gee this guy got it all because of his drug addiction. he should be a high times poster boy.

NJ man finishes drug rehab, gets married

By ELI SEGALL
Newsday - Associated Press
February 22, 2009

NEWARK, N.J. - It was a little past 11 a.m., and Billy Daniels was getting worried. A friend was supposed to drive him to Essex County Superior Court, but the man hadn't shown.

It was a big day for Daniels _ the biggest in years _ and he couldn't be late to court. Until a few years ago, he snorted heroin every day. But today would be different _ today was the start of a new life.

In only a few hours, Daniels would graduate from a state-run drug rehabilitation program. A few minutes after that, he would be married.

"It symbolizes that he changed," said his elderly mother, Mattie, an hour before the ceremony. "I don't think he's going back to no drugs."

For the past five years, Daniels, a 47-year-old with a thick stomach and a slow walk, was enrolled in the county's drug court program. To beat his heroin addiction, his urine was tested twice a week, he had a 7 p.m. curfew, and he attended Narcotics Anonymous.

He also attended a job training program in Jersey City, where he swept the city's streets. More importantly, he met Sandy Roman, herself a recovering drug addict in the program.

They dated for two years, and he proposed last month.

"She went through what I went through," said Daniels, sitting on his mother's couch in Newark. "We both keep each other clean."

Daniels' story begins in Newark, where he and his four siblings were raised. As a teen he moved to Tulsa, Okla., and at 23 married an 18-year-old. Two days after the wedding, he returned to Newark, bringing his wife and their infant daughter with him.

The pair had three more children, and they split up.

From the mid-1980s to 2003, Daniels said he snorted heroin three or four times a day, buying little, $10 baggies of the drug. He said he snorted it in the hallways of housing projects, and sometimes, on the streets of Newark in broad daylight.

He was arrested nearly a dozen times along the way.

"When you wake up in the morning, you feel kind of sick, can't do nothing," he said of being an addict. "And then, when you get that bag, that energy takes over you."

His new wife has a similar history. She was arrested for possession of crack cocaine in Camden about six years ago, and child services removed four of her children from her apartment. The children now live in upstate New York with a relative.

Neither of them work _ the left side of Daniels' face is paralyzed from Bell's Palsy, a nerve condition, and Roman says she has no cartilage in her knees. They both collect Social Security benefits, totaling roughly $1,000 a month.

"It's enough to pay, like, the rent and the bills, but whatever's leftover, we got to budget," Roman said.

After yet another run-in with the law in 2003, Billy was sentenced to drug court, a strict, state-run rehabilitation program. Drug court, in states nationwide, started in Essex County more than a dozen years ago. Clients undergo frequent drug testing and court appearances, among other requirements.

Daniels entered the program in February 2004 and, like most participants, had to spend five years there.

Last Thursday was graduation day. Judge Ramona Santiago awarded him a certificate, and a few minutes later, she married him and Roman.

It was a modest wedding _ Daniels does not own a suit, so he wore baggy slacks and a shirt and tie, with a cell phone clipped to his pants. Roman wore a beige two-piece suit, with a sleeveless, leopard skin shirt and brown suede shoes.

Daniels' friend never came to drive them to court, so the couple and his mom walked a block to catch the bus, NJ Transit No. 1. With no seats left on the bus, they stood the entire way.

They entered the courthouse, rode the elevators to the seventh floor, and by 2 p.m., Daniels had graduated from drug court. Roman watched him graduate, then left the courtroom.

She re-emerged within minutes, arms linked with Daniels' probation officer, Dujuan Jones, who walked her down the aisle as a court clerk sang "At Last," by Etta James.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wir ... rugcourtmarriage0222feb22,0,2940079.story