‘A totally different world'

A sign in the window of the Salvation Army's home base and chapel in Yuba City reads, "Closed." But cars are parked up and down Del Norte Avenue, and on this late Wednesday afternoon, a chorus of impassioned human voices intones "Beautiful one I adore," from somewhere deep within the building.

The singing fills the street.

For residents and staff from the Depot in Marysville — a residential family crisis center — it's graduation day, and a chance to celebrate one another's progress against drug and alcohol addiction.

Fathers sing to babies. Mothers hold young children close. Tears flow.

"God is in the business of second chances," says Capt. Tom Stambaugh, the Corps officer, who, along with his wife, Kim Stambaugh, are currently assigned to administer the Depot's rigorous six-month program of counseling and training.

With this second chance, Stambaugh says to those in attendance, "You can tell yourself at the end of each day, 'I made a great choice to stay sober; I made a great choice to be a good parent.'"

The Depot is the only state-certified drug rehabilitation program in the region that allows families to live, and begin drug recovery, together.

In a building that once served as a railroad depot, up to 60 residents sleep, eat, do chores, and attend classes and counseling sessions in tight quarters.

Salvation Army donations help pay for the program, and residents must commit 10 percent of their income to help defray costs. Mostly, income payment comes in the form of welfare subsidies.

The number of families typically on the waiting list for admission has grown steadily since the program began four years ago, according to Steve Cordova, a veteran Depot counselor.

On Wednesday, after the singing and prayers at the Depot's monthly graduation service, Lawrence Webb, 30, received acknowledgment for his 90 days of sobriety and abstinence from drugs.

Webb currently shares a small room at the residence with his wife, two toddler boys, and 1-month-old baby girl.

Initially, both he and his sons had problems adjusting to the strict rules and rigorous schedule enforced by Salvation Army counselors. But, he says, change has come quickly.

"I'm more level-headed already" he says. "I'm not as angry as I used to be."

Their 3-year-old son also has shown changed behavior, says his wife, Melissa Webb, 23, who also is recovering from a drug addiction.

"He used to be kind of aggressive. He was mad about everything. Now, he's sharing toys (with other children). He sings. He loves to go to church," she says.

Better life preparations

Addicted to methamphetamine since age 18, Lawrence Webb had already done two drug-related prison stints and was facing a new five-year sentence on drug and weapons charges when Yuba County Judge Julia Scroggin ordered him to enter the Depot program.

That seems like a lifetime ago.

Webb's boyish features take on a forlorn expression. "I lost years with my kids," he says.

He was arrested the day his first son was born and was incarcerated for two years. Not long after he was released, he committed another offense and went back.

Webb still faces the possibility of prison time for his latest round of charges. For now, he relishes what he says is a brand new feeling: Gratitude.

"She gave me a chance I really don't deserve because of my history," Webb says of Scroggin. "I could be in prison, but instead, I'm with my family and my new daughter."

Rebecca Moore, 23, says she too is grateful for nights now with her children, instead of just a jail-house pillow.

Five months ago, a Salvation Army outreach worker showed up at the Butte County Jail where the Oroville resident had been incarcerated on drug charges.

Moore, a meth addict since age 15, lost her daughters, age 5 and 2, to child protective service agents who later placed them in foster homes.

The Salvation Army representative recruited Moore into the Depot program, and overnight, the despondent mother was given a new shot at life and motherhood.

She had been through drug rehabilitation programs before; the success was always short-lived.

"I wanted to quit using (drugs)," Moore says during a break from her cleaning chores in the Depot's dining room. "But I couldn't stop."

She was released from jail Dec. 30, and sent directly to Marysville, where she began to make slow, steady progress at the Depot program.

On May 7, CPS officers returned her daughters to her, and the family now shares a room at the facility.

In addition to attending counseling sessions and a class designed to help resolve conflict and other relationship issues, Moore has taken a parenting course to better prepare herself for life as a clean and sober mom.

She has been drug-free now for five months.

The day she entered the Depot, she says, "is when I started my life."

From addict to counselor

The prospect of healing family relationships serves as motivation for many Depot residents seeking freedom from addiction.

"We're here to reunite parents with their children," Cordova says.

But for the veteran counselor, family ties had not been enough.

Cordova began to recover from his own addictions only after his liver shut down and threatened to kill him.

The former Loma Rica resident says he had been an alcoholic and addict by the time he graduated high school in Riverside in 1971.

He spent more than 20 years in and out of jail for manufacturing and selling meth, and on domestic violence charges.

While on drugs, he says, he had a typical addict's attitude.

"I thought there was nothing wrong with me," he says. "Me? I don't have a problem. Everybody else does. But I was amounting to nothing out there."

Eventually, he wound up at San Quentin.

"That's when I got to find out what prison life was all about," he says.

He fell ill shortly after his release in 1994. Readying his body for a liver transplant required at least two years of sobriety; finally, Cordova was able to kick his old habits, and in 1997, he received a new liver.

One year later, he was enrolled in college, and preparing for a new life as a drug and alcohol counselor. He now has 15 years of sobriety.

"I felt guilty that another person had to die to keep me alive," he says. But his hard-luck story now serves him well in counseling young, stubborn men.

"They say, 'oh what does this old man know?' but after a while, they start to listen. I give 'em little parts of my story," Cordova says. "I don't run over these people. I show them respect. Eventually, they're not scared to talk to me about what's going on in their own lives."

Commitment to change

Like Cordova, Jeannie Farris, 36, plans to use her own unhappy past to help shape a new, more productive life as a drug and alcohol counselor.

A recent graduate of the Depot program, Farris, who is now in the Salvation Army's transitional housing program in Linda, attended Wednesday's graduation service, where she accepted commendations for living drug and alcohol free for 21 months.

A meth user since age 13, Farris says she has been, "homeless and living on the street,” several times.

“I’ve been in and out of rehab so many times,” she says. “I’d get a year under my belt, and then relapse.”

Her two youngest children, a girl, 13, and a boy, 11, were placed with Farris’ younger brother when she was incarcerated in 2007.

She is too ashamed to discuss the charges, she says, except to say they had been, “related to something I did when I was drunk.”

Incarceration gave her time to reflect, she says, and to make decisions.

She wrote to Salvation Army officers regularly, and asked for their help in getting her into the Depot program. She asked if they could hold a bed open for her.

“I had a lot of realizations when I was locked up,” Farris says. “My kids had to move from school to school to school because of my addictions. I wanted to change my life.”

Now a full-time student at Yuba College, Farris lives with her son and daughter in Linda, in one of nine houses owned by the Salvation Army. The transitional housing program offers recovering addicts and their families up to a year of housing. Residents pay only for utilities.

In a hurry to move forward

Back at the Depot, Melissa Webb, 23, asks her husband to adjust the straps of a new baby harness, which someone has donated to the program.

He obliges, and sneaks a long look at the face of his tiny new daughter, Isabella, snuggled up against her mother’s chest.

“This was the first pregnancy I’ve been clean,” says the mom, beaming. She has nine drug-free months behind her now.

Lawrence Webb says that some of what lies ahead seems overwhelming. He is in the process of negotiating with bill collectors and scheduling court dates – reminders of the way he lived not so long ago. He knows his past will follow him when he goes to look for a job or to take out a loan.

He is hoping his sentence will only entail probation, rather than another incarceration, and he is looking to attend a vocational trade school after graduating from the Depot program. He is in a hurry, he says, to move forward.

“I’m tired,” he says of his old and still too-familiar way of life. “There’ll be no next time.”

Farris says her old drug habits were, “like going through life with your eyes closed.”

“It’s a totally different world now,” she says.

Graduation ceremonies on Wednesday became something of a pep rally, as one by one, residents with a month or more of sobriety collected certificates and accepted the cheers from other recovering addicts.

A half dozen residents were eventually honored for successfully completing the program.

Stambaugh and Cordova go through this emotional ritual every month, and hear a new batch of graduates make their farewell speeches.

Sometimes, those who complete the program stay on as residents a few months longer, until they can secure safe and drug-free housing elsewhere.

But once they leave, Stambaugh says, “We don’t want to see them again – and we mean that in a good way.”

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Nancy Pasternack at 749-4712 or at npasternack@appealdemocrat.com