Bill’s Story

As a child of the Sixties, Bill started drinking and smoking marijuana in his early teens.  His drug use increased when he arrived in Vietnam the day after his eighteenth birthday.  When one is surrounded by insanity and expecting to die every day, the morality of drug use is irrelevant. 

His drug use continued after he came home.  He always worked hard and made a good living, with the help of “anti-fatigue drugs” like the ones the military issued.  One can work hard for two shifts straight with a nose full of crank.  As he got older, his drug use diminished, but never stopped.  I met him when we moved into a house near his.  As the “bus-stop moms” we got to be pretty good friends.  He was working and supporting his son, but had a miserable, unstable home life.  A couple of years later, an unexpected divorce left me alone with my daughter, and Bill and I turned to each other as a couple of lost souls.  I saw a wounded warrior under the “Billy bad-ass” attitude.  Inside was a good man who wanted to get out.  I didn’t see a future for us, as I would not marry a drug user. 

The best thing that ever happened to him was his first drug arrest.  Ninety days in jail woke him up.  Part of his sentence was drug counseling at Sierra Family Services (SFS).  His counselor won his respect, and Bill began to listen.  He asked to repeat the course when he’d finished his first set of sessions, since he got so much out of it.  That’s when he began the slow process of turning his life around. 

His second experience with SFS involved his son.  When his son’s mother was arrested, CPS gave Bill temporary custody with conditions.  Bill failed a drug test, and his son was taken and placed in a foster home.  That almost destroyed Bill.  His son is the most important thing in his life.  What he couldn’t do for himself, he could do for his son.  He went through more counseling at SFS, and drug testing—everything the judge ordered, he did and more.  His son’s mother did not comply with the judge’s orders, so Bill was awarded full legal and physical custody of his son.  Bill stayed clean, went back to court, and began taking care of his son, my daughter and me. The good man I saw was coming out.

After a couple of years Bill had a tiny relapse and was caught.  He was afraid to call me because I had told him one more arrest and I was gone.  He had proposed to me when he was in jail, but I would not marry a drug user.  When he explained the circumstances, I agreed to give him one more chance.  The judge offered him the chance to attempt the Proposition 36 drug program, rather than prison, and he took it.  It is a very difficult program with a success rate under 30%.  Again, Sierra Family Services provided counseling and this past April Bill graduated from the program.  I married him the next day.

Counseling works, for those ready to listen.  Without it, Bill would be in prison, or dead.  His son and I gave him a goal and reasons to try.  Sierra Family Services gave him the tools to change the patterns of a lifetime.

Bill is now fighting a tougher battle.  He has cirrhosis and liver cancer as a result of the Hepatitis C he contracted during his years of drug use.  He is on a liver transplant list and his prospects are excellent, but the waiting is hard.  One thing I’d like to point out to skeptics—because of Sierra Family Services and Proposition 36, Bill was employed when his cancer was discovered.  His private insurance will cover the cost of the transplant, saving Medi-Cal over a million dollars.  Now, that’s cost effective.