New Life Begins at 5 : Son of Alcoholic Mother Learns How to Be Young

Every day, 4-year-old Forrest Sanders would stay inside the hotel room, look at television, play with his toys--and watch his mother drink herself into a stupor.

“I would drink until I would black out,” recalled Sharon Sanders. “Then I would start all over again the next day.”

Forrest would bring water and pain-killers, she said. “I would tell him I was sick and he would comfort me. He would wipe my face with a wet towel and tell me I was going to be OK.

“He was being a grown-up when he should have been busy being a little boy,” she said.

Sanders said she began drinking “full out” after her husband, Charles, was shot and killed, apparently while pursuing a motorist who had hit a car near the couple’s residence in Bell Gardens. The March 1, 1987, killing remains unsolved.

Three months ago, however, Sharon Sanders, 28, stopped drinking and found help for herself and her son. She turned to Foley House, an alcoholic recovery home in Whittier that allows children to live with their mothers while the women are undergoing treatment. A relative told Sanders about the program.

Works With Children

She enrolled Forrest in a fledging project in Downey that works with children of drug addicts and alcoholics. The organization is called CODA (Children of Drug Addicts). “Coda is a music term meaning to ‘start over.’ We are trying to help alcoholic families do just that,” said the director, Peggy Van Fleet. “We are also trying to prevent young children in these families from becoming alcoholics and drug addicts.”

The program, which started less than a year ago, serves youngsters 4 to 10 years old and their parents in Southeast Los Angeles County.

“Many of these kids from substance-abusing families have low self-esteem and have trouble expressing their feelings. We try and get them to open up, that it is all right to be angry or happy,” said Lynne Appel, executive director of the Downey-based Southeast Council on Alcoholism & Drug Problems Inc., a nonprofit organization that oversees CODA, Foley House and about a dozen other alcoholism and drug programs.

Theresa Almaviva, a CODA therapist, said Forrest was withdrawn at first, and was reluctant to join with the other kids. “He was in a great deal of pain from his father’s death. He was afraid his mother would die and leave him as his father did,” she said. “Now he is smiling a lot more. He is participating. He has started to feel better.”

Last year, the federal government allocated $24 million over three years for 131 projects, including CODA, to help young people thought most likely to develop alcohol or drug problems, said Eladio Perez, a project officer with the federal Office of Substance Abuse Prevention, Rockville, Md.

Grants Given to Programs

Eighteen of the grants totaling about $3 million were given to California programs, Perez said. The CODA project, which was given an estimated $465,000 for three years, was the only Southern California program to receive the federal money, which pays for staff, supplies and such costs as rent and printing materials, he said.

CODA is housed in a classroom at Unsworth Elementary School, which was closed because of declining enrollment. The Downey Unified School District donated the space.

In addition to Van Fleet, the director, and Almaviva, two other therapists, Dion Smotherman and Jaki Chan, are in the CODA program. All have master’s degrees in the field of behavioral science, and extensive experience in therapy.

Children receive counseling on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the families participate in Family Interaction Group sessions on Monday nights.

“During these sessions, the families are asked to do something together. You can tell a great deal about the problems they are having. We then start trying to get them to talk about them and find some answers,” said Almaviva.

Take Part in Exercise

Families are always asked to take part in an exercise called, “drawing of the house.” Families are asked to draw their home and place themselves in the portion of the house where they spend most time.

“One boy placed himself in the garage. He explained that he spent most of his time there, while his mother and father spent their time fighting inside the house,” Almaviva said.

The youths also play with dolls, toys, clay and punch a boxer’s punching bag in an effort to express their feelings.

“They make these sessions fun for everyone while they are teaching you how to handle your problems,” said a 60-year-old Whittier grandmother who did not wish to be identified.

She brings her two granddaughters, 7 and 10, who were placed in her custody by the courts because of the parents’ drug and alcohol problems.

“This program has been wonderful. Is is free but I would pay if they asked me,” she said. “The girls were so angry when we first started coming. They were a discipline problem. I couldn’t cope with the stress. Now things are getting better,” she said.

The CODA sessions are three months long, but no one is discouraged from continuing for a longer period, said Appel, the Southeast Council’s executive director.

But the project, which opened about the first of the year, is struggling to reach its enrollment goal of serving about 300 people by the end of the year, Appel said. About 50 people have been served so far. She said many families do not believe their drug problems will affect their children. She also said some agencies, including schools, “tend to sweep drug-related problems under the rug.”

Van Fleet has started to make appearances before school and civic groups to make them aware of the program, Appel said.

And at Foley House, where Sharon Sanders and Forrest are living, the youngster’s favorite pastime is chasing and capturing the June bug beetles in a fruit orchard behind the home.

Forrest Sanders, who recently turned 5, is busy being a little boy again.