There is no sweeter poetry than that of 'real time' life living.

 

Queenbea a longtime member here at HofH puts her little peace of 'real' to work every day by being the best she can be..sharing her hard earned knowledge and showing others there really is a way out and light at the end of the darkness that is addiction.

 

Thank you for inspiring Queenbea.

April 20, 2005

Wendi Clark should not be here.

If the heroin didn't get her, the cocaine should have. And soaking the ground all around her, there was always alcohol. Clark drank, shot up and then pulled on her stilettos to walk the streets to make the money to do it all over again.

But Clark, 42, of Middletown, has been clean now nearly six years. She is preparing to move to a new place that will accommodate her two teenaged sons and her older daughter, who is getting a divorce and coming home with Clark's beloved baby grandson.

Clark is very much here.

For that, she thanks an old needle-exchange program in Willimantic, from which Clark once got bleach kits. She got condoms there, as well. The program shut down in 1997, when residents complained they found too many discarded needles around town.

The closing was traumatic to the junkies, so Clark, a former LPN, ran her own impromptu needle exchange from a box beneath her bed at Willimantic's former Hotel Hooker.

Yeah, Clark was one of those, too.

These days, hepatitis C keeps her from working. She lives on disability, but she's the world's consummate volunteer. Clark gives rides. She offers short-term beds to people who are clean. She speaks in front of legislators. She even has a picture of her younger son standing next to former Gov. John G. Rowland. She's the go-to person for people in need. Monday morning in her apartment, which is decorated with angels and swords, the phone rings. It rings again. Then her cellphone burbles from her purse. There is no more effective mode of communication than the junkie (or former-) network.

Clark juggles massive phone bills taking collect calls because she's been there and back. When she was still using, Clark looked at her frequent incarcerations - known as "skid bids," short stays - as vacations. She'd get clean, and eat regularly. And then she'd be back on the street.

"Whether it's socially acceptable or legal for people to use drugs, they are still going to do it," Clark said. But no matter how big her addiction, nothing scared her like the prospect of acquiring HIV, or getting full-blown AIDS. It's not a death sentence like it was in the beginning, but Clark had nursed friends with it and she wanted nothing to do with the disease.

In between juggling phones, Clark said: "I am not saying let's make it legal or anything. But let's teach these people how to protect themselves. It was taught to me."

Meanwhile, there aren't enough treatment beds for people who want to get clean, and rather than practice harm reduction - making dangerous behavior as safe as possible with things like syringe exchanges - we legislate recovery that much farther away. Drugstores practice discretion as to who can buy syringes over the counter. That's diabetics and addicts, as well. People who have been on the inside say prison offers scant little in terms of recovery.

Clark plans to be at Hartford's Capitol today for AIDS Awareness Day. She and others are asking the state Department of Public Health to shift $500,000 into syringe-exchange programs. Right now, AIDS activists say the state has five such programs, including one in Hartford.

Such programs are vital. Of the newly diagnosed and reported AIDS cases in the state last year, nearly 35 percent were attributable to intravenous drug use, or IDU. Cumulatively, more than 50 percent of Connecticut's AIDS cases are directly related to IDU. According to the Centers for Disease Control, proportionately, Connecticut leads the country in AIDS cases among injecting drug users.

Today, Clark will be the woman in the suit, her hair all done, laughing and smiling. These days are now all borrowed. She intends to use them.

http://www.courant.com/features/lifestyle/hc-susan0420.artapr20,0,4258988.column?coll=hc-headlines-life