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01/11/2007
Immigrant Addicts Come Clean In Corona
by Adam Edelman , Chronicle Correspondent


(Michael O’Kane) From left, Cruz Iabra, Hector Olsen, Miguel Juarez, Luis Bolanco and Jose Molinaro, are of whom are in or have completed a 12 step program at Jovenes 24.
Ricardo remembers the worst times most easily.
He remembers snorting cocaine and drinking as a 10 year old after watching his father beat his mother in their small house in Colombia. He remembers sleeping on Brooklyn streets and spending nights as a stripper and prostitute at an East Elmhurst gay bar to earn money for crack and alcohol.
Ricardo, 24, also remembers the first three days he spent at Jovenes 24, sitting in a basement chair, battling the demons in his mind and regaining his will to live.
Jovenes 24 is a shelter and substance abuse treatment facility in Corona that follows a 12 step recovery program and is one of the few sources of hope for immigrant addicts like Ricardo.
It is housed in a two story wooden building on 101st Street. Below the cramped upstairs bedrooms are a lobby, a meeting room and two bathrooms. But most of the healing takes place in the basement, which doubles as a meeting hall and dining room.
Most participants are immigrants from Central and South America, who came to the United States—in many cases illegally—to escape poverty and build new lives.
“The majority of our clients were brought up in houses where drinking was commonplace,” said Miguel Torres, 40, the executive director and a program graduate himself. “Then you transplant yourself to a country where you don’t know the language and it leads to drinking and more drinking and drugs. And many are afraid to get help because of their illegal status.”
Addicts who want to get clean can just walk in, because the front door is literally open 24 hours a day, every day, hence the 24 of the shelter’s name. Jovenes is spanish for young ones or young people
“When they come in here, we ask them, ‘what are you willing to do to stop drinking or doing drugs?’” said House Manager Hector Olsen, 36, a program graduate from El Salvador who once routinely used crack, PCP and heroin. “They usually say, ‘anything,’ and we say, ‘good, now sit on this chair for three days and three nights and think about all the damage you’ve done.’”
Fellow residents bring the person food and water and escort the person to the bathroom, but the addict cannot change clothes or bathe.
During the next three months, residents attend a 90 minute junta, or meeting, every three hours, Torres said. Although there is no formal religious adherence at Jovenes 24, residents are encouraged to accept the existence of a higher power, as is described in most 12 step programs.
If a resident completes phase one clean, he can either move out, returning often for juntas, or enter phase two, living at the house and paying rent.
That money, together with what comes in as donations from graduates and grants, funds the program. Jose Morales, a Mexican immigrant and former alcoholic who started the program in 1991, bought the house in 1996 with personal savings.
Of the 3,100 clients Jovenes 24 has helped since 1996, 37 percent were Mexican immigrants, 22 percent were from Ecuador, 12 percent from Colombia and the other 29 percent from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Honduras, Cuba, India and Russia.
“I believe some people come to this country with their problem,” Olsen said, “but others get here and soon start drinking.”
Some participants began drinking innocently, stumbling into addiction. Tony, a husky Mexican man, started drinking for fun.
“But I started hitting my wife. I’ve had two already,” he said, rubbing his eyes to prevent tears from streaming down his puffy cheeks. “I didn’t want to live no more. I lost my family, I lose my body, I’m crying all the time. I want to stop drinking but I can’t.” Tony is in phase one of the program.
As eight men sat listening to Ricardo’s dramatic story, three others set a table with plastic plates and cups and put the finishing touches on lunch: sweet and sour chicken and lo mein.
Hanging on the walls are motivational statements from the 12 step program translated into Spanish: Tomalo con Calma (Take It Easy), Solo por Hoy (Only for Today), Vive y deja vivir (Live and Let Live) and Poco a poco se llega lejos (Little by little, I will get far).
With these as a backdrop, Ricardo stands at a podium holding back tears, telling his comrades that he is going to stay clean this time. He has been at Jovenes 24 for a month.
He utters, in a clear but quiet voice, the words that the other men will say after they tell their own stories: “Feliz 24 Horas.”

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©Queens Chronicle 2007