Editor’s note: The people in this story have had their last names omitted due to the sensitive nature of the information they disclosed.
Defeat seemed inevitable.
The Pathway’s sober softball team is made up of local men who are in recovery from alcohol and drug addictions. It’s named after the sober-living home they stay in, called Pathway to Healing. This is the first year Pathway to Healing (PTH) put its team in the Santa Maria men’s slow-pitch softball league.
At the first game on Sept. 19, Pathway’s team members stood in stark contrast to their opponents, the One Hit Wonders, who showed up in matching uniforms.
Some of the guys on Pathway’s wore denim jeans to the game. Only a handful of them had cleats. They had to share gloves. They didn’t stretch or warm up before the game. Instead, they enjoyed the last drags off their cigarettes. When they took the field, it was clear that some of the players were out of practice.
A few of them hadn’t touched a softball since they were kids; for others, it was their first time on a field. The catcher had to switch out his hand every time he tossed the ball back to the pitcher because no one had a left-handed mitt to lend him.
“I thought we were going to get slaughtered,” said the team’s second-baseman, Albert.
Early in the game, errors piled up for Pathway’s. They under-threw to first base and over-threw to third. Grounders and fly balls bounced out of the fielders’ gloves.
The team allowed nine runs in the initial innings, but despite the obvious dysfunction, Pathway’s players stayed positive; they high-fived between innings and joked about their mistakes. They were laughing and having a good time even though they were losing.
“It’s fun to get out and do things we used to do when we were little, before we started doing drugs,” Albert said.
They scored three runs in the first inning—one was an in-field homerun by one of the guys wearing cleats—but they didn’t score in the second and third.
The score was 11-3, with the One-Hit Wonders sitting comfortably in the lead. Then, midway through the game, the momentum shifted.
“We started to come back,” right fielder Richard said.
The right path
There are currently 4,000 people in treatment for addiction in Santa Barbara County, according to John Doyle, program manager for the Department of Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Services.
Pathway to Healing’s founders started the company in 2005 to fulfill a need they saw in Santa Maria for people in recovery to live together and learn how to manage their lives, said owner Roman Velasquez.
PTH houses 25 residents in three sober-living homes in the city. Residents are referred to Pathway through probation, the parole office, and different outpatient programs.
Richard and Albert were referred by courts when they were released from jail.
Albert was released on probation after being incarcerated for 120 days on charges of grand theft auto, drug possession, possession of burglary tools, evading arrest, and being under the influence of a controlled substance.
He’s 26 years old and had been doing drugs for more than a decade, he said, adding that he started with marijuana and alcohol, but by the age of 16, he had developed a methamphetamine addiction.
Little by little, he started losing everything he had.
He used to get high and steal cars to support his habit, he explained. Nobody in his family trusted him, and he didn’t trust any of his friends.
“I was a wreck,” he said. “I had no purpose in life. My whole purpose was to do drugs.”
The judge could’ve sentenced him to five to 10 years in prison, he said. While Albert was in jail, he realized he had a drug problem.
When he was released, it would’ve been easy for him to get sucked back into his old habits, but he wasn’t allowed to associate with anyone from his old life, he said. Still, Albert said he wanted to get high the first day he got out of jail.
“At first it’s scary,” he explained. “I’m supposed to stay away from the thing I centered my whole life around.”
Now that he’s been in a sober-living home for two months, his feelings have changed. After a month in the home, he fell in love with it. He found a job. His relationships with his family have started healing. He now talks to his mother every day on the phone and receives a lot of support from his extended family.
He has four kids. His youngest is 7 months old, and Albert spent the first five months of his son’s life in jail. He put the drugs before his kids and doesn’t want to miss out anymore.
“I’m fortunate enough to be given a second chance,” he said. “To be placed in this program is a blessing.”
There are 10 roommates in the three-bedroom house. Each member of the house has to have a job, pay rent, do chores, and go to one 12-step meeting a day. Residents have a house meeting every Wednesday to check in with one another and get updates on each person’s recovery.
On a recent Thursday, it was Albert’s turn in the rotation to clean the kitchen. The room sits at the front of the east-facing house, and the soft, evening light shimmered on the spotless counters.
The conditions of his probation also require him to attend classes six times a week and get drug tested three times a week.
The daily 12-step meetings that residents must attend are hosted by the organization Narcotics Anonymous (NA). When Albert joined NA, he was given a sponsor whom he could call anytime for help with the program. His sponsor has been clean for 26 years.
Going to meetings has helped Albert see that he’s not alone.
“We’ve all been through hell and back with these drugs,” he said. “Watching people who have been through the same things I have and seeing them live a better life gives me hope.”
Get with the program
The midday wind hadn’t quite picked up yet when members of NA began arriving for their annual Unity Day celebration. They lit the barbecue and put the sausages on before the majority of the crowd showed up to the northwest corner of Waller Park on Sept. 27.
By the time the wind began rushing through the towering eucalyptus trees, about 100 recovering addicts had arrived to talk, laugh, catch up, and eat a barbecue chicken lunch.
Unity Day is held in September because it’s the month the first recorded NA meeting was held back in 1953, explained Greg, who first started attending NA in 1979 and has been clean for 22 years.
In the early days of NA, the meetings were known as “rabbit meetings” because they hopped from place to place. Members had to meet underground because at the time it was against the law for any person to be in association with an addict, even if that person was clean, Greg said.
The organization has come a long way since then. Today there are more than 63,000 meetings every week in 132 countries around the world, according to its website.
On the Central Coast, there are 140 meetings a week; Santa Maria alone boasts 30 of those.
The Central Coast Area Activities Committee of NA planned the recent Unity Day event in Santa Maria. The area reaches from Paso Robles down to Lompoc, and last year’s Unity Day was held in Arroyo Grande.
Having Unity Day in September also coincides with National Recovery Month. Events have been held around the Central Coast, including Recovery Day in Buena Vista Park in early September and Recovery Day in Lompoc on Sept. 20.
“It’s to show newcomers that this program works and we can have fun and be productive members of this society,” Greg said about Unity Day. “Life doesn’t stop because we’re not getting high.”
At noon on Sept. 27, the group called a meeting. People sat around the wooden picnic tables, introducing themselves with the familiar phrase—“I’m an addict”—and sharing stories about their recoveries.
Some people announced that they had clean birthdays coming up. Luis, 43, celebrated five years clean on Sept. 28.
“It works for me because I can talk to other people, so I won’t feel alone,” he said. “It’s that whole thing of one addict helping another.”
Luis sponsors four people. One of them is Jesus, who is 27 years old and has stayed clean for almost two years.
“He’s guided me through the program,” Jesus said about his sponsor.
Jesus remembers getting guidance from Luis on step four, which is to make an inventory of the harmful things he’s done to other people. Jesus is now on step six, which deals with character defects. Jesus is looking at himself and seeing his shortfalls.
“Drugs are only a small problem,” he said. “Just because I don’t do drugs anymore doesn’t mean I’m a good human being.”
As the chicken rotated on the grill and gusts started whipping through the tablecloths, the meeting began winding down. It closed with everyone holding hands in a circle and reciting an excerpt from the NA literature.
A long line wrapped around the cement patio for lunch. People piled their plates with salad, beans, and bread and had a choice between light or dark meat. As the day progressed, people played volleyball, watched their kids run around, threw a Frisbee, and flung horseshoes.
The first Unity Day in Santa Maria was held in 1989, said Jim, who’s on the public relations committee and will be clean for 25 years on Oct. 2.
During that first event, the group came together for a barbecue and broke out into a spontaneous game of softball, he said.
Since then, softball has become a tradition in the recovery community.
A team called the Santa Maria Survivors played host to the 22nd annual sober softball tournament the week before Unity Day. There were 40 teams—some of which came all the way from San Diego or the Bay Area—with men’s, women’s, and co-ed divisions.
The Santa Maria Survivors took first place in its division.
“It made my recovery a lot easier,” said Ronnie, 46, who plays for the Survivors.
Jim sponsors Ronnie along with nine other people, and Ronnie has been clean for 15 years.
“That was my way to belong to something,” Jim said about sober softball.
Good, clean fun
Pathway’s seemingly inevitable defeat faded as the team’s third runner touched home plate on Sept. 19. The energy on the field changed when the players started to make a comeback.
The team’s defense tightened. Players fielded grounders and forced one out after the other. They scored three times in the fourth inning and twice in the fifth. In the sixth, they started to rally.
The neon green softball clinked off of their bats, prompting runners to round the bases and close the gap. The crowd took notice, and the excitement built under the bright lights of Hagerman Field.
One guy tripled, followed by three base hits, a double, and another single. Pathway’s scored five runs in the sixth inning.
When the game was called due to time constraints, Pathway’s had almost evened up the score: 13 to 15. They didn’t win, but they’d enjoyed an amazing comeback.
One Pathway’s player, Elijah, attributed their success to one thing: “Unity, baby!”
Richard, 19, is typically a quiet person, but when his team started to work its way up the scoreboard, he got pumped up and wasn’t as shy. Softball is the first sport he’s played since high school, which was when he began using, he said.
“It reminds me that I can have fun without being under the influence of drugs,” he said.
The rally didn’t stop when that game ended. Pathway’s second game of the season—on Sept. 26—was a different story. The team won by a large margin, scoring more than 20 runs.
The excitement of teamwork and victory within reach is certainly motivating. Albert was hesitant to play on the team at first, but he’s since been bitten by the softball bug.
“I’m going to start coming every week,” he said.
Contact Staff Writer Aaron Salazar at asalazar@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 2-9, 2014.