LEWISBURG - The Union-Snyder County Drug Court treatment program has one year to prove its community and economic benefits to local government officials before federal grants expires.

If it is to continue in 2012, the Drug Court program ­-- funded this year with federal and counties' money -- will need to be paid for completely by the Valley counties.

Eight Valley residents have graduated from the program, which has supplied the area with 4,684 hours of community service since its inception two years ago, said coordinator Scott Kerstetter.

It has also kept offenders out of county jails.

The Union County jail charges $100 a day to board an inmate.

A DUI Court, which began in January, is in a three-year grant cycle. By attaching to DUI offenders electronic monitoring bracelets, instead of incarcerating them, the court has been able to save the counties 2,985 jail days.

By the end of 2011, the national Treatment Research Institute will evaluate the economics of both the Drug and DUI treatment court programs. Hopefully, Kerstetter said, that evaluation will be what is necessary to encourage the commissioners of Snyder and Union counties to continue including the programs in the county budget.

Meanwhile, success stories within the program continue. A DUI and Drug Court graduation will occur in the late winter or early spring.

As of Dec. 1, 18 offenders are involved in the Drug Court, and 22 in DUI Court. Twenty-seven are employed.

DUI Court participants have performed 1,938 hours of community service.

Program attendance is at 90 percent; 87 percent are compliant with testing in Drug Court, and 97 percent in DUI Court.

"From a human perspective, there's nothing more exciting than to see someone pick themselves up, start over, and do well," Kerstetter said.

But he also knows the opposite can occur.

Two Drug Court graduates have been re-arrested in allegations of new crimes.

"We're not naive to think that this is a magic bullet that's going to solve all the problems," Kersettter said.

But seeing the changes that some people have been able to make in their lives, when given the help and opportunity in a structured environment, Kerstetter said he is far from wanting to give up.

"We're going to keep working at it," he said.

Mike: Addiction "stripped

me of everything"

Mike S., 30, of Mount Pleasant Mills, quit playing football in his senior year of high school, and chose instead to "party and chase girls."

He began smoking marijuana at age 16.

At 17 and 18, he began using harder drugs. He isolated himself from many friends at school and began spending time with a different sort of crowd.

At 19, he picked up heroin and didn't put it down until he was 24.

"I was a garbage head," Mike admits. "If I was going to have my way, I would have done drugs every day."

He kept his lifestyle a secret from his family and his girlfriend.

But when he was served with his first DUI offense, the secret was out.

Police had found heroin needles in his car.

His addiction led him to a drug rehabilitation center in 2004, and he thought that was all he needed to solve the problem his drug usage had created.

"Obviously, I needed another lesson," Mike said.

In 2006, he was caught in a drug ring and charged with three felonies. As a mid-level dealer, he sold drugs to support his own habit.

It was around that time, he said, that he attended his fourth funeral in two years of friends who died of overdoses.

"I got to a point where I thought, 'This is how I'm going to die,'" Mike said.

He drained his parents emotionally and financially.

Family and friends were afraid to leave any valuables unsupervised, because they believed he would steal. He wasn't even allowed in his parents' home for Thanksgiving.

The addiction, he said, "stripped me of everything."

Including pride and self-esteem.

For a time, he started to get better. But in yet another relapse, he was arrested for DUI in February.

He had run out of luck with authorities.

When given the option of DUI treatment court, he said, it was "either try this or go to the state penitentiary."

On Wednesday, Mike graduated from Phase I of the program, in which he was required to attend five self-help meetings a week, undergo counseling, visit Union-Snyder President Judge F. Harold Woelfel Jr. every week, and visit regularly with his probation officer.

He can't go anywhere without the electronic monitoring equipment strapped to his ankle.

Josh: "I was happy

if I was high"

"Josh" graduated with the first class of the Union-Snyder County Drug Court treatment program in May.

Just a year or two before, it's not something many would have expected to see of the 25-year-old former Selinsgrove resident.

When he was 18, Josh started smoking marijuana.

"It was pretty much like the cool thing to do," he said. "It was socially acceptable in the school crowd. I started dealing it right then."

His interactions including the drug, he said, "became like a second identity."

Though his family had suspicions, they had no "iron-proof evidence" of his drug habit.

Josh then moved on to cocaine, acid and heroin.

Marijuana and alcohol were always underlying it all, he said.

"My joy in life came from doing drugs," Josh said. "I was happy if I was high."

At 19, he was charged with a misdemeanor by police for possession of marijuana. His was fined and released.

It was not enough to keep him from using again.

From 18 to 24, Josh used drugs "all day, every day," he said. He also continued selling them.

He would have a job from time to time, he said, "but it was just a front."

And then, he said, he "got set up" from a friend, who gave police his name as being part of a drug ring.

Faced with felony charges, Josh said choosing drug court was the best decision he could make.

"If I just did my time (in jail), and just got back out on the streets on regular probation, there's no way I wouldn't be drinking," he said.

And the drinking always leads to drugs.

Brian: "I didn't think I could die, nor did I care"

Brian, 30, of western Union County, had experimented with drugs and alcohol since he was 14 years old.

"There's not one (drug) that I can think of that I never tried," he said.

A former heroin addict, he said it happened to be the drug that was available.

"I would have used anything," he said.

Keeping up with all the lies he told, he said, was "like a second job."

"I didn't care about myself," Brian said. "I didn't think I could die, nor did I care."

It took seeing everyone around him being hurt by his actions, he said, and "It kind of hit home that I needed to change."

But he had tried "millions of times" to quit on his own. And it never worked.

He was never arrested until he was charged with three felonies in a grand jury indictment in 2008.

He was offered the drug court treatment program, if he pleaded guilty to one of the charges.

At first, he considered just serving his time in jail for six months.

Deciding that perhaps the treatment program wouldn't be that difficult, he took the offer.

And he's glad he did.

He is in the last phase of the program, and will graduate in March.

Mike: "We need to

be held accountable"

The treatment program has helped him, Mike said, not just because he stayed out of state prison, but because he got the counseling and help he needed to move forward with his life and not turn to drugs and alcohol again.

Not that he never has an impulse to drink -- "old habits die hard," he said -- but the treatment programs have given him the tools to deal with it.

"If you want to change your life and become a better person, what they do is open doors. ... They give you every opportunity that's there," he said of the courts.

By enrolling in the program, he said, he had to serve only one week in jail.

For his second DUI offense, he had spent six months in prison.

The treatment program also gives him a chance to get his driver's license back sooner, and to pay off fines through a monthly payment plan.

He calls the program "intense," unlike the follow-up from previous offenses he had experienced. Before, a probation officer would touch base once a month, and he had gone four years without a drug test.

"They gave me a rope to hang myself," he said.

"We need to be held accountable."

In this program, he said, the problem is being fixed, not just covered up.

Mike is most grateful for the great relationships he formed with the very people who had "destroyed" his life by arresting him and putting him behind bars.

Now, those same people ask him how he's doing, and talk with him about what he likes to do.

"I can talk to them at any time," he said. "I don't have to live in fear from now on."

He's even baked them cookies and custard pies to show his appreciation.

"I'm grateful that I got arrested," he said.

Mike has been clean since Feb. 18.

He continues to work as a welder at a Valley manufacturer "'- a job he has held for three years.

And he shares his story from time to time at a Valley rehabilitation center.

"I know what doing good is going to do for people," he said. "I've seen the other side."

"It's a process -- a long process," Mike admits.

But, he wants people to know, "We aren't hopeless."

Josh: Drug court

"forces you to grow up"

Josh has been clean for nearly two years.

He even stays away from things like cough syrup -- "anything I feel is mind-altering," he said.

He admits that treatment court wasn't easy for him. Every move he made had to be passed by officials.

And his attitude wasn't the best, he said.

He especially disliked having to do 40 hours of community service each month, while also working a part-time job.

His probation officer forced him to apply for the job he now has.

Now, he said, "I love it. It's one of the best places I've ever worked."

Now that he is clean from drugs, he's had the best attendance record at any job he has held, where he has performed better than ever.

Drug court, he said, "forces you to grow up and take responsibility of you."

"You have to stop pointing the finger at everyone around you," he said, "and start pointing the finger at yourself."

Now, he sees his knowledge as the power to keep others — including his younger siblings -- from going down the same road.

He knows the signs of drug use, and he encourages parents everywhere to learn the signs, too.



Brian: Now "People

trust me"

Many people ask Brian if he regrets what he's been through.

"Honestly," he said, "I can say that I don't."

Without doing the things he did, he never would be where he is now.

"People trust me," he said.

He is now capable of being in a stable relationship. His probation officer is like a second father to him.

And his whole outlook on life has changed.

Formerly struggling with low self-esteem and no self-worth, he said, "I'm not afraid to be myself anymore."

He used to be quick to anger, but now, he can discuss things calmly.

"There's nothing that hasn't changed," he said.

Brian began a job in May at a Lewisburg area restaurant, and has already worked himself up to manager.

Once not caring if he died, now he wakes up each day, thankful for life -- no matter how bad the day may be, knowing that even the worst day is "100 percent better" than trying to figure out how he was going to get drugs or steal money.

The treatment court program has taught him responsibility, he said.

Today he has been clean for nine months.

And he is strongly considering writing a book about his journey, and becoming a drug and alcohol counselor.

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