El Dorado native celebrates 30 years clean

Alice Clemons-Alford celebrated 30 years clean in December. Alford is an El Dorado native who grew up around Thunder Row in the '80s.
Alice Clemons-Alford celebrated 30 years clean in December. Alford is an El Dorado native who grew up around Thunder Row in the '80s.

Alice Clemons-Alford celebrated 30 years sober last month after surviving the 1980s crack epidemic.

Alice grew up in mid-century El Dorado, around the area formerly known as the Thunder Zone. She had family members that dealt drugs, but said who as she was growing up, she wouldn’t have dared to try any. In the mid-1980s, she began dating a drug dealer. They moved to Dallas together, where life took a turn.

“I thought I could go out there and change him,” she said of the now-deceased ex.

Her boyfriend was initially selling “Ts and Blues,” a prescription opioid and anti-histamine combination that had some popularity in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Eventually he branched out into selling crack-cocaine, and Alice joined him in that enterprise.

“I saw how interesting it was, so I decided to try selling the stuff with him,” she said.

The “crack epidemic” began in the early 1980s, after cocaine supply overtook demand. Dealers began converting the cocaine into crack, which allowed them to sell smaller quantities of the drug to more people. The drug craze primarily affected large cities, like Dallas. According to the 2015 Arkansas Epidemiological State Profile of Substance Use, 1.1 percent of Arkansan adults 26 or older had used crack or powder cocaine between 2011 and 2012, while 3.2 percent of Arkansan adults aged 18 through 25 had used one or the other in the same year. In 2012, 6.5 percent of rehab admissions in Arkansas were for crack or cocaine.

Through 1985, Alice lived in Dallas with her boyfriend, selling crack. Curiosity ultimately got the best of her, and she decided to try the crack that people were spending so much money on.

“I saw this lady, she spent her whole check on it and she was the one that turned me on to it,” Alice said, describing the first time she used.

From there, Alice struggled with crack addiction for a couple of years.

“At first, it was something like – like a fun thing. But then it got kind of bad.”

She initially tried the geographical cure, moving to Missouri with her brother and sister to try to combat her addiction, but luck was not on her side at that time.

“Once I went to Missouri, I moved right next door to the drug man,” she said. Having expected to be able to quit once she distanced herself from her easy access to crack, she was soon exhibiting similar behaviors to those she had witnessed in her former customers in Dallas.

“I started pawning stuff to get my habit,” she said of the time.

As the addiction gripped tighter, Alice’s relationships suffered.

“I didn’t have relationships with people, because, see, all I wanted was the drugs,” she said. She found herself pregnant in 1986, and had a son while she was living in Missouri. He was not affected by her drug use at birth.

She spent Christmas of 1986 in Missouri, but returned to El Dorado the following year.

“That’s when it got really bad,” she said.

After returning to El Dorado, she turned to crime to sustain her addiction.

“When it got bad, I started forging checks to get my habit. And then I got arrested. And then, they let me out and I laid low for a few days. And then I went back, doing the same thing, and got re-arrested.”

Alice was sentenced to probation for the first offense, but spent a month in jail after she was caught the second time. A friend told her parents that she could avoid punishment by going to rehab. She was due for court soon, but agreed to go to rehab once she was out of jail.

“Somebody told my parents if I went to rehab, it would get me off of what I had got into – the charges. But if I had kept that attitude, about trying to beat the system, it never would have worked,” she said. So, she went into treatment with an open mind, ready to make a change.

“While I was in rehab, I saw a flashback of where I was before I got on any kind of drugs, and I wanted that person back,” she explained. She attended the South Arkansas Recovery Center in January 1988, after she was released from her monthlong jail stay.

“And then, in the meantime, I had a court-appointed lawyer and I had a guy over there at the Regional Health Center that was pulling for me. In the midst of all this chaos, these people saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself,” she said.

Alice hasn’t used drugs or alcohol since Dec. 13, 1987. One person she met at rehab dubbed her the “Clean Queen of the Thunder Zone.” Now, she maintains relationships with people she credits with helping her recovery and has found more in life than she thought possible back then.

“You remember Carolyn Dykes? She was an officer then. … See, she was the one that was on me all the time. And so, when they’re telling me I have a year [sober], I’ll call her and say ‘okay Carolyn, I got another year.’ And so, we’re the best of friends, but at first I couldn’t stand her,” Alice said, laughing, about her arresting officer from ’87, the former Chief of Detectives for the El Dorado Police Department.

Dykes remembers Alice well. Regarding the arrest that landed Alice in jail for a month, Dykes said “When I arrested Alice on this particular occasion, I told her that she would not be released as this was the only way I knew how to keep her from getting more drugs. Alice was not happy with me that day, but that began her path to sobriety.” Dykes said she wasn’t sure how long Alice spent in jail, but that eventually she attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with her, where Alice was celebrated for her sobriety. She said that not a year goes by that they don’t celebrate Alice’s recovery.

“She tries to give me the credit … Each year I remind her that it is God who set her free … I commend Alice still today, as she is a living testimony of what faith in God and self-determination can do to set one free from a path of destruction,” Dykes said.

In 1992, Alice was a nanny for a local doctor. She was responsible for the care of the family’s 14 month-old daughter and 9 year-old son.

“I didn’t know what love was about, then this here 14 month-old, keeping her every day – they say love kind of sneaks up on your blind side,” she said, going on to proudly say the kids were college graduates now, the son a doctor. She said spending time with the baby helped her realize how she felt about her son.

“Being around her rubbed off on me and it made me appreciate love,” she explained.

Alice attended AA meetings regularly for the first 25 years of her sobriety. In 1993, she stumbled on the church she has called home since, Douglas Chapel Baptist Church. She goes weekly and said she likes helping with the youth programs and in the kitchen. She said that what she found in meetings, she now finds in her church.

“Our theme for 2018 is ‘Be True to Your Calling.’ I said ‘okay, God, I guess this is what I’m supposed to be doing,’” she said, referring to sharing her recovery story.

In 2002, she was bitten by a mosquito and contracted West Nile Virus, which led to encephalitis and meningitis. She said that being unable to take care of herself made that a dark time for her. She had to depend on her boyfriend, Ricky Alford, to help her. In 2004, she married him.

“As it is today, now, I got four grandgirls and one grandboy, and I got a husband. I waited 46 years to get married,” she laughed. “[My son] is in Wisconsin, doing his thing, and my daughter works at an insurance agency in Dallas. We all have a relationship. I’ve come a long way. I credit my recovery.”

She also has two sisters. One fell into the trap of drugs, but has been sober for nine or 10 years now, Alice said, while the other has lived on the straight and narrow.

“I feel like if I stay clean, I would break the cycle,” she said.

Alice does odd jobs in El Dorado now – babysitting for families, some housekeeping, cooking and even running errands for people. Despite occasional fatigue, a residual effect of her bout of West Nile, she keeps busy. Besides her work and church activities, every summer, two of her granddaughters come to visit.

“They come down here every summer, the day school’s out in May, ‘til the day school starts back in August. They’re something else,” she said with a wide smile.

Alice said that staying clean hasn’t been as hard for her as one might expect. Asked if she ever craves crack now, she said “Strangely not – that ain’t even in my mind. Because, see, I don’t care how bad the situation gets, drugs won’t solve it. … If I go back out there, I’m going to lose all my friends that I’ve got now, I’m going to lose all my relationships, and my position in the church. … It isn’t worth it.”

For other people struggling with addiction, she said “My advice to them would be: get around some positive people, and get a sponsor.”

“If anybody had told me what I want out of life back then, I would’ve sold myself way too short, because now I’m buying a house, I’m driving a new car … Life is good. I’m one happy person now,” Alice said.

Caitlan Butler can be reached at 862-6611 or [email protected].

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