, “Momma, you can’t come home until you get better.” She took it upon herself to tell me that, she just smart. Then I have a four year old and a two year old and neither of them really understand. They just know that sometimes momma’s here and sometimes I don’t see her for a while. They wander around the house and wonder where’s momma… They’re a lot better now. I can see the relationship. The way it has changed, the way everything is just… so much better. We get along. Nothing goes wrong. If it does, then it is something major, it is not this nit-picky stuff I kept looking for.

Q: Are you from Birmingham?

Yes. Actually my family still lives here.

Q: How would you describe what’s going on in Birmingham in terms of drugs and what’s being done about it?

It’s everywhere. It’s everywhere and it makes me sick. Because… when I was in my addiction, in the drug areas, the police will ride around and not do nothing at all to take it off the streets but continue to arrest the users. They won’t do nothing to the sellers that’s actually putting them out there, but the users are the ones that are catching the hell, really. I don’t see where they’re accomplishing anything doing that. If they would, I don’t know, I just feel like, if they would put more effort into the seller, the dealing part, then you know it might make a difference in the users. That way, the users won’t have that connection to get this. They won’t have, like me- if they would have taken my seller instead of dealing with me, then I wouldn’t have had my connection. I would have eventually found more, but if they had done their job and continued to take it off the street, eventually I am not going to find no more.

Q: What are you looking at?

I am looking at 15-99-life. I fall under habitual offender.

Q: What do you think will happen?

…We’ve been to court once…and the judge offered me 15. And I couldn’t see that far… so I turned it down. My attorney has waived it to a grand jury… So I am waiting, I am waiting now for a court date to be set for a grand jury. If they find me guilty, then I am looking at more than that 15 I could have taken…

Q: If you are in prison for 15 years, what will your kids do during that time?

…Snfff. Growing up without me. They’ll be with my mom… as long as she’s alive… Snff… You know, I have… their daddies are not… a part of their lives at all… they never have been, snnfff. Um… My mom’s had them… since birth, really. I stayed on the road, I stayed on drugs… If I went home, it was just for a minute to take a shower and get a change of clothes. This past Christmas, New Year’s. I wasn’t there. I don’t even know what they got for Christmas. If it wasn’t for my mom and my father, my kids would be totally scattered all over the state.

And that’s another reason I have got to get myself together. They are not always going to be there. And I don’t want my kids to grow up with a mother like me. Or to grow up in the environment. I don’t want the drugs to be on the street when they get there. That’s why I feel so strongly about them taking the dealers off the streets.

I know that’s just really impossible to start working on it, but they’re not working on it now, they’re not, the police aren’t doing nothing about getting the police out of society, they are just taking the users, and behind that user, there’s another one. There’s millions of users, way more users than there are dealers. You know, I just don’t understand why they don’t- a lot of them are paid off. I do know that. Paid off by the dealers. A lot of them are paid off by the dealers in order not to mess with them. They know what’s going on in that house, but they don’t do nothing at all.

Q: Anything else in particular you want to say?

I just want them off the streets. I don’t want my kids to get it. I just, I personally would be willing to do whatever I could to get it away, to get it out of society. Because it’s killing people. It is killing the world apart, little by little. I don’t want to get back out there into that. I’m scared because I know it’s there and I’m going to get that desire because I am an addict. But I am willing to do whatever I have to today to keep it together... That’s about it.