Heritics of Heroin

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A vision of recovery

Sunday, June 11, 2006
BOB MILLER ~ Southeast Missourian

Melissa Mackey talked about her life as a crack addict. On March 1, 2005, Mackey began a program at a new Cape Girardeau facility called the Vision House. She hoped she would be ready to approach life without drugs within a year.

Part 1 of 7

Melissa Mackey sat on the floral couch in a decorated apartment unit, puffing on her cigarette. The smoke danced with the bright sunlight that gleamed through the windows, a yin-and-yang kind of dance symbolic of the bright yet troubled woman who sat there.

Melissa was a bit excited, a bit uncomfortable, as if she didn't know what to do with herself. The cigarette kept her occupied.

The walls were freshly painted white, and the the room was daintily decorated as if Melissa and her roommate had been collecting knickknacks for years. A television at the end of the room was turned off. In both bedrooms, beds were neatly made with clean sheets and pillows. Pantries were stocked with food.

Perhaps the clean and pure space around her was one reason Melissa seemed a little out of place last March 1.

Weeks before, Melissa lay in a St. Louis street gutter, burns on her feet from the hot air that escaped from the city's sewer vents. She had rested there to keep warm.

A series of repeated mistakes had steered her there, homeless and wasted.

Alcohol led to crack. Crack led to life on the streets, panhandling, partying and prostitution.

Melissa had found herself alone, tired, absent from her 4-year-old daughter, away from God, who seemed to be speaking to her.

You don't have to die this way.

Melissa had tried and failed 14 times to purge herself of her demons through various two- to four-week drug-rehab facilities. But the demons wouldn't let go. Or she wouldn't let go of them. That's the perpetual puzzle of addiction. It's hard to tell where the person stops and the illness begins. Where does a person cross the line from chemically dependent to mentally weak or from mentally weak to merely undisciplined? At what point does a recovering addict deserve empathy? At what point is the abuser using that empathy in her favor? As Melissa knew, as her family and counselors knew, the lines were hard to draw. Drug addicts are manipulators, cheats and thieves. They're also, under the thick cloud of dependency, real people with feelings, personalities, dreams and even morals.

By the time Melissa had unpacked her few belongings into the tidy apartment on March 1, 2005, she knew about all the pitfalls that came with drugs.

In the past few years, Melissa had been a terrible mother. She had given birth to a daughter who was found with cocaine in her system. Melissa had to give custody of her newborn to her parents.

She had sacrificed her motherly bond for the five-minute euphoria that only crack could provide. But that was about to change. Dirty, burned and strung out in the street gutter, she heard that voice and realized she didn't want to die. She wanted a better life. She called her father, who once again reached out to help. Melissa ended up in a rehabilitation facility called the Family Counseling Center in Cape Girardeau.

She finished that program and became one of the charter residents of the Vision House. As she smoked her cigarette in her clean, new apartment, she was 69 days clean. Now she faced the real world again, a smoke-and-sunshine world that presented a fresh new start and the same filthy temptations. But this time, she didn't have to go back to St. Louis. She didn't have to reintroduce herself to the same acquaintances who led her down crack's path.

This time would be different.

This time she had the Vision House. The newborn Vision House.

That's where Melissa sat, and that's where Melissa's latest and most serious attempts to stay clean began.

The facility was called the Vision House, but more accurately it was the Vision apartments. Melissa shared a unit with a woman named Donna Bruce, a mysterious character who preferred to listen more than talk, a woman who kept herself at arm's length, a woman who had moved to Dexter, Mo., to help her elderly parents get through some difficult times, a woman who was going through a divorce but seemed indifferent about it, a woman who claimed she was wrongly accused and arrested for a burglary. But unlike her apartment mate, she was a closed book. She spoke softly, exuding little personality.

For both women, the Vision House was more than a new start. It was a gift, courtesy of a woman named Theresa Taylor.

To know Theresa is to know a war survivor. She survived fights (most of which she picked) and gunshots (all of which fortunately missed). She scrapped her way through most of her life. Her childhood was a mess. Then she left home, had three children of her own, gave her two daughters to their grandmother and dragged her son, now a teenager, through the muck. In the end, she survived her addiction to methamphetamine. It was not the weak stuff they sell on the streets these days. Her meth was the powerful, clean, old-school crystal shipped from California, back in the days the drug was first being introduced. But she survived more than drugs. She survived a lifestyle, which became an addiction of its own. She had lived in a place where morality hid in dark corners, encouragement vanished behind threats and love swapped places with betrayals and drug-induced highs.

She eventually emerged from the shadows through a religious rebirth and found a new way to live.

Even as a born-again Christian, Theresa is still the spitfire she always was, a feisty, exuberant, no-nonsense woman whose outgoing personality will light up a room, but whose temper can rage if she is pushed hard enough. She still deals with countless psychological scars from her past, with her children and with herself. She bears physical scars, too. Like her voice. When she opened the Vision House more than a year ago, Theresa sounded like a gruff cartoon character.

Her voice was deep and scratchy, the result of smoking cigarettes and inhaling too much meth as a girl and young woman.

It was sometimes amusing to hear Theresa talk. Her voice sounded something like Cookie Monster's, but her message was positive, serious, meaningful and enthusiastic.

The last two years had been pointing to this March, the day she would open her Vision and her heart to women who were just like she used to be: trapped. It was open to selected drug-addicted women who were homeless and who had completed a drug-rehab program.

The Vision House was intended to be a bridge back to the real world. Its aim was to provide what girls like Melissa needed. A place to stay. A fresh start. A structured environment. A chapel. Hope.

Theresa and Melissa had bonded long before the Vision House opened a year ago March 1. They had become friends through various meetings and visits at the Family Counseling Center. Melissa was another version of Theresa. Both were outgoing, mischievous, fun and big-hearted, if you can believe that women with big hearts could do some of the things both of these women have done.

Theresa approached the Vision House like someone embarking on a new business venture. She didn't do it alone: Many churches, organizations and individuals came to Theresa's side, donating money, time and labor. But this was Theresa's baby.

Theresa was not getting paid. Her work, at least at first, was all volunteered. But there was an unmistakable optimism in her Cookie-Monster voice. She believed she was one of God's tools and that, through him, she could do anything. She was also a bit frantic. There were still rooms to refurbish, still so many loose ends. But the Vision House was open, and there were eight girls who needed help, including her friend Melissa.

Melissa, meanwhile, voiced guarded optimism. She was excited about the opportunity, thrilled about the apartment and encouraged by Theresa's helping hand. But she was also uneasy.

The Vision House would give Melissa two years. Two years of emotional and spiritual support. Two years of Bible studies, two years of counseling, two years of accountability.

As Melissa sat on that floral couch, gauging her situation, she hoped she could kick her habit in a year. That was her goal last March 1. One year and she'd be strong enough to reclaim her life, to be the mother she knew she could be; to make it on her own without crack. It would take a year to mend the damaged relationships in her family.

The rules would be strict at the Vision House. There would be a zero-tolerance policy. Once caught with alcohol or drugs, you were out. No exceptions.

So Melissa felt a little bit of fear as well.

"Addicts have a funny acronym about fear," Melissa said. "F-- Everything And Run." Fear was no good. Neither was boredom. Neither was stress.

Melissa and all the women at the Vision House would surely face all three before they'd be ready to leave. Every trial would create a temptation. Every temptation would provide an excuse.

But Theresa would take the ride with them, trying desperately to guide, coax and pull each woman to the recovery side of the fence.

Melissa, like all of the women at the Vision House, didn't have many belongings. Drug addiction tends to rob people of possessions as much as it does their meaningful relationships.

While the packing was light, the emotional baggage weighed on Melissa's and roommate Donna's minds as they puffed their cigarettes.

One path was lit with sunshine. One was filled with smoke. Which path would they choose?

Coming tomorrow: Melissa takes a stand in her daughter's life.

Melissa takes a stand in her daughter's life
Monday, June 12, 2006

BOB MILLER ~ Southeast Missourian

Nothing about the way Melissa Mackey acted or looked made her appear like a crack addict.

Melissa was in a grand mood, or at least she appeared that way, laughing and mingling in the nave of St. Mary's Cathedral in Cape Girardeau. The service had just ended, and the priest was preparing a baptismal font for two families.

It was March 13, 2005, almost two weeks after the opening of the Vision House. Melissa was taking a huge step in her life.

She was surrounded by her family. Melissa's parents, who raised their daughter in Catholic traditions, were there. So were Melissa's brother and two sisters. A couple of aunts and uncles and Grandma Russo had also made the trip down from St. Louis.

But the most important member of the family on that day had to be Olivia, Melissa's 3-year-old daughter.

She was dressed in a frilly yellow dress, a purple sweater and an irresistible ear-to-ear grin. The smile was contagious. Melissa glowed as she watched her daughter travel from lap to lap, from kiss to kiss and under the pews, perhaps looking for treasure.

"I'm getting baptized," Olivia told anyone willing to listen.

Melissa had a strong presence in the room. She was tall and overweight, not unpretty. Her bubbly and outgoing personality made her likable, and Melissa always aimed to please. That thirst to make others happy, to impress or entertain others, was perhaps one of her most glaring personality flaws, though if channeled correctly, it could have been a tremendous asset. Had drugs not overtaken her life, Melissa could perhaps have had a career in sales, marketing or even politics.

Instead, Melissa was an unemployed and drug-addicted mother. While her problems seemed to vanish with her smiles, and even though she was trying to do the right thing, Melissa could not escape her past, not even in the spiritual spaces of St. Mary's.

Melissa was out of place here.

Five days earlier, she had met with the priest about the baptism.

She explained her situation: She was a recovering addict. Her biological daughter, whom she did not have custody of, needed to be baptized. She was 3 years old, and the spiritual ritual had been put off far too long already.

Melissa said the priest, in trying to assess her situation, had told her addiction was like a bowl of acid. The addict was simply dipping her hand in the acid over and over again.

Melissa thought the analogy was awful, yet another attempt at advice by someone who thought he knew what it was like to be an addict, who knew how easy it must be to say no. No one would ever find pleasure in dipping her hand into a bowl of acid, she thought. Crack, on the other hand ...

Melissa insisted to the priest that this time was different. She said she had an epiphany from God while lying in the St. Louis street. She knew God was with her, she told the priest, and it was time to do the right thing.

"What do you want out of your life?" the priest asked.

The question was one she had thought about often, a big question, the biggest of questions. One that was stressful and dangerous to answer. Because she didn't know.

"I'm not even thinking about that," Melissa responded, wondering what it had to do with getting her daughter baptized. "I'm just living in the day, trying to come to peace with myself, trying to be caring to others." The priest agreed that the church would do the baptism.

The talk was stressful, one that might have led to a bad decision weeks earlier. She had to have a long talk with Theresa Taylor, the Vision House director, to calm herself down.

The stress five days later was a different kind.

Melissa, dressed in khakis, a dark sweater and a white shirt, acted like the hostess of a party, gliding from one relative to another, sometimes holding Olivia on her hip, while the priest got things ready.

The family reunion inside the church was a happy moment, but her troubled past surrounded her.

Another family, a beautiful family with a father, mother and an infant, was preparing for a baptism as well.

Olivia's father was noticeably absent, a detail Melissa admitted later made her feel sad. But Melissa wasn't angry at her daughter's father. Like her, he had demons to face, she said. He wasn't ready to deal with that, and she understood that better than anyone else in the room.

Father Patrick Nwokoye, one of St. Mary's priests, called the families to the front. A bespectacled man, Nwokoye spoke with a pure and deliberate tenor voice.

In front of him rested the baptismal font. Behind him, a bronze-colored Jesus hung from a cross. Below the crucifix was a sign that read: "Be reconciled." On the sign was a picture of a glass of wine, a Christian symbol for Jesus' blood. But on March 13, 2005, knowing Melissa's past, it could have been interpreted as a symbol for Melissa's sin, appropriately placed at the foot of the cross. Her destination to crack always began down the road of alcohol. First a drink, then another drink. A drunken stupor that's not quite enough. Only crack could finish the job, only crack could give the rising action a suitable climax. It was a story repeated hundreds of times over the last several years.

Melissa and her 16 relatives watched the other baptism first. Then came time for Olivia.

The priest's spoken words, perhaps viewed as ceremonious to some, came across as difficult vows for Melissa.

Nwokoye said: "You have come here to present this child for baptism. By water and the Holy Spirit they are to receive the gift of new life from God, who is love. On your part, you must make it your constant care to bring her up in the practice of the faith.

"See that the divine life which God gives them is kept safe from the poison of sin, to grow always stronger in their hearts É" The priest continued, and then asked Melissa a series of relevant and sobering questions.

"Do you reject sin, so as to live in the freedom of God's children?"

"Do you reject the glamour of evil and refuse to be mastered by sin?"

"Do you reject Satan, father of sin and prince of darkness?"

"Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth?"

He asked several more faith-related questions. She answered affirmative to all of them.

By the time he reached the point of sprinkling the water, Olivia had become restless, squirming in her mother's arms.

When the ceremony was over, the family celebrated.

A dinner was planned. An adorable daughter and mending mother were reunited, if for only a while.

Melissa felt right. Even without being high, she felt wonderful.

"I finally took a stand in my daughter's life," she said.

But was she ready to take a stand in her own?

Melissa was an extrovert, a woman who was comfortable in crowds, who desired, at least at this point in her life, to be noticed. She set out to impress.

She had been clean from drugs for more than 80 days, and during that time she studied the Bible, prayed, confessed, worshiped and confessed some more.

But you never know with drug addicts. It's hard to tell where the person stops and the illness begins, when the abuser is using things, such as religion, to gain a leverage which can be used to obtain that which is most important: the five-minute high.

But as the words spilled out of Melissa's mouth on March 22, 2005, she must have been sincere. It's one thing to read the Bible or claim to your family or counselors that God has turned your life around.

It's something completely different to stand in front of 300 to 400 pastors and give your testimony.

That's what was happening in Dyersburg, Tenn.

Theresa Taylor, director of the Vision House in Cape Girardeau.
(Diane L. Wilson)

Theresa Taylor, the Vision House director, had scheduled a trip to the bi-vocational pastors' conference that weekend. One of Theresa's biggest jobs as director of the Vision House was to raise money. So she took her entrepreneurial spirit, her faith and her relentless energy on the road as a Vision House saleswoman, hoping that a church would consider sponsorship. She had been asked to give testimony, and Theresa brought a couple of women with her. One of them was Melissa.

Theresa spoke first, outlining the purpose of the Vision House, which was to provide long-term transitional support for homeless drug-addicted women who had completed a short-term drug rehabilitation program.

Then it was Melissa's turn. She had volunteered and had been thinking on the drive down about what she would say.

"On the way here, I didn't really know what I was going to say," she started nervously. "I, you know, just wanted to give some insight of who I am and where I'm from.

"I'm a firm believer that nothing happens in God's world by mistake. If someone told me at the age of 18 that by the age of 25 I'd be a single mother who lost custody of my daughter, a homeless prostitute due to a drug addiction, I would have laughed and said, 'Not me. Don't you know who I am? I have goals and dreams; that stuff doesn't happen to people like me.' "And by 'people like me' I mean I was raised in a middle-class family whose parents were loving and nurturing. They didn't drink and didn't do drugs. I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school till the 12th grade. I started drinking at 14, smoked pot for the first time at 15, snorted my first line of cocaine at 18. By 21, I had smoked crack for the first time and from that moment on, I began my illicit love affair with crack cocaine."

She told the pastors how she became pregnant at the age of 22 with the person she thought she would marry.

"One problem, though," she said. "He used drugs, too." She described herself as a "monster" who would lie, cheat and steal from her own family and friends. She said she began to push God away.

"I got angry at God," she said. "Why would he give an innocent child to a person like me? I really hated him because I hated myself for knowing what I was doing and not being able to stop. I was too scared to tell anyone what I was doing." Melissa was pouring it all out, confessing all her sins to 400 strangers. She told the crowd she had entered and completed 14 treatment-center programs that lasted 14 to 21 days each.

The centers would release her before she was ready. It wasn't enough time. The longest she had stayed clean was 120 days. She didn't want to go back home.

"I was tired of hurting and hurting others. My faith in God was gone.

"It was in that madness I had a moment of clarity. A voice inside of me, I'll never forget. I was standing on the side of the street; I just woke up from sleeping on the dock, behind St. Patrick Center when this voice inside of me, but it wasn't me, said: 'You don't want to die like this, Melissa. You know you don't have to live like this.'"

She then went to the nearest pay phone and called her father. Her parents hadn't heard from her in three weeks; Melissa had stolen her mother's car. But her father welcomed her home anyway.

When he saw her, he told her she looked dead.

He took her to the hospital, which referred her to the Family Counseling Center in Cape Girardeau.

It was there, several years before the most recent setback, she met a woman named Karen Daugherty.

Karen "asked if I had remembered Theresa Taylor, who used to come and speak to us," Melissa continued to explain to the crowd of pastors. "I said, 'Yeah,' and that's when I heard they had been working together on the Vision House.

"Through them and their vision I see every day the wonders and miracles God bestows upon me. I live in a wonderful home with incredible people.

"If someone would've told me four months ago that there was hope and a place like the Vision House for people like me, I would've laughed. But in such a short time, God has revealed himself through the Vision House.

"I realize I do have a purpose. My purpose was not to die as a hopeless victim of this disease, but to become a victor through my trials and tribulations." That's how the speech ended. She was greeted with a standing ovation. Melissa made her turnaround sound so inspiring, which it was. But she also made it sound easy.

Through her many previous failures she learned that fighting addictions -- and a self-serving lifestyle -- isn't easy. She would soon find out it wouldn't be easy at the Vision House either.

Coming tomorrow: Theresa's first childhood stupor; Melissa finds herself in trouble.

Signs of trouble at Vision House

Tuesday, June 13, 2006
BOB MILLER ~ Southeast Missourian

Theresa Taylor, left, listened to Karen Daugherty as she talked about finding out her granddaughter had started doing drugs.
(Diane L. Wilson)
[Click to enlarge]

Part 3 of 7

The clock rewinds 30-something years to Theresa Taylor's first memory of drugs.

She was 5 years old, a blond kindergartner with big blue eyes.

Theresa thought it would be nice to make a little money, but she didn't know how. Then a thought came to her. Like many children, she enjoyed using scissors and glue to make things. She watched her stepbrother roll up paper, light it and smoke it, and knew he made money by doing so, so she took her knowledge and entrepreneurial spirit to class.

While at school, she took a piece of paper, rolled it up, glued it together and sold it to a friend for some change. The little girl who bought the make-believe joint got sick from the glue fumes.

Theresa was expelled from kindergarten and spanked at home. Theresa was confused by the hypocrisy, though she didn't know what that word meant at the time.

Theresa remembered another moment about a year later, sitting out on the front porch with her mother, her stepfather and some of their friends who were all drinking Pabst Blue-Ribbon Beer. Her stepfather had been pouring new concrete, which was still wet so Theresa was not allowed to walk on it.

Theresa doesn't know why her parents allowed her the beer. Maybe they thought it would be funny. But after a few gulps (she doesn't recall how much she drank), she remembers feeling woozy on top of her stepfather's shoulders. Theresa vaguely remembers the adults laughing at the drunk little girl. They sent her inside, told her to take a shower. She remembers locking the bathroom door behind her. Then her memory fades to black until she hears someone banging on the door. Six years old. Passed out, drunk on the shower floor.

Three years after that, Theresa smoked her first joint.

Three years after that, tired of abuse and threats, she ran away.

From that point on, Theresa's life was a scramble to survive. At times she ate out of Dumpsters. At others she found shelter in moving vans. She bounced from the streets to home and back again.

Later, she made good money as a stripper.

Her money was often spent on drugs, especially methamphetamine.

She always had to be the center of attention, and she was always surrounded by trouble. Some of her friends were killed in a shooting in Cape. She was considered a suspect before the real perpetrator was found and apprehended.

Decades later, Theresa was still surrounded by trouble. But this time she was on the helping side.

After 17 years of living on the streets, pole-dancing and doing drugs, she cleaned up her life after a spiritual rebirth.

Seventeen years later, Theresa found herself up to her eyeballs in paperwork. She was directing a place called the Vision House, a place that was inspired by Theresa's vision and built on faith, hard work and an impromptu, get-things-done-somehow attitude. Leading such an organization is no small task for anyone, much less a former drug addict whose only education was a General Equivalency Diploma.

But on that day, she wasn't worried about that.

She was still glowing from Melissa's speech at the pastors' conference over the weekend.

Theresa thought it was important for some of the Vision House women to feel accepted by folks outside the drug circles.

"I don't think people realize that when you take them out of their setting where they're accepted, there is another level of life," Theresa explained. "People don't hate them. It had a profound impact." And she had more good news.

Her husband David was going to get a preacher's license. She couldn't believe she was going to be a preacher's wife. Eventually, David would be named associate pastor of their church, Iona Baptist, a nonpaid position.

And there was one more thing.

She might have a solution to her Cookie-Monster voice.

The meth and the cigarettes had destroyed Theresa's voice. Theresa's mother was a country music singer who sang at bars in Illinois, and music was in her blood.

Theresa always loved to sing. Sometimes she'd get on stage at the bar and wail a Dolly Parton tune. But she couldn't wail anymore.

She was embarrassed when she appeared on the local television news. All decked out in a sharp business suit, her speaking voice gave her away. She was a hard woman, had lived a hard life and was paying the consequences.

But behind the raspy voice was the Theresa Taylor enthusiasm. And her vision of this facility began to spread throughout the community. Through a mutual friend, the Vision House message reached a woman who casually stopped by one day and wanted to know more about the Vision House.

When Theresa began to explain the purpose of the treatment program, the woman asked her what was wrong with her voice.

Theresa told her it was the result of years of smoking and drugs.

The woman was a doctor's wife. She offered Theresa her husband's services.

Theresa went to see Dr. Christopher Jung. She climbed into a chair and he probed her mouth.

Theresa was stunned, when she heard Jung say, to his assistant: "My God, have you ever seen anything like this? I've never seen one this big."

A cyst had grown in Theresa's throat.

Melissa Mackey had a 12-step program meeting in just a few minutes, and she was busy in her apartment kitchen throwing together a bean dip. The girls were to watch a movie that evening, "Between the Sheets" to be specific.

It was a fitting title to Melissa's recent episode, a mistake she had made a week or so earlier.

Perhaps the mistake was one reason she felt tired and irritable. After years of drug use, and then after a few months clean, she found herself consistently exhausted.

She had found a job at McDonald's. Not exactly the best use of her hairdresser training, but it was a small step, and the manager there decided to give her a chance. The job was a lousy one, the type of job you'd expect a recovering drug addict to find. She would wake up every morning at 4:45 a.m. And despite the rare reward of 20 minutes in the tanning booth or a new pair of shoes, life -- real life, the kind without drug-induced euphoria -- was beginning to weigh heavily on Melissa's shoulders.

The longer she was sober, the more she missed her 3-year-old daughter who was living with Melissa's parents in the St. Louis area. She made daily phone calls to Olivia and loved to hear the innocent voice on the other end of the line. But with the conversations came guilt and a need, an urgency to hurry her recovery along, probably a bad thing to be thinking about.

She didn't say all these things were excuses for her mistake, her indiscretion.

Without drugs to turn to, perhaps she felt a man could temporarily make her problems go away.

The indiscretion probably would have gone unnoticed, too. But after having sex one day in her apartment, Melissa wanted to impress one of her friends. So she told her about it.

At the Vision House, a long-term drug recovery facility for women, secrets aren't kept well.

Her friend told one of her friends, and eventually the word traveled by string and soup can to Karen Daugherty, the Vision House manager, that Melissa had had sex. Sex with Karen's adult son.

Karen's son, who grew up with a meth-making mother, was a recovering alcoholic himself, Karen said, but a guy who has made great progress in his own right. He was often doing labor for the Vision House, making deliveries, visiting his mother, helping remodel apartments. He was an asset to the new facility. He had seen the effect drugs had on many lives, including a woman named Katie Ruppel, who he had been dating off and on for three years.

On the day of the incident with Melissa, he was remodeling the apartment next to Melissa's.

When Karen found out about the escapade, she was angry at and disappointed in both her son and Melissa. But particularly Melissa.

Karen and Melissa had formed a tight bond in drug rehab three years ago. Melissa got out of the detox program then went back to using. Karen never went back to methamphetamine. But her journey was difficult in every way -- physical, mental, spiritual and psychological -- considering she had subjected her three children to a lifestyle of drugs. And just because Karen was ready to quit didn't mean her family was ready to do the same. The drug problems weren't confined to the immediate family, either.

Drugs were passed all through her extended family. She was one of the few clean members, although others were trying to get clean as well.

So Karen's life is always full of drama. Family members all around her were always going to jail or detox. Drama, drama everywhere.

And, for Karen, not a drop to drink.

Like Theresa, Karen quit her addiction cold-turkey. She had been clean for three years. The Vision House was a way to cope with all of the damage she had inflicted on her own family. At the Vision House, she could help others. And by doing so, she did help her own family. Many of them, including her son, were much better off now that Karen had turned her life around.

Melissa, meanwhile, had been clean for roughly two months. Old habits and behaviors don't usually disappear in that short amount of time. In her past, Melissa prostituted herself for her drug of choice. And she was not the only woman at the Vision House who had done that. One 18-year-old girl testified that at the height of her addiction she was having sex with up to 11 men a day in exchange for drugs.

While Melissa decided to have casual sex with a "clean" mind, it was against the Vision House rules. To Karen and Vision House director Theresa Taylor the decision was a troubling sign that Melissa didn't have control over her impulses, a cause for concern.

The incident drove Karen to tears.

She was angry with her son for taking what he could get; she was angry with Melissa for giving herself away.

"Do you know what that makes you look like?" Karen asked Melissa when she approached her.

They had a serious conversation, and Karen let her feelings be known.

Melissa felt guilty. And embarrassed.

After the conversation, Melissa said she realized that she held power over her actions. That her behavior wasn't impressing anyone, anyone that mattered anyway.

Theresa, attempting to get to the root of the behavior, set Melissa up with a psychiatrist. Melissa wasn't being humble. She had indulged herself and reverted to some poor lifestyle habits. She was wearing too much makeup and too revealing clothes. Theresa put a stop to that, taking away Melissa's cosmetics and demanding more appropriate attire.

Melissa had only been clean for a couple of months. She still had about 11 months to go before reaching her goal of one year with the Vision House and then another chance at life on her own.

Barely a month into the Vision House. And already into trouble.

Coming tomorrow: The Vision House loses its first girl; Theresa and Karen get by on grit.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006
By BOB MILLER Southeast Missourian

Theresa Taylor joked around at a meeting at the Vision House in Cape Girardeau.
(Diane L. Wilson)
[Click to enlarge]

A vision of recovery: Part 4 of 7

Past, bureaucracy haunt Vision House director

Thursday, June 15, 2006
BOB MILLER ~ Southeast Missourian

The Vision House had been in full operation for more than two months when Theresa Taylor began writing her grant.

During the first few weeks of operation, it was a rare and cherished moment when Theresa got to spend quiet time by herself. Such was the case on a beautiful May day at her house on Route V, but this wasn't the type of quiet time Theresa craved.

In fact, she wasn't really alone at all.

A laptop Dell computer, a glass of Pepsi, a few highlighter pens and several stacks of paper kept her company on May 11, 2005, which was so far the warmest day of the year.

Dressed in cutoff denim shorts, flip-flops and an olive-green tank top, she worked with the front door open, which let the sunshine and her chocolate-colored, hazel-eyed dog come and go as he pleased.

Plenty of work was undone around the house. The laundry was clean, but not put away; the weeds outside were beginning to overtake the flowers and plants that Theresa spent many hours planting and nourishing in years past.

Theresa's own house and plants were taking second place to a different house. Although she wasn't getting paid yet, the Vision House had become priority No. 1. A huge percentage of her time went to fertilizing the potential in drug-addicted homeless women.

And it wasn't just the plants and housekeeping that suffered.

A phone call came in at about 3:30 p.m. It was her son Justin, her pride and joy, calling from school, needing a ride to work. There had been a miscommunication of some sort, and he couldn't get to his job. Theresa apologized, but told her son he was going to have to find some other way. She couldn't pull herself away from her grant application. Justin and Theresa's husband, David, were both involved in the Vision House. They supported Theresa through their words and actions. The Vision House had become a central focus of the Taylor household, which in this after-school instance caused a rather heated conflict between mother, husband and son.

Twenty-something years of drug and alcohol abuse, including 17 years of homeless life had robbed Theresa of many things: relationships with her children, a "normal" life and, because of all the meth she inhaled, her voice. But on that particular May day, Theresa wished most of all she would've had a typical education. She never was a stupid person -- her survival methods had given her a savvy kind of intelligence that couldn't be learned from books -- but she quit school when she ran out of a nasty life as a seventh-grader. She always liked writing, even when she was strung out on methamphetamine. She was always a good communicator and had no trouble getting her GED by the age of 21.

But when she stared at the laptop on her coffee table that May afternoon, her past haunted her again.

She had worked through the grant process the year before; the previous owner of the apartment building had operated the facility with a government grant. The building was free as long as the occupants met certain low-income requirements. Theresa helped fill out the paperwork and get the grant transferred to the Vision House.

She had tried and failed to get other grants, including the same one she was applying for this time. It was a "scattered site leasing" grant application for $300,000 for three years. The grant was to help subsidize the rent for women who were ready to leave the Vision House but had children and still wanted to participate in some Vision House programs. It would be another step toward independence.

The grant would not be crucial to the Vision House. Theresa had decided long ago that the Vision House would not rely on government grants to keep it going. She refused to let homeless, addicted women hang by a bureaucratic thread year after year.

The Vision House, she promised herself, was going to be provided for by God. He would find a way to make ends meet through donations. The government would not control the Vision House itself.

But another step for mothers and their children would be nice.

She had another two weeks, until the 27th, to get everything done, but as she stared at the computer screen, it seemed an impossible task. She had never taken a typing class, so she couldn't type without looking at the keys. Government-type officials helping her with the process warned her of the "Logic Model" document -- Theresa didn't yet know what that meant -- which would take at least 18 hours by itself.

An ethics section was causing most of the trouble that Wednesday afternoon. It was written in typical governmental, lawyerly gobbledygook.

Confused by the wording, she called a friendly bureaucrat from the Department of Mental Health in Jefferson City to ask what a particular "no gift" clause meant.

"On the gift provision, well, we do accept gifts," she said over the telephone. "But does this mean that I, Theresa Taylor, can't accept bribes? Is that their politically correct way of saying it? Because that's not a problem."

The man said he thought so but didn't know for sure what the form meant, so he said he'd look up something and fax over a document.

Theresa hung up the telephone and went back to work. She sighed and said she wished she could hire a professional grant writer. If only the Vision House had an extra $1,500 lying around.

What Theresa lacked in polished intelligence, she made up for in scrappiness. As difficult as grant writing was, her instincts were serving her well in the bureaucratic world. She had developed numerous sources over the last year or so. She got to know many pastors and civic leaders, people who worked with the United Way. Through those sources, she got her hands on copies of successful grant applications and she was learning the language. She had a two-page glossary of government acronyms. The former street rat knew that CPS stood for Complete Psychological Services, that CSA stood for Controlled Substance Act and that MHTF stood for the Missouri Housing Trust Fund.

When the bureaucrat's fax came over, Theresa just about lost it. What was just a simple question apparently had a complicated answer.

"Oh come on!" she exclaimed. "Eight pages? I'm never going to get this done. I'm just not educated enough."

As she went back to work, however, there were women back at the Vision House who had children. Mothers like Melissa Mackey, who was desperately missing her daughter, Olivia, who was living with Melissa's mother. Melissa, still a long way from being able to make it on her own in the real world without drugs, would benefit from this grant when and if the time came.

Theresa returned to her computer.

Around the time Melissa Mackey and the rest of the women at the Vision House were getting accustomed to the rules, the religious devotions, the 12-step meetings and the mundane and drugless life, a young woman named Katie Ruppel was in some serious trouble in St. Louis.

Her background was like many of the others, filled with heartache and poor decisions.

She snuck her first cigarette at 13 years old, started hanging out with the wrong crowd, soon smoked pot for the first time.

At a small party, after playing a round of truth or dare, her friends left her alone with an older boy she knew.

While rebellious, Katie was relatively innocent. She'd never even kissed a boy.

The boy that night did more than kiss her. He raped her. She remembers saying no. And no again. And no again. But she was 13 and vulnerable and defenseless.

She told no one. She felt ashamed. As if the rape was her fault.

She turned to drugs even more than before. By the age of 16, she had tried just about everything. Crack, LSD, cocaine -- all of which got her high, but none of which had her begging for more.

Every day she and her friends smoked pot during their free hour not far from the alternative school.

Then heroin swept her away.

The drug gave her a pain-free feeling of euphoria. It made her invincible, at least for a while, like nothing and no one could touch her. Like the black hole inside her soul was filled; a nameless, invisible and spiritual thirst quenched.

The heroin led to an addictive lifestyle, a fun and carefree plight. Later she would live with boyfriends she didn't love but used to feed her addiction.

It wasn't until one of her drug-dealing boyfriends beat her up that she found the Vision House.

It was April 31, 2005.

Katie had asked her boyfriend for more drugs. That's why she was in the relationship, after all. And when he didn't give them to her, she would get mad.

Sometimes she stole them. She thinks it was one of her thefts that led to the skirmish, but they were always fighting. This time the words were backed up by fists and feet.

He threw her around, she said. Kicked her in the back and the ribs. But not in the face. Because then people would know and start asking questions.

After the beating she didn't go to the hospital. No bones were broken. She just kept using drugs, trying to let the high take care of her pain. She wanted to get high, go to sleep and not wake up.

But when she did wake, the black hole had opened up again. Her boyfriend had passed out. She was scared, desperate and bruised. She stole his wallet and drugs, then called a friend. The friend took Katie to Katie's mother's house, and the heroin addict entered a St. Louis detox facility the next day.

From there, she was transferred to the Family Counseling Center in Cape Girardeau, where she completed yet another detox program. The FCC is one of the busiest places in Cape Girardeau. The facility on Sprigg Street can hold 16 women at a time in its residential treatment program and 16 in its transitional program, which is for stays of more than 30 days.

Generally, the women are released clean, but not cured, out in the street again, sent back to old ways and old friends. The FCC is often a pit stop, a place of familiar faces, similar stories and tragic tears. For Katie, it was one of several times in such a treatment facility, but it would be her first stay at the Vision House.

There she would live in the same apartment building with a woman named Melissa Mackey. Her old friend Melissa.

Coming tomorrow: Theresa gets a heart-breaking phone call.

ABOUT THIS SERIES: After 17 years of drug addiction and living in the streets, a Cape Girardeau County woman named Theresa Taylor was sent to prison. While incarcerated, she received treatment for her addiction and was clean for the first time in her adult life. She soon became a born-again Christian. A couple of years later, the judge who sentenced her became aware of how well Theresa's recovery was going and opened the door for Theresa to speak with youth and women at the Family Counseling Center. One day, while talking to a drug-addicted woman ready to leave the treatment facility, Theresa had a "vision." That vision was to provide a faith-based, long-term transitional living facility for homeless and addicted women. This series begins two years after the "vision" and on the opening day of the Vision House. It follows the progress of the facility as well as some of the women who tried the program. The reporter visited the Vision House more than 30 times over the past year, conducting scores of interviews. While some of the scenes were reported firsthand by the reporter, most of the story was re-created through interviews of the various sources mentioned in the story. When events could not be verified by other participating parties, those events have been attributed to the sources who gave the information.

Source:

http://www.semissourian.com/story/1156696.html

Theresa gets a heartbreaking phone call

Friday, June 16, 2006
BOB MILLER ~ Southeast Missourian

Melissa Mackey, working as a salesclerk at the Vision House Thrift Store, helped customer Jim Thielker find a new pair of shoes June 2, 2005.
[Click to enlarge]

Part 6 of 7

For Melissa Mackey, the days dragged by. She was bored and tired. She worked at the second-hand store, tending the cash register. She was delightful to the customers. Melissa always aimed to please, and she was a faithful worker, straightening clothes racks and miscellaneous items on tabletops.

But in her down time, she'd think a lot about her 3-year-old daughter, being raised by grandparents in St. Louis.

For Vision House director Theresa Taylor, the minutes passed like the rolling numbers of a $3 per-gallon gas pump. She had a May 27 deadline for her grant, and she was behind.

Plus, she had the store up and running.

Not long after the store opened, a chapel started meeting in the clean concrete space of the store's basement. It was called the Vision Chapel.

The minister, E.D. Francis, had decided to leave his senior post at Iona Baptist Church to start the mission on Cape's south side.

Iona, Theresa's quaint country church out in the rural hills north of Cape Girardeau, had sponsored the Vision House and thought it would be a good idea to create a permanent chapel to complement the long-term transitional housing project.

But the church wasn't permanent. The second-hand store basement, it was later discovered, did not meet city code for group gatherings. The mission had nowhere to meet, so most of the women, who were required to attend a church service of their choice, wound up going out to Iona Baptist with Theresa.

The new church kept her busy for weeks; she also had to arrange for donation drop-offs for the store. She gave speeches and went from church to church asking for sponsorships.

Manager Karen Daugherty was busy, too, especially with the store. She was still having to keep up with 12 residents and all their schedules.

Melissa and Katie, a new arrival, picked up their friendship where it had left off. The girls had known each other for ages. The network of drug users in the St. Louis and Cape Girardeau areas is a bit fickle. Drug addicts compete for money, drugs and attention on the outside of the rehab walls. Like a reality show, users form alliances and leverage their friendships and allies to score as many drugs as possible. Nothing said can be trusted; no one high can be counted on; no act of violence or deception can be considered a surprise. But inside the drug-free walls of a detox facility, tight bonds can be formed, bonds that can exist and thrive if the women stay clean. Melissa Mackey had bonded with Vision House manager Karen Daugherty. And she had done the same with Katie Ruppel. Katie had shoulder-length blond hair, an innocent, squeaky voice and eyes as sincere as they are blue.

Melissa and Katie had met ages ago at the FCC. They were roomates there for a short time. Their bond remained intact, picking up again as soon as Katie moved in.

The two became like sisters. Both were outgoing and had come from respectable families. Melissa liked crack. Katie liked heroin.

Melissa was a big inspiration. Melissa was, only months ago, incredibly consumed by her addiction. But now she was attending meetings, giving testimony, working, repairing relationships and building a foundation for a real life.

Sometime in May things started to shift.

One night when Melissa returned home from a St. Louis trip, Karen thought Melissa looked a little uneasy. Her favorite girl was acting kind of odd, different.

Come to think of it, this wasn't the first time. Had it been anyone else, Karen would have dropped a drug test right away.

But this was Melissa. She wasn't using. She had come so far. She was so open about things. She wouldn't keep secrets.

But was she? There was the sex incident a few weeks ago, after all.

Karen's instincts knew. Karen knew that addicts, even ones who have been clean for months, are conniving and deceitful. That's the thing about addicts. You don't really know where the person stops and the illness begins.

But Karen wouldn't allow herself to believe it. She was just being paranoid.

Then the rumors started.

The girls down at the FCC who attended the 12-step meetings started talking. The rumors made their way back to Melissa, who said she was stunned by the back-stabbing.

She said she had done nothing wrong and couldn't understand why people were saying bad things about her. She said the rumors were adding stress to her life.

The phone rang on a Saturday morning, June 11. Theresa was at home. Karen Daugherty was on the other end of the line, the messenger of bad news.

Melissa, their unofficial favorite girl, the girl they had put so much love and time into, had taken another authorized trip to St. Louis.

But she should have been back at the Vision House long ago.

Theresa answered the phone.

"Melissa's gone," Karen said.

Karen didn't need to explain further.

Theresa knew Melissa enough to know that she would probably fall hard. She feared for Melissa's life.

Theresa could think of nothing else but to search for her friend.

"Let's go hunt for her," Theresa said.

The two women met in Cape Girardeau and, as if police officers, started tracking down leads. They started with one of Melissa's former McDonald's co-workers.

A couple of Melissa's friends were at the co-worker's house, and they gave Theresa and Karen an idea of where Melissa might be. A crack house on Sprigg Street.

Karen had done this kind of thing before, stomping into a crack house and pulling female addicts fresh from the FCC out of the house. All she had to do was threaten to pull out her cell phone and call the police, and the drug dealers would let the women go.

But Karen and Theresa didn't take that approach this time, because they didn't want to get their "informants" in trouble. Instead, they parked outside, down the street, prepared to wait for hours, to see if Melissa would come out the door.

Not long after they parked, Karen got a call from the Vision House's second-hand store.

Melissa was there.

A depressing chain of events followed.

Karen, who said Melissa was clearly high, took Melissa to one of the city hospitals, hoping she could sober up there and spend some outpatient time in the hospital.

Karen said her blood alcohol content was high. At first, Karen said Melissa talked of cutting her wrists and watching herself bleed. Then she said Melissa turned almost violent, cursing the nurses and the doctors who were trying to help her.

The hospital refused further treatment, and Karen was forced to take Melissa to a detox facility in Hayti, Mo.

Karen couldn't have been more hurt. In the weeks prior to Melissa's relapse, Melissa had started dating Karen's brother. Karen didn't detest the relationship as much as she did Melissa's previous sexual encounter with Karen's son.

But Karen knew her brother cared deeply for Melissa, and this would be heartbreaking for him. Not only that, Karen had put her reputation on the line by looking the other way when Melissa looked and acted strange in the days leading to her acute relapse.

In hindsight, the rumors that Melissa had denied were true. She had been drinking and partying during her trips away from the Vision House. It was rumored that Melissa met with a former boyfriend in St. Louis who provided the drugs.

Karen felt stupid for not testing Melissa before Melissa reached this sorry point.

"It was a bad, bad mistake," Karen said. Karen had done the very thing she had sworn not to do. She had become an enabler because she let her heart get in the way.

She wouldn't let that happen again.

In the weeks following, Melissa came back to Cape Girardeau. She did not return several messages left by the Southeast Missourian at the house of her "sponsor." Karen said Melissa had stayed with a woman named Jan, who knew Melissa and Karen well. Jan, a recovering addict, provided a home away from the Vision House for both Karen and Melissa when things got too stressful at the Vision House.

Melissa at first seemed determined. While booted from living at the Vision House, she expressed an interest in still meeting with the Vision House women and continuing her 12-step and faith-based programs.

Within days, she vanished back up into St. Louis. No one heard from Melissa for several weeks.

Those were dark days for the Vision House. But much more had to be done. The Vision House would have to move on, even without Karen and Theresa's favorite girl.

Coming tomorrow: The conclusion. Theresa gets an answer on her grant, and other girls move on.

Source:

http://www.semissourian.com/story/1156834.html

Part 7 (end of story).

Theresa's waiting game

Saturday, June 17, 2006
BOB MILLER ~ Southeast Missourian

Some of the residents and staff stood on the balcony at the Vision House in Cape Girardeau. Theresa Taylor, third from right, is the director; Karen Daugherty, center, is the manager.
[Click to enlarge]

Impossible as it may be to get into the mind of a drug addict, counselors, counselor wanna-bes and well-meaning friends do it all the time.

Theresa Taylor, the Vision House director, believed Melissa Mackey was sincere during her good days at the Vision House. She believed Melissa's testimony in front of hundreds of clergymen at a conference was heartfelt. Theresa thought the real Melissa wanted desperately to remain clean, but her own mind was her worst enemy.

Theresa figured part of Melissa's mind felt empty without drugs. A need was not being met that Melissa just couldn't let go of. Her physical addiction was gone. But Melissa couldn't get over the mental void. Theresa said she thought crack and heroin were the hardest drugs to let go over the long term.

The idea that drug addiction is simply a lack of willpower has been disputed. Most scientists consider addiction a brain disease in which drug chemicals alter the brain's structure.

Karen Daugherty, the Vision House manager, didn't care one way or another in the days following the relapse. Melissa had hurt her for the last time. Karen felt her life would be much better without Melissa in it.

From that moment on, Karen took a more businesslike attitude.

But not all of the Vision House women were like that. Over the next few months, a few more residents came and went, which Theresa said was a good thing. Some of the more abrasive women left the program, not necessarily because of relapses, but they were ready to try life on their own after staying the required six months.

About the time Melissa left, Erin Smith moved in. Unlike Melissa and even Katie Ruppel, the squeaky-voiced gal who had bonded with Melissa, Erin was able to flip a switch almost immediately upon entering the Vision House.

The Vision House was Erin's first serious try at rehab. She had come from Jefferson County, near St. Louis, where she used and manufactured methamphetamine until she lost her home and her four children. At one point, she almost died of a blood infection. Erin was caught in a traffic stop in Tennessee while on a run to purchase the pills needed to make meth. To avoid prison, she accepted assignment at the Vision House.

Erin, unlike Melissa and Katie, seemed to take a more serious approach. Or at least there was less doubt with her. Her demeanor seemed driven by purpose rather than desperation. She had a different personality altogether.

She was only required by law to stay at the Vision House for two months, but she bought into change right away.

She changed her entire mind. She changed her behavior. Her friends. Her desire. She bought completely into the Vision House program. Over the next several months, Erin would become the model Vision House citizen. Not a problem in sight.

Katie, meanwhile, went through a rough stretch.

She was sorely disappointed in her good friend Melissa, who she described as "very, very angry and distraught" when Melissa came back to the Vision House to visit during her relapse. At one point, Melissa arrived at the Vision House demanding Karen give her some cash so she could pay for some drugs. A man in the parking lot was holding Melissa's purse hostage and would not give it over until he got his drug money, Karen said. Karen called the police, but nothing came of the incident.

Katie learned from Melissa's relapse when she had a relapse of her own. Before she got caught, Katie admitted to Karen that she had used drugs. Theresa sent her off to complete another round of short-term rehab at the FCC. Katie was welcomed back to the Vision House because she admitted her relapse, Theresa said.

Katie came back stronger and more dedicated than ever. With Erin as one of the Vision House leaders, and with a group of more-dedicated women, the Vision House cruised on for weeks and months. Theresa was seeing her vision come to life; she watched women make meaningful strides every day.

But things at home were slipping. Theresa's husband, David, wasn't making much in commissions, and the bills were starting to pile up. When Theresa first started working on the Vision House project, she and David worked full time at a magnet business in Cape Girardeau. David was a manager; Theresa made a decent hourly wage. But David took another job as a salesman and told Theresa she should pursue her Vision House calling and quit working.

Theresa's teenage son wasn't doing so well, either. In the months past, she had suspected he was smoking pot. She forced him to take a drug test, and he failed. That, perhaps more than anything she experienced in the first year of the Vision House, broke her heart. She tried different methods to get him to stop, but nothing seemed to work. Theresa's son had a bright personality, good looks and good sense of humor. But he was slipping through Theresa's fingers.

Things didn't get much better at Christmastime.

It was Dec. 23, and Theresa was in the Christmas decoration aisle of Hobby Lobby, looking for a small present for her secret pal at church. Her cell phone rang. It was her Jefferson City bureaucrat friend.

She had made friends with the bureaucrat while she was trying to fill out the application in May. That spring was frustrating and hectic as Theresa put her street-savvy intelligence to the test, trying to make sense of government requirements and lingo. She had barely met the filing deadline, slipping in the door of the UPS store as it was getting ready to close.

Months later, Theresa had gotten a call from the bureaucrat, saying her application was No. 2 on the list of projects to be funded by the state. All indications were that the Vision House would get enough funding to open a facility for Vision House women who completed the program and wanted to get their children back. It would also provide a salary to both Theresa, the Vision House director, and Karen, the 24/7 manager.

Theresa and the bureaucrat had been playing phone tag. He called, left a message. She called, returning the message.

Finally, the call came and Theresa took it, surrounded by strangers and Christmas ornaments. Theresa only remembered the first few words of the conversation.

"Hi, Theresa," the bureaucrat said. "I know you're excited, but ..."

Theresa barely heard another word. Her heart crashed into her stomach. She could hardly maintain her composure. The man told her none of the projects was funded by the state. The same tough economy that hindered Theresa's husband's sales also ruined her hopes of getting paid a salary.

"That's OK, I understand," she told the man.

For a month, she kept the phone call a secret from Karen and the others at the Vision House. She couldn't think of a good way to break the news to them. Eventually Karen overheard a conversation and figured it out. Through tears, Theresa apologized to her friend.

Theresa Taylor always found comfort in her faith. When it came to the Vision House, she believed everything would somehow work out. Two days after finding out the Vision House wouldn't get its grant funding, Theresa found herself in front of the church singing a Christmas duet, "What Child is This?"

That Sunday was the first time she had sung in front of a crowd in years. Her barky voice, the result of years of smoking cigarettes and inhaling meth, was gone.

She hadn't smoked a cigarette since her surgery.

March 1, 2006, the Vision House's one-year anniversary, came and went with little fanfare. Theresa had wanted to do something special for the one-year birthday, but it would have to wait. Too many things were going on. Instead, the celebration was scheduled for April 24.

In the meantime, the women kept meeting. Drama was part of every Vision House woman's past, and the idea of the Vision House was to lose the drama. Every woman there brought with them their own personal tragedy. For some women, like Melissa, the craziness followed them through the Vision House doors. Others, through meetings and Bible devotions, were able to stave off the antagonists and temptations that had surrounded them for so long. Several women were able to find peace they had never experienced before.

On April 24, the Vision House broke out the balloons, the picnic tables, a sound system and the barbecue grill to celebrate a year of recovery.

An 18-year-old girl, the one who had admitted to having sex with up to 11 men a day for drugs, was carrying red carnations. She was going to graduate.

The other Vision House women mingled with friends and family.

"I'm trying to do it without the drugs," one of them said above the noise of the chitchat and the men checking the microphones.

Theresa was busy scurrying about, making sure everyone had what they needed.

It was truly a different place than a year ago.

The federal courthouse across the street, which four seasons earlier was only a skeleton, was now dressed with bricks and landscaping.

Inside the Vision House, almost all of the apartment units had been remodeled. Only one was left to finish, which would become Theresa's office and a Vision House common space for meetings.

But the people were different, too.

The woman named Erin, who had lost her four children because of methamphetamine, had already taken some training in Jefferson City to help other drug-addicted women. Once she completes her two-year stay, she wants to open a new Vision House in Wentzville, Mo. Erin never thought the Vision House could help her. She intended to put in her law-required two months and leave.

Katie, who admitted she had relapsed and was allowed back into the program, was now one of the most consistent women there. She was also pregnant with Karen's granddaughter. Katie had established a relationship with the same man who had had sex with Melissa many months ago. Katie and Karen's son had dated off and on for three years between times of relapse, and their relationship turned more serious at the Vision House. Now both clean, they face a future with an unplanned child.

There was a girl named Suzanne who moved on from the Vision House after a meth addiction. She resumed her career as a surgeon's nurse. She had tried rehab three times before. She left more than six months clean.

Another woman, Debbie, felt comfortable enough to move into her own apartment, but she plans to continue meeting with the women. She said the stability and support helped her. She left after six months. She's looking for a future with her daughter.

Midway into the one-year party, Karen sheepishly accepted a birthday gift from Theresa. Karen would celebrate her 50th birthday soon. She had learned over the past year how to let things go, how to keep a distance, how to be tough and how to still maintain healthy relationships with the women who stayed there.

And then there was Melissa, noticeably absent. She wasn't far away, however. She had made another circle into Cape Girardeau, checking into the Family Counseling Center on Sprigg Street, a few blocks away from the celebration, Karen said.

Several others avoided Melissa's plight, and that, Theresa said, was worth more than any salary that could be paid. Over the first year, the Vision House had more successes than failures. Eighty-three percent of the women who went through the program stayed clean while at the Vision House.

In May, Theresa again filled out a grant application and sent it to Jefferson City.

The 18-year-old graduate relapsed, and her father asked the Vision House to let her back in. Theresa said yes, but only after the girl completed a round of short-term rehab.

Melissa one day called Karen from the FCC. Karen said Melissa apologized and told her she learned a lot from the Vision House. Days later, word trickled back to the Vision House that Melissa had relapsed again. Melissa's mother in St. Louis said in a telephone interview that her daughter "isn't doing so well." Madonna Mackey was trying to decide whether to let her daughter come back and live with her. "Everybody talks about tough love, and I understand that on a logical level," she said. "But it's tough." She said the Vision House was good for her daughter, that Melissa does much better in structured environments.

Theresa, who had the vision, would start getting paid up to $500 per month. Desperate, she approached the Vision House board for some financial help. She only wanted the pay if the Vision House had the money left over after expenses. The board obliged. Sometimes Theresa would get the full $500, sometimes it was closer to $300. It's still not enough to keep the creditors from calling her at home. Theresa is afraid she'll soon lose her house.

Her son is up to his old antics. She told him he would have to move out if he wasn't going to abide by certain rules. She said he has decided to move out. She says she's watching a train wreck and doesn't know how to stop it.

Theresa also traveled to Jefferson City. The bureaucrat had asked her to come up and talk to some officials with the the Missouri Housing Trust Fund.

"The first time I was ever clean or sober in my life, it took me six months to even think clearly," she told the men in suits. "Now they're saying they should get clean in 15 to 21 days? You're just barely detoxing in that amount of time."

As a result of the message, one woman wrote a check for $500. Another wrote a check for $1,000.

Now Theresa is playing the waiting game again. Waiting to see how far her son might fall. Waiting to see if lawmakers at Jefferson City believe her Vision is worth a $300,000 grant. Waiting to see if she'll get to keep her house.

Waiting to see which women will turn their lives around.

Melissa Mackey sits on a floral couch in the living room of the apartment. The walls are white, the carpet clean and the sun beams in from the large window with a view of the nearby pool. Paintings lay on the floor, waiting for someone to hang them.

There are no cigarettes around, only M&Ms to keep her occupied.

She's a different woman than a year ago. Her hair is partly black. She wears an AC/DC shirt that reads "Dirty Deeds." Her makeup is painted on thick. She arrived only hours ago. She hasn't slept, really slept, in days.

In her first interview since she had relapsed more than a year ago, her core view has not changed. She knows she is an addict. She knows she needs to change. But she can't. At least she doesn't think she can. She doesn't know where the person stops and the illness begins.

But everything else is different. The clean apartment isn't a fresh start. It's little more than a place to sleep, a place to shower. It's her mother's and grandmother's place. She doesn't know how long she'll be welcome.

Melissa's daughter, Olivia, is outside splashing in the apartment swimming pool, playing with her father. Melissa hadn't seen her daughter in 10 days, but all she can think about now is getting some rest.

Melissa, it turned out, had consumed alcohol on her first trip to St. Louis while at the Vision House, she now admits, at her sister's wedding on May 21, eighty-one days after entering the Vision House. No one knew it. She had poured some alcohol in her Diet Coke. She returned to the Vision House sober, with a feeling that she could control herself.

In return trips to St. Louis, she reacquainted herself with an "old friend." He didn't use, she said, but he drank. And so did she. Her destination of crack always started on the road of alcohol. First a drink, then another drink. A drunken stupor that's not quite enough. Only crack could finish the job, only crack could give the rising action a suitable climax. It was a story repeated hundreds of times over the last several years.

She doesn't remember much about those days. She's been under crack's control pretty much ever since.

She was arrested once for stealing her mother's car. That's how she ended up back at the FCC. Then she stayed clean for a few days and stole her mother's car again. She says her mother did the right thing in calling the police. When "functional," Melissa stays at her mother's house, takes Olivia to school. She even had a job for a few days.

She has nothing but praise for the Vision House. She calls it an "awesome program. They have a lot of resources and it's really good if you're willing to help yourself."

But her voice is neither cheery nor charming like it was a year ago. She talks slowly, still recovering from a binge that ended at 6 a.m. It's now 4 p.m. on a Friday.

She says her lifestyle isn't fair to her daughter. She knows Olivia wakes up many mornings and wonders where her mommy went. Her mommy was actually in downtown St. Louis where "you do what you have to do" for drugs. Melissa cries at her own sad story and she talks as if she is defeated, as if there is nothing more to be done.

"I want to stop, I do," she says. "So bad. I wish everything was just over ... everything. But do I want to stop today? I don't know. If someone came to take me out of state today to get clean, I would. Probably, I would do that."

As for her immediate plans, she said she wants to go back to bed.

"When I get up, I'll have to feel out my mom, see if she'll let me stay.

"If not, I guess I'll just go back downtown."

About this series

After 17 years of drug addiction and living in the streets, a Cape Girardeau County woman named Theresa Taylor had a "vision." That vision was to provide a faith-based, long-term transitional living facility for homeless and addicted women.

This series begins two years after the "vision" and on the opening day of the Vision House. It follows the progress of the facility as well as some of the women who tried the program. The reporter visited the Vision House more than 30 times over the past year, conducting scores of interviews. While some of the scenes were reported firsthand by the reporter, most of the story was re-created through interviews of the various sources mentioned in the story. When events could not be verified by other participating parties, those events have been attributed to the sources who gave the information.

Source:

http://www.semissourian.com/story/1157041.html

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Heritics of Heroin	[email protected]

Signs of trouble at Vision House

Vision House loses its first woman

Past, bureaucracy haunt Vision House director

Theresa gets a heartbreaking phone call

Theresa's waiting game