Pubdate: Tue, 02 Jan 2007
Source: Glenwood Springs Post Independent (CO)
Copyright: 2007 Glenwood Springs Post Independent
Contact:  http://www.postindependent.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/821
Author: Donna Gray
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

JOURNEY BACK FROM DARKNESS BEGINS WITH COUNTY PROGRAM

Community Corrections Helps Addicts Get Life Straightened
Out

Glenwood Springs, Colo. - When Nathan Bassetti turned himself in at
the Garfield  County Jail two years ago he was homeless and addicted
to methamphetamine.

Now two years into a four-year sentence to the county  Community
Corrections program, he's a new man -  literally.

Community Corrections is an alternative sentencing  option for mostly
nonviolent, midlevel felony  offenders. Although they're housed in the
county jail  they're not part of that general population but are
housed in a segregated area of the jail. Instead of  sitting in a jail
cell, they are released every day to  work and receive intensive
psychotherapy.

Most of the men who come through the doors of the  program are there
on felony drug charges. Most are meth  addicts. About half are
court-ordered into the program  and half making a transition from
prison to life on the  outside.

The majority are "people with a substance (abuse)  problem that commit
a crime to support their habit or  are under the influence or mentally
ill," said  Community Corrections director Guy Meyer.

Garfield County has participated in the Community  Corrections program
since 1982, sending people  sentenced to the program to other
counties. It was not  until 2003 that it set aside a portion of the
Garfield  County jail to house its own clients. Since then, Meyer
said he's seen a shift in the type of clients, as they  are called.
Rather than being strictly criminals, they  are also drug addicts. The
program has also shifted its  focus from rehabilitation of criminals
to treatment of  the drug addicted.

The end remains the same, however: to help them learn  to be
self-sufficient and live without drugs and  without repeating criminal
activity.

"It's led to a different path of thinking," Meyer said.  The new
approach seeks to establish trust in the  clients, to help them find
their way back from their  addiction.

All those on the Community Corrections staff, including  case workers
and therapists, look at the problem of  bringing clients back to a
clean life "from every  angle," said Community Corrections drug and
alcohol  program coordinator John Dent-Romero.

Clients must pay for their room and board, $17 a day.  The actual cost
is $39 a day, which is supplemented by  the state. They also pay
court-ordered restitution,  child support, or other outstanding debts.
They also  receive counseling about how to manage their money.

Bassetti, who is 28 and lives in Parachute, came to the  program after
being charged with drug possession and  "fighting" in 2002. He was
initially sentenced to two  years of probation but "got strung out on
meth" during  that time.

The turning point

What turned things around for Bassetti was a phone  conversation with
his daughter, who lives with her  mother in Alaska. It was an
emotional eye-opener for  him.

"She said, 'When are you coming here, Daddy? Can you  take me to the
park?' I turned myself in the next day,"  he said.

Bassetti was sentenced to four years in the Community  Corrections
program.

When he showed up to begin his jail time he was  basically homeless.
"I'd come off from living on the  streets."

He'd worked as a rough-neck on drilling rigs, where  they provide some
housing for workers who pull lengthy  work schedules. "I worked a lot
of overtime so I always  had a place to stay."

He moved from state to state with the rigs, from Utah  to Wyoming to
Colorado.

He became addicted to meth.

"I was running with the wrong people. I was running  from life ... and
from my inner demons," he said.

When he showed up at the county jail in Glenwood  Springs to begin the
program, he was as low as he could  get. He'd been doing meth
intravenously and thought  about ending his life.

"I was suicidal. I had a three to four gram-a-day  habit," he
said.

He couldn't eat or sleep. He weighed only 106 pounds  during that
time. "I was in really bad shape."

Breaking his addiction wasn't easy.

The first three to four months "were really rough,"  Bassetti said.
There is no drug - like methadone is  sometimes prescribed for heroin
addicts - to ease the  physical symptoms of going cold turkey from
meth.

He also worked through a program, Strategy for  Self-Improvement and
Change.

"That helped me more than anything in my life," he  said. "It helped
me change my thinking."

Ultimately, it enabled him to cut loose from the people  he was using
drugs with. "That was the hardest thing,"  he said. "I just didn't
want to live like that no  more."

In March he completed the residential part of his  sentence. Bassetti
is now working in construction,  operating heavy equipment. He meets
with his case  manager every week and submits to a urine test.
Community Corrections personnel also check on him at  home to make
sure he's where he should be.

"I have an 8 p.m. curfew," he said.

Life as Nathan Bassetti lives it now "couldn't be  better." He's
gained 90 pounds since being in community  corrections.

"Most people don't recognize me."

If they do, and if they're the people he cut loose from  his bad old
drug days, they get the message he's not  interested in them anymore.

He also looks toward the future and a life in Alaska  with his
daughter. And a father-daughter trip to the  park. 
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MAP posted-by: Steve Heath