Pubdate: Tue, 05 Jul 2005
Source: Portland Press Herald ( ME )
Copyright: 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/744
Author: David Hench, Portland Press Herald Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)

WOMAN DRAWS ON EXPERIENCE TO CARRY MESSAGE OF RECOVERY

Addiction left Ronni Katz's personal life in a shambles, even as she 
achieved professional success as a musician, a counselor and 
Nashville's youth program coordinator.

Her apartment was a wreck, her car a clunker and she was incapable of 
sustaining a relationship.

She worked to convince young people that staying clean was key to a 
meaningful life.  Eventually, she listened to her own message, 
joining Narcotics Anonymous in 1997.

Now Katz oversees Portland's Overdose Prevention Project, hoping to 
keep drug users alive so they at least have a chance to change course.

"We weren't going to get everybody into recovery, but we had to 
figure out how they can protect themselves and stay healthy even if 
they were still using drugs," Katz said during a recent interview.

Katz's experience of drug use and recovery, along with her 
professional qualifications, led the city's Health and Human Services 
Department to choose her in 2003 to lead its fledgling effort to 
reduce the number of accidental drug deaths in Portland.  The program 
was created after 28 people died of overdose deaths in 2002, almost 
twice the number the year before.

Rather than burying her past, Katz draws on it to give credibility 
and passion to her efforts.

"I've never met anybody more dedicated to helping others," said 
Portland police Sgt.  Scott Pelletier, who supervises the Maine Drug 
Enforcement Agency in southern Maine.  "She's very forthright about 
her past with addiction and truly committed about sending the message 
that you can recover.  .  .  .  It's not easy and oftentimes it's a 
lifelong endeavor to get better, and she's living proof of that."

Pelletier says Katz also has succeeded in bridging some of the 
perceived antipathy between social service providers and police.

"She's broken down all those barriers," he said, and the Overdose 
Prevention Project serves as a role model for collaboration that 
other states should mimic.

The program has used outreach workers and volunteers to teach drug 
users to recognize overdoses in their friends and to call rescue 
workers if they do.  The education campaign appeared to work, and 
complemented other city initiatives such as equipping all fire 
engines and ambulances with naloxone, a drug that can reverse the 
effects of opiates like heroin.  Drug deaths in Portland dropped 
sharply, and fell somewhat in the rest of the state, as the problem 
gained attention.

Now, the number of overdose deaths appears to be climbing again 
across Maine, though less so in Portland.  Portland's Overdose 
Prevention Program is renewing efforts to educate drug users about 
the dangers of strong heroin, of misused pharmaceuticals and of 
diverted methadone, trying to keep drug users alive until they can 
help themselves.

Teenager In The 60S

Katz started using drugs as a teenager in the 1960s, beset with all 
the typical insecurities and alienation of that age as well as a 
nasty divorce brewing at home in suburban Queens, where the family 
had moved from a housing project in New York City.

She started with marijuana and alcohol and the common perception that 
neither was dangerous.  In time, she experimented with harder drugs.

Katz was protesting the war in Vietnam and playing guitar, and by the 
time she was 18 she was performing professionally with an all-female 
country-rock band.  It was a lifestyle of late-night parties, 
drinking and drugs.

After graduating from Queensborough Community College, she became an 
English teacher, though she eventually abandoned teaching to 
concentrate on her music career full time.

Over the years, the people she was spending time with, partying with, changed.

"I saw so many of my friends just grow out of that stage and I saw my 
circle of friends getting narrower and younger," Katz said.  And she 
found that she was typically alone at weddings and special 
occasions.  She was often jovial, but also prone to bouts of anger and rage.

"You get to a point where it's no longer about the substance.  It was 
about the addiction and filling that hole," she said.  "It's very 
easy to blame it on everybody else.  Denial is like a protective shield."

Ironically, she became a high school substance abuse and prevention 
counselor, and found she could help young people make better 
choices.  It was while working with kids that she first realized she 
needed to change her own life.  Those teenagers also showed her the 
power and potential of making life changes.

"I still hear from some of those kids that everyone had given up 
on.  One graduated from Cornell, another is graduating from the 
University of Arizona, another is in law school."

Clean Since 1997

It was while she was working with high school students, that 
hypocrisy, that led her to change.

She did change scenery, leaving New York for Nashville and what she 
described as her dream job.  She was director of the city's 
after-school programs, which she helped grow from a handful of sites 
to a dozen serving hundreds of youngsters.

Still, she took no vacations and bought no new clothes and stayed in 
the same run-down apartment for years.  She used drugs less, but drank more.

One night, she found herself in an on-line chat room with another 
woman in recovery, and realized she needed help.  She joined 
Narcotics Anonymous and has been alcohol and drug free since 1997.

"They say when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, is 
when you get help," she said.

Katz knows many of the people targeted by the Overdose Prevention 
Project often are in more dire straits than she endured, but they 
weren't always.

"There's a large population of functional addicts out there like I 
was.  That doesn't mean they'll stay that way," she said.  Breaking 
the grip of addiction is often a matter of life or death.

"It's not easy, but it winds up being a much better and easier life 
over time," she said.

Now 53, Katz has a stable relationship, a house filled with three 
cats and three dogs, and a mission to promote survival, hope and recovery.

"I need to carry that message.  A lot of people keep it quiet.  It's 
become part of my work," said Katz, whose tight silver curls frame a 
frequent smile, despite the somber aspects of her job.

Staying clean and sober has made her life better, but she also hopes 
it has helped improve other lives, as well.

"I know what I've got inside, no one can take away," Katz said.  "I 
also know I can help other people more."