Chasing The Blues At APPLE

For nine years, while hiding down south from a 1977 police warrant for drug dealing, Moses Langhorne used heroin just once a year, when he came home for Christmas.

A superstar athlete at Riverhead High School, now 43 years old, he kept his habit at bay working as a long-haul trucker, buying his own house and a Cadillac, trying to "live right."

His perceived "control," however, did not help him avoid a second arrest for dealing, in 1996, after he had become a "businessman doper" earning much more than the $40 to $60 a day he was spending on heroin or black-market methadone.

Ten Months, So Far

But instead of being on the run again, or in prison, Mr. Langhorne is spending Christmas at A Program Planned for Life Enrichment, the APPLE drug rehabilitation center in East Hampton.

He has passed 10 months there so far, staring down the addiction that has dogged him for 21 years.

"I convinced myself I wasn't a junkie because I didn't pass out on the streets, but, after all those years of always having to have the drugs or the methadone within reach, it was tiresome . . . I wasn't out of control but I know I wasn't me, either," he said.

Off The Streets

For Mr. Langhorne and a few other residents, Christmas at APPLE is not the isolating experience one might imagine. His family is nearby and visits often, he said, and his years of running from police and driving around the country have steeled him against homesickness.

He and other APPLE residents said they were, in any event, better off "in the house" than on the streets.

"I know this is where I'm supposed to be at this moment. Being here, it's not the end of the world. There are a lot worse places I could be right now. My family loves me, and God will take care of my children," said Randi Perry.

Second Christmas

Born and raised in Southampton, she is 32 and spending her second Christmas at APPLE.

A former postal worker, she returned there three months ago in a second attempt to beat the powerful crack addiction that, during a seven-year downward spiral, cost her her job, car, husband, home, and custody of her small son and daughter.

APPLE is considered one of the more effective treatment programs in New York, although some clients complete the 12-to-15-month program and, like Ms. Perry, still stumble.

Of the 43 there this week, seven are back for the second time.

Extreme Isolation

Addicts have an extreme sense of isolation and loneliness, seeing themselves as insignificant, and teaching them to be responsible, valuable members of society is at the core of the APPLE philosophy.

For some who have never held a job or been part of a family, life in the house represents the first time they have ever functioned as part of a group and been accountable.

They sleep four to a room, share bathrooms, eat three meals a day in the communal dining room, and do nearly all the cooking, cleaning, and yard work together.

Group Therapy

They attend group therapy several times a week, face up to any legal problems, get a clean driver's license and a high school equivalency diploma, and start to learn a vocation.

The residents who are H.I.V.-positive, and a few are, get help controlling the illness and special counseling.

In the process, they make their way through five stages of gradually increasing responsibility to earn days outside the facility and other privileges.

In brief, up to 50 adults at a time are in varying phases of maturity that non-addicts are expected to achieve by adolescence.

"Internalizing a whole new philosophy takes time. Some come back here once, some make it after three times. They learn some things, but not enough to make it work entirely," said Alfred M. (Tony) Endre, the project director since the East Hampton center opened six years ago.

Managed health care and welfare reform have limited the length of stay, and Mr. Endre said he worries too many residents are forced to leave before they should.

Some don't leave even after they complete treatment. Of 10 staff members, six are former addicts.

Gina Donlon was hired by APPLE a month ago as Mr. Endre's secretary. She and Rose Barton, now a therapy aide, continue to live at the center as they take cautious steps back into the world.

Mr. Endre, himself a recovered addict, founded Odyssey House years ago and later designed counseling programs for addicts at Rikers Island. The East Hampton community's support for APPLE is unique in his 32-year experience, he said.

Community Support

Town officials and concerned residents went looking several years ago for a reputable agency to help local people in need. They chose APPLE, the largest in Suffolk, and helped the agency build the sunny, spacious, spotlessly clean center at the end of Industrial Road and start an outpatient counseling program, on Main Street, East Hampton.

Each year, the town has continued its financial support.

"Communities are usually trying to chase us out, but East Hampton is an enlightened and progressive town," said Mr. Endre, adding that APPLE and its clients, about a quarter of whom are from the East End, seek to serve the community and have been embraced in return.

Active Volunteers

Not surprisingly, though, there are many East Hamptoners who don't know there is a rehab center here. And "there are some East Hampton people who are actively avoiding that information," said Mr. Endre, with a wry smile.

APPLE residents adopted the entire length of Daniel's Hole Road to keep it free of litter. They volunteer as stagehands at Guild Hall and camera operators at LTV, just up the road.

They have painted the East Hampton Day Care Center, gone shopping for homebound seniors, marched in the annual Santa parade, and helped move the belongings of dispossessed families.

In The Schools

They and their counselors go to local schools to talk about addiction and recovery, and some clients have come to APPLE as a result of those encounters, said Bob Poli, the center's operations manager and Mr. Endre's assistant.

The East Hampton Presbyterian Church lends its driveway for weekend car washes to raise money for outings and entertainment. On Saturday, APPLE residents helped unload a Home Sweet Home truck full of food donated by King Kullen to the Town Senior Citizens Center.

Volunteerism, said Mr. Endre, is an important APPLE tenet, one way clients are taught to see themselves as contributing members of society.

Holiday Trimmings

"By the time they get here, they are liars and thieves and they have nothing . . . empty shells with no sense of significance. We get them to reflect on what's missing."

One afternoon last week, about two dozen residents helped decorate the house for the holidays. They trimmed a giant tree donated by Treasure Island, a shop in Wainscott, and a few climbed the roof to hang lights and wreaths they had made of evergreen boughs.

Christmas carols, some with a hip-hop beat, were playing on a boom box. A few residents sang along.

What's Missing

Most seemed to be pulling each other into the holiday spirit, even as they were self-consciously eyeing the visitor in their midst. Just one or two - the newest arrivals - resisted, sitting outside smoking cigarettes or alone in the dining room.

"The focus during the holidays is on the things that are missing right now - families, children - and on the positive sacrifice, how they're working to get back to their families," said Mr. Endre.

Relatives are invited to a giant Thanksgiving feast each year but Christmas Day passes with no visitors, a time for shared contemplation. Loneliness, made worse by the season, can be overwhelming, but residents help each other out of the blues, he said.

Drug abuse is a peer-pressure process and so is the way out, say APPLE administrators. "Reach one, teach one" is an APPLE adage that was repeated a few times that afternoon.

"Addiction is selfish and masturbatory. . . . When you bridge the isolation and loneliness and share yourself, well, there's a spiritual quality to being my brother's keeper," Mr. Endre explained.

At 27, Lisa Meguin is making her third attempt to master an addiction to alcohol and powder cocaine. She tried detoxification twice before, in a short-term program at South Oaks Hospital in Amityville, once after being hauled into Family Court as a juvenile and once to appease a boyfriend.

Long-Term Treatment

The boyfriend is gone and Ms. Meguin joined APPLE in October, after her family urged her to seek long-term treatment. This is her first Christmas away from her family, who live in Copiague and visit on weekends.

"I am used to celebrating Christmas and I know this year will be different, but I believe it's best for me to be here," she said. "If it takes a year, then it takes a year. After all, for 13 years I was using." She shrugged.

Ms. Meguin lost a job with Cablevision because of "absenteeism," she said.

She is fairly typical of APPLE patients in that regard, although Mary Cannon, the vocational counselor, has seen the broadest possible range, from a medical doctor to residents who cannot read or write and have never held a job.

Changing Lives

The doctor eventually switched to research - "There are too many drugs in a hospital," said Ms. Cannon - but most patients are given math and reading tests, remedial help, and an assessment of the types of jobs they can and want to do.

"Watching people change their lives, that's the ultimate Christmas gift for me," the counselor said.

Mr. Langhorne said he tested at a third-grade reading level when he first came to APPLE and has progressed four grades since then. His plan for life outside the house is very specific: a long-haul trucking job and a "family home" he will build with his two grown sons and an uncle.

"I don't have to be the best anymore, but I do want to be in the game. This is a training camp: When the coach calls, I'll be ready," he said.

APPLE residents will spend Christmas Day singing carols, drinking eggnog, taking pictures, and exchanging small presents - "the things we weren't used to doing in the street, and that some of us never did," said Ms. Perry, citing one woman who came to APPLE this year at 37 and was thrown her first-ever birthday party.

As for herself, said Ms. Perry, crack caused such an intense craving that it made her do "the unthinkable." She gave her children to her ex-husband and his mother, who live in Virginia, and ended up back in South ampton with her parents when she became homeless.

She was eventually asked to leave there as well.

Wait Till Next Year

Now she talks to her children by telephone and sends cards, and her parents visit on weekends.

"I like that. It gives them a chance to see how I'm living now, and hope that they'll have their daughter back in their lives, and for me to make amends."

"It is more difficult during the holidays," she acknowledged. "There's no drugs in my system, so I really feel the emotions."

"I feel sad and guilty because I'm not with my children. It's hard sometimes. But I try to think of next year, when I won't have to be away from my family."