Michele took her lunch break to come down to Man Alive, Baltimore’s first treatment program to provide methadone (in 1967), to speak with me. She has been clean since 2000 after trying several different kinds of treatment programs. She recently got custody of her older daughter back and has just been certified as an orthotic fitter at her medical service job.

Q: How did you find Man Alive?

I came on as maintenance. The first year I was here I was still getting high- not as much on dope [heroin] as on coke [powder cocaine]. My first I was trying to re-adjust, to deal with reality basically.

I had a hard time adjusting to the lifestyle I was living [while on drugs]- making the money, the copping of the drugs, it took up my whole day to get them. Once I started getting into the program- groups, getting myself a job, my daughter back- that took up the time of copping. I was replacing the bad with the good.

It took me a year to basically readjust my whole life. That was 2000 and I haven’ touched any heroin or cocaine since then.

“I started doing things with my life because that’s what I wanted to do.”

Your whole life when you are on drugs is you wake up and the first thing you think is where am I going to get my well shot? And once you get that the whole day is how to get money for drugs- stealing, prostitution, whatever your hustle is. If you are lucky enough to have a car you could be a hacker- someone who takes people to get the drugs.

Some people get on the program- just to get to get the meth- “gas and go-“ not a big population, but a population out there. Some people want to change their life though. But you still have that ripping and running mentality. You have to change your whole life- people, places, things. I had to change friends, for me it was a big adjustment ripping and running all day.

I started doing things with my life because that’s what I wanted to do.

I put myself in Cocaine Anonymous because I had used that my first year here in the program [at Man Alive]. I was pretty big into that [Cocaine Anonymous]. When the guy didn’t show up who ran it, I would help run it with my friend. I spoke on TV one time about how the program helped me.

In 2000 I found out I had Hepatitis C. I was living with that a couple of years and then they had this study here with Johns Hopkins to see if folks on methadone could handle the treatment while they’re on meth.

When I first went to see the doctor they scarred the hell out of me. I had to “have my life stable.” “If you start you can’t stop- it will make the disease worse, I’d get depressed,” they told me. “I don’t want to do this,” I thought. But my oldest daughter, she’s 20 now, saw the note on the refrigerator and told me I had to call- that they were paying for it. That I couldn’t put it off. I’ve been on the medications for 17 weeks now. I had a liver count of 191,000 before the medication but now its undetectable because the medicine’s working. But I am really tired a lot, especially when I take the shot- it really wears you out. But I have a lot of support; my kids, the people I work for. It really helps when you have a good support system. Man Alive has helped me in more ways that one.

Q: Where do you work now?

At a medical equipment company. We fit patients for breast forms, braces, custom shoes. I just got certified to be an orthotic fitter. Six years ago I would have said, “no way!” Six years ago I would have said I wouldn’t ever have anything. I was a junkie in the street, doing anything to make money.

“…My youngest daughter wrote me a letter and told me about myself.”

And then my youngest daughter wrote me a letter and told me about myself. She had her father give me a letter. She was just 12 years old. And I read the letter and took a look at myself.

I tried other programs first. Oakview Treatment Center once, another program in Pennsylvania. I was so screwed up and high when I got there I signed myself out right after a few days and came back to Baltimore and got high.

When I went to Oakview I had the nastiest counselor. I left Oakview and got high in the parking lot. The counselor was trying to tell me about myself. And you’re trying to help me? That was a joke. I just left.

Before my mother died in October of 1997 I had been clean nine moneths- I had been doing it on my own and swhen she died I fell of the wagon. I had to go back to the life. At that time I was living under Jones Falls Expressway, bathing at McDonalds. I had a couple of friends that would let me take real baths once in a while. And then I met my guardian angel, which was Vince.

That was in 1998 around the same time my younger daughter wrote me the letter. He came into my life, for about eight months he told me I was spinning wheels and going nowhere- he tried to get me to change my life. I managed to get a job but couldn’t hold it of course. He supported me. He knew about the letter. I tried the mobile methadone program un December 1998. To me that was a joke – you go in, get medicated, I never saw a counselor That really wasn’t helping me. In between I was arrested four times. Once for felony theft, once for loitering, once for possession of cocaine. That judge told me I needed to get on a program- that’s when I got on the mobile and got off. So I violated my probation but before I got to court, I got in the hospital with Celulitis, so I lost my slot here- so the day I got out- I called down here and by the grace of God the person in the slot got arrested and they said if I came in the morning I could have it.

Q: How did you start using drugs?

I had always. From the age of 14 or 15 I started smoking pot- I smoked pot and drank and hen the people I hung around with took pills, we did acid, mushrooms. I smoked pot 20 some years, every day of my life. Then on my 22 nd birthday I was dating this guy and he said I have a birthday present for you and he stuck a needle in my arm and it was heroin and I liked it. I liked it a lot.

My oldest daughter was two and for about eight months I had been doing it all the time and one day I looked at her. And…she looked like… a little rag doll. In dirty shoes, clothes that were too small, and I didn’t want my daughter looking like that…So I didn’t do it anymore. But I was still smoking pot.

I had a bad marriage. It was horrible. We split up ad I moved in with my sister. I started heroin that weekend. I was over 300 pounds, had no self esteem, I felt worthless. And it felt so good. I didn’t have a worry in the world. And the next thing you know- I lost my job, kids, car, everything- dignity. I started prostituting.

Q: How did this affect your daughters?

I know it affected both of them. My youngest- Sam- lived in a shooting gallery with me for about three months. Not too long. We didn’t shoot in front of her, but she knew what we were doing. She would visit with her father. One day her father just wouldn’t let her come back to me. She gained a lot of weight.

My main problem, and still today, is guilt. I have a lot of guilt. I guess I don’t want to hear what they went through because I can imagine…what they went through.

I was in and out of her life. I can imagine- for a seven year old child. For me to not be there no more. I always sit and think- did she cry herself to sleep some nights? Did she think about some things- “why did my mother do this to me?” And my oldest- wasn’t even allowed to be around me at all... But she always said she waited for me to come back. But I never came.

“They don’t hold anything against me. I hold it against myself.”

She has been with me two years now and I hear about the horror stories she went through. But she says she doesn’t hold it against me. They don’t hold anything against me. I hold it against myself.

It really is a sickness. Throwing people in jail isn’t the answer. There’s a lot of people out there. I have a nephew who’s fighting it. My niece was strong enough to do it on her own with some Buprenorphine from her doctor. She’s now back to work.

My sister always told me its just another way of getting high. That’s not true. I’m getting my life back- I am a mother again. I have my kids back. I work everyday. They’re some people who just can’t do it on their own. They just can’t do it. My niece gave my nephew money to be on a program- a methadone program. So now my sister sees it differently because it’s her son now. Now he’ll be able to function.

“…My sister sees it differently because it’s her son now…”

Q: If you could change something in this country what would it be?

Have more drug treatment clinics. There’s just too many addicts and not enough help. So what do they do? They just continue to get high. And [the public] wonders why the AIDS rate is so high and the Hepatitis C rate is so high. It’s hard to kick heroin… it’s hard.

The people I used to hang out with- they weren’t stupid, illiterate people. One guy owned a HVAC company (heating and air conditioning), another was the building supervisor for a large building downtown. There were painters, nurses, accountants. Everybody- not just drop outs and poor people. All walks of life. Everybody deserves a chance. Even a second chance.

I wrote an essay and won a trip to a methadone treatment conference. And I went to NA meetings and some of the people that I saw- ! What people think who don’t do drugs- they think of dirty, nasty people. And there were people there who were lawyers and executives, who owned companies.

I was lucky. I met my guardian angel- Vince. I got away from the city. I was able to change my life. The first few times I tried to kick I ran away. But that doesn’t work. You can always get it if you want it.

But a lot of people can’t get away. They need treatment programs that can help people, help put their life on some kind of path. Not everybody can up and move their life someplace else.

I know it sounds crazy- but if there was just more treatment…

I was suicidal when I first came here- depressed. I had to carry around a suicide letter if I thought I was going to hurt myself. But Joanne [her first counselor at Man Alive] tool the time to listen- that’s what you need in treatment programs- people to listen. Listening to what they have to say. It’s the most important part.- getting things out- and then going from there. She made me a stronger person. I made me a stronger person.