Recovery is transformative – and not just for you, but it’s transformative for all of us.

Sandy Bernabei

 

January 11, 2008

Rockland drug court has new graduates, marks 10th year

Suzan Clarke, The Journal News

The graduates were older, younger, male and female, white and black, middle class and working class. But they had one thing in common: They got into trouble with the law because of drug addiction.

Yesterday, the seven graduated from Rockland County Drug Court before scores of people gathered in the county Legislature’s chambers. Some graduates spoke only a few words, and others cried, but all expressed profound gratitude and enormous hope for their future.

The program, which provides substance-abuse treatment, rather than jail, for people who plead guilty to nonviolent crimes due to alcohol or drug addiction, is marking its 10th year.Drug Court participants must complete stringent requirements that allow them to have their convictions dropped after six months of good behavior.

Including yesterday’s graduates, 144 people have successfully completed the program since its inception. George Adaime, 27, of Stony Point made people laugh and cry when he talked about his three years in the program.He told his fellow graduates to never give up on their sobriety, saying he came “this close” to quitting several times during the program.”Finally, I just gave in, and, trust me, it’s a much better life. I got everything I ever wanted. When I was out there using, I couldn’t say that. It was paycheck to paycheck. And by the time I got my paycheck, half of it was already owed out to the drug dealers. I was running from the cops, worried about getting pulled over all the time, looking over my shoulder all the time. “Now I walk around with my head up high, and I walk around without a care in the world because I know I’m clean,” Adaime said, finishing to rousing applause from the audience.

Karen M. Carpenter-Palumbo, commissioner of the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, said in her keynote address that 2.5 million New Yorkers have had an addiction.”Fifty percent of the kids in your state had a drink last night – seventh-graders, eighth-graders, ninth-graders. We can’t forget that,” she said. Carpenter-Palumbo urged the graduates to celebrate their sobriety in the same way that cancer patients do their continued survival, telling them to reach out for assistance if they felt overwhelmed, and, if they felt able, to talk about their experiences so someone else could be helped.

County Judge Charles Apotheker, the program’s judge, said he initially opposed the concept. Apotheker, who presided over yesterday’s ceremony, said the court had made a believer out of him.

The program started in 1998 under then-District Attorney Michael Bongiorno. Two of the people involved in the start-up, then-Executive District Attorney Beth Finkelstein and Sandra Bernabei, who was executive director of the Rockland Council on Alcoholism and Other Drug Dependence, were presented with news for their work with the program.

“Recovery is transformative – and not just for you, but it’s transformative for all of us,” Bernabei told the graduates, adding that they were lucky to have been allowed to participate.

“There are thousands and thousands and thousands of people who are being warehoused in upstate New York prisons because of the Rockefeller drug laws,” she said, referring to mandatory sentencing laws that are considered among the country’s harshest. “We will not be fully humanized until we see all people, especially nonviolent first offenders, with their humanity and offer treatment instead of incarceration.”

During the event, local and state elected officials congratulated the graduates and shared their thoughts about the program’s success.

A choir consisting of clients from St. Christopher’s Inn, a substance-abuse treatment center in Garrison, sang two songs. James Rohrig watched his daughter, Stephanie, 19, graduate.”It was very uplifting to see the little steps. There were no giant steps. It was like a series of mini-accomplishments, and today we’re very happy,” the West Nyack man said. “The whole family is here – her mom and dad and her siblings – and we’re all sharing in her success.” Someone else came out to see Stephanie Rohrig graduate.

Ramapo Police Officer John Salmon stood in the back of the room and watched while Rohrig took the podium and thanked him for having arrested her in 2005.”It was just something that just started what needed to be started,” she said after the ceremony.Salmon said the event made him feel he had made a difference. “I was a (New York) city cop, and I’ve seen a lot of people hit rock bottom and never get back,” he said.

“This is definitely a great start and … now I just wish her the best.”