Family Weekly July 7, 1963
I Fought the Scourge of
Narcotics-and Won
... . n
( v0 J
W IT-IK H
At 25, this pretty mother of
three seemed doomed to the slow iJ
suicide of dope addiction;
then help came from an unusual
source: a group of ex-addicts .
By NADINE PORTUGAL
as told to Lou Jacobs, Jr.
PHOTOGRAPHS Y MR. JACOBS
Nadine Portugal combs the hair of her four-year-old
daughter Fawn. Having the child with her has aided
Nadine in making her readjustment to a normal life.
Two and A half years ago, I was approaching despera
tion after eight years of narcotics addiction. At 25, I
had a husband (who also used heroin and sold it as well to
support our "habit") plus three children and a depressing
illness which amounted to gradual suicide.
I had been through the depths of living if you could call being hooked
"living" and after a few weeks in jail I was out on bail fighting another
arrest for addiction.
It is not easy to describe how a girl can reach this very frightening level,'
not knowing how to go in any other direction. But the road to narcotics
was shown to me early. I was one of six children and grew up in San
Pedro, Calif. When I was four, my father was killed while attempting a
holdup. My homebody mother's second husband was a dope addict
Through his influence X began smoking marijuana when I was 12 or 13,
just for kicks.
By the time I was 17, I had graduated to heroin, which is a very ex
pensive and dangerous drug, and that year 1 married a longshoreman
whose habit matched mine. We bought a home and settled down to what
may have seemed, to the casual observer, a normal life. But within two
years, I was too sick to care that we had lost our house, that I had borne
my second child, that I was being watched by the authorities.
We moved often and had constant financial difficulties, even though my
husband worked steadily. In a few years, there were three children to
feed; but our craving for heroin was growing harder to satisfy, and we
lived in a haze.
Drug addicts often steal because they can't keep a job. Their laziness
stems from the fact that drugs depress rather than stimulate the user.
They also constipate and make one prone to respiratory diseases and
jaundice. I know what an awful effect they had on me, for I was 20 pounds
underweight. During most of this time, I wasn't running around much ;
I was in my own home, raising my children. I guess a "square" (our term
for nonaddicts) who visited me would have thought I was just a very
I
I i:"
neurotic housewife, thin and antisocial. Such a person probably would
not have realized that I was on drugs.
I tried more than orice to "kick the habit," as giving up drugs is called.
In fact, after the third month of my first pregnancy, I stopped using the
needle entirely. 1 didn't want to give the baby a physical stigma. But I
became hooked again afterward. With my second child, I also stopped for
a number of months, but during my third pregnancy I couldn't tear my
self away from heroin until two weeks before the baby was born. As an
infant, little Fawn had to kick her own mild habit, poor thing.
The longer you are on drugs, the harder it is to give them up. For most
people, they are slow death. I've heard that the confirmed addict doesn't
live much beyond 45 years.
To best understand the perplexed life of a narcotics user, you have to
keep in mind that they live in their own unreal world, setting up customs
and standards to suit their sickness. I could love my children, but drugs
blocked real depth of feeling. Narcotics numb the senses in many ways.
You can't love another adult unless you can love yourself, and an addict
is trying to destroy himself, so how can he have an honest relationship
with anyone?
Octting Narcotics Money at Any Cost
Perhaps you now understand the pattern of my life. I was barely ex
isting, and I was terribly afraid. Each day, I had to have five or more
shots of heroin, which cost anywhere from ?25 to $150. Intermixed with
the fear and the narcotic-induced euphoria were eating, sleeping, house
keeping, and child care. I knew some desperate months when my husband
was in jail, when we had little money, when I had to sink as low as a woman
can for my next fix.
Then came the last of my many arrests when finally I did some jail time.
By then, I was ready to seek a drastic solution to my drug problem. I had
heard about Synanon House in Santa Monica, Calif. Startad in 1957, it is
a place where former addicts live and work to help each other return to
normal lives.
When I got out on bail in December, 1960, I was accepted at Synanon
At the nursery school where she works, Na
dine ( above) helps one of her pupils, Victoria
Lawford, niece of President Kennedy. At left,
she discusses problems with other ex-addicts.
with little more than the clothes on my back. I spent my first few weeks
kicking the habit again and searching for the gimmick (addicts always
seem to be looking for ulterior motives). But I never found it. Now, of
course, it doesn't seem so strange that anybody would want to help me
without some strincs attached. But at that time, unselfishness was seldom
a part of my life.
I remember wanting to escape from Synanon and go back to the tem
porary comfort of narcotic fog. For several weeks, the people at the House
stayed with me, restraining me physically when they had to. They told
me I would get over the longing for dope; they talked to me in the language
I knew. I cried and I pleaded, but I couldn't resent their counsel, for they
had been through the same ghastly experience.
Eventually I could admit my feelings and my cravings, both in the
group therapy held three times a week and with those who "stood guard"
over me in a sense. Within a month, I was over my antisocial urge to run,
to destroy myself; I could begin to face reality on a new level. Taking
the advice of the people at Synanon, I placed my children in a foster home.
I was ready to start afresh with no outside pressures.
Everyone who lives here at Synanon is clean no drugs- ever, no liquor,
either. Ninety percent of the people who stay 90 days or longer are off
drugs for good. Misfits all, former addicts learn to respect their own value
as individuals, leaning on others until they are strong enough and wise
enough to help newcomers the way they were helped.
Still out on bail for my last arrest, I was again rescued by Synanon
through an ex-addict attorney who lives at the House. He went to court
and gained my acquittal. That was a relief. Though I hadn't a cent,
Synanon never asked me for money. The House was strapped for funds
and in litigation about zoning, but somehow contributions came in.
Synanon never solicits them.
Gradually I found a useful life, starting with housecleaning and main
tenance jobs to earn my keep. We have nearly 150 people with all kinds of
backgrounds, but they get the same kind of help for a common problem.
I began to realize that I was worth more than just a body in which to stick
a needle. I found that the normal, everyday life which most people lead
may not be so easy to take, but it's far more agreeable than being Bick
from drugs.
In six months I was well enough to have my youngest daughter, Fawn,
come live with me in one of the houses for women with children. My other
youngsters, seven and nine, live with a kind family in a Los Angeles
suburb, and I see them often. Although my husband and I have broken up,
I hope to have my own home someday. I'll have my children with me again.
In a few more months, my regular job was to care for the children
at the House, a task I shared with the other mothers. Then a minister
asked if one of us would like to work at his church's nursery school in
return for her child's tuition. I was eager to accept the job. I wanted
to feel part of a normal group and children are a wonderful contrast to
the synthetic life I once led.
I Am Winning tho Right to Livo Again
Fortunately, the nursery decided to create a training program for
me as a teaching assistant. When I've passed some educational courses,
I'll be qualified as a full-time teacher.
At present, I work five mornings a week, planning the routine for 10
preschoolers, one of whom is President Kennedy's niece, Peter Lawford's
darling little four-year-old, Victoria.
When a few of the church board members resisted my working with
children there, the minister and the school's director were my champions.
I think I will prove that an addict can make a new life.
The money I earn goes into the Synanon treasury, but I keep $10 a
month for savings, and I can buy necessary clothes not donated to me
by the House.
In the past year, I met a man at Synanon with whom I hope to plan
another life when we are both strong enough to face the outside world.
I have plenty of years ahead in which to make up for the time I lost living
like a human animal. I'm understanding more about myself through help
ing others, just as I was helped. The mirror on my wall is now a friend,
not the revealing enemy it was for so long.
And I'm determined to keep it that way.
4
Famllu Wnkly. July 7. 1H3
family Wetkly, July 7. 1X1
5