The Story from American Public Media

Taking a Different Route

Thursday, April 12 2007 by | Send to a friend

TAKING A DIFFERENT ROUTE

Crack cocaine

Nearly 8 million Americans say they have sampled crack at some point in their lives. In Tennessee yesterday, a father admitted to smoking crack cocaine in front of his 11-month old baby. And a woman in New Hampshire was charged with making crack cocaine in her home kitchen.

Thomas Warren says he knows the devastation that using crack cocaine causes. Thomas started using in the 1980s while he was a bus repair man.

In 1989, I overdosed 3 times. You know, everybody left me for dead. They robbed me, took my car, everything. Just left me in the house… And somehow I came through… that's a circumstance that led up to me saying it's time for me to stop.
-Thomas Warren

Thomas Warren

Thomas has been clean since 1989. These days, he counsels his co-workers about all kinds of issues, including drug use.

Thomas tells Dick Gordon about his life's journey -- from taking his first drink at age 4 to becoming the person addicts now turn to for help.

Thomas Warren is currently a Peer Assistant for the Municipal Transportation Authority (M.U.N.I.) in San Francisco, California.

• Do you need help with addiction?
• Find out how crack works

Music heard in this story:
Funky Driver on a Funky Bus by Charles Leondard for the album Bay Area Funk - Funk & Soul Essentials from San Francisco, Oakland, and the Bay Area 1967-1976, Vol. 1

The Wheels On the Bus by Rhythm 'n Kids for the album Rhythm 'n Kids - Volume One

Add to Story

REMEMBERING JOEY

Karen Dalton is an artist who lives near Bynum, North Carolina.  She recently wrote to The Story about someone she knew from her childhood in Newark, New Jersey, a boy named Joey.

Joey was a Downs Syndrome kid that lived on our block 4 houses from mine… Joey was not allowed out of the house. He lived on the second floor. [But] Joey spent his childhood playing with us from the windows in his house.
-Karen Dalton

Karen learned from her mother just this month that Joey passed away. He was 61. She talks to Dick about her poignant and fun memories of Joey's friendship.

• Read Karen's essay about Joey