Ex-Addict helps those who face same struggles

Jack Housworth knows what he’s talking about when he counsels men at Austin Recovery. A recovering addict himself, he’s been homeless and lost his family and job due to drug abuse (Austin American Statesman) 2/22/2009

The tall white, almost-bare walls and lack of décor in this large room do not make it an inviting place. About 40 men in their 20s to 60s mingle. You get a sense they want to be there. Jack Housworth calls the meeting to order and asks one of them to take roll. Everyone finds a seat and look anxiously toward Housworth, as if his words were food for the day.

"How many of you are in your first two weeks of being here?" he asks. Several hands go up in this morning meeting at Austin Recovery, a nonprofit alcohol and drug treatment center based in Austin. "Now pat yourselves on the back. It takes a lot of courage to be here." Some of the men do reach back and give themselves the praise that has been absent from their lives. Some have lost everything. One confesses he tried to commit suicide as his life spun out of control. They all feel abandoned and that no one cares.

Housworth is quick to remind them, however, that neither God nor family has abandoned them. In fact, it's the other way around.

"But don't beat yourself up over it. You have to learn to forgive yourself first. ? Whatever you did in the past, you did in the past. You can't do anything about that. But you can do something about today and tomorrow," he says.

"Amen!" A man in the back of the room says.

It's easy to see why the men accept Housworth, a recovering addict himself, as one of the guys. Homelessness. Prison. Loss of family and work. They've been there, done that.

Housworth, 52, is a licensed chemical dependency counselor intern at Austin Recovery (www.austinrecovery.org) , a residential treatment center with three locations for men and women. Housworth just completed work at Austin Community College to earn an associate degree in human services addiction counseling. He is attending night classes at Park University to get a bachelor's degree is social psychology. He is one-fourth of the way through working the 4,000 hours at Austin Recovery he needs in order to apply for a state license to become an accredited counselor. At Austin Recovery, he shares a caseload of seven men with a licensed counselor who oversees his work.

Just about every staff member is in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. "We don't use our jobs as part of our recovery," says Housworth. "That is separate. I go to support group meetings and have a sponsor." To help other recovering addicts, Housworth uses his own troubled life to get the message across: Someone cares. There is hope. Use your time at Austin Recovery as a springboard to change your life.

"With me, it's about one addict helping and trusting another addict," he says.

James, 45, a two-time Austin Recovery resident, likes Housworth's people skills. (He asked that his last name not be used so that his addiction is not public.) "He has a pleasant smile and makes you feel welcome. ? When I told him my story, he knew exactly what treatment plan I needed. He knew I didn't need to be preached to. Jack has good insight. He treats me like a brother. He believes in me and demands that I succeed. The side that most people don't see is that he's firm that we stop beating ourselves up. He gives me self-worth. I love him to death," he says.

Mylene Hill, Housworth's supervisor at Austin Recovery, says Housworth is effective because he's approachable. "He has great compassion. The guys come in here pretty wounded, and he's got that soft touch that they need," she says.

Housworth had to have been there to get here.

"The best thing was getting arrested. It saved my life," he says of police apprehending him on the streets in March 2003. He was in violation of his probation stemming from a heroin possession conviction in 2001. His criminal record and the types of offenses - drug possession and theft - do not prevent him from applying for a state license.

Housworth was raised in Oak Hill when all the area had was a rodeo arena, baseball field, bar and store. By age 12, he was riding bulls for fun. During summer vacations from Crockett High School, he picked up the land surveying trade of his father, Jack. It was the rodeo arena that struck stars in his eyes, though, and he became a rodeo clown. When he was 26, a bull stepped on him, tearing up his right knee. He got married in 1987 and had a son in 1990.

Over period of 13 years, he had 10 knee operations or procedures as a result of rodeoing and playing softball. He eventually got hooked on Vicodin, a prescribed painkiller. "I got to the point of taking 20 to 30 a day. It's a miracle I didn't kill myself," he said.

He tried drug treatment several times, including efforts to get clean on his own. He divorced in 2001, right about the time that doctors cut him off from painkillers. He couldn't hold down a job.

"So I hit the streets and started doing heroin," he says. "That totally destroyed my life."

By early 2002, he was sleeping under bridges and eating out of trash bins. He collected $30 panhandling on slow days but as much as $100 on good days. "I was slowly killing myself. No self-respect or dignity to speak of," he says.

This is also about the time that he met Gina and Skip Jones, an Austin couple involved in photographing and interviewing homeless people for a book project. Gina Jones was on the board at Caritas at the time, and the book would serve as a fundraiser.

"He looked pretty rough when I first met him, but there was just something about him," Gina Jones says. " You wanted to help him. And the best thing was that he wanted to help himself."

She took up a collection to get Housworth off the street.

"Gina was my guardian angel. She believed in me when no one else did. I have so much gratitude, and I will never be able to repay her," he says.

Another key person in his recovery was a nun he met at a treatment center in San Antonio. He still calls her.

After prison, he emerged back at the same street corner in 2006. Though Housworth was homeless again, he was clean. He was back on track. He chose counseling because it was a way of helping others. And he knew a lot about addiction. He started working at Austin Recovery in 2007.

Housworth is productive again. He has a girlfriend. He owes the Internal Revenue Service money, but that doesn't faze him. He's focused on his recovery. "You always have to have a spiritual guidance. For me, it's God," he says.

As his support group meeting at Austin Recovery wraps up, Housworth circles back to an earlier message. "The answer for us is right here," he says, tapping his chest.

"I love you all."

rgandara@statesman.com