At times, the atmosphere in Allen County District Court on Thursday afternoon felt like a festive celebration.
“Big round of applause!” Chief District Judge Dan Creitz would shout, again and again.
Sometimes, there were tears. Tears of accomplishment. Perseverance. Hope.
And, less often, there were the kinds of moments you expect in a courtroom, with the judge sternly wagging his finger and admonishing a defendant: “You have to be honest in here. That’s the only way it works.”
This was Drug Court.
It’s a program introduced by then-sheriff Tom Williams in 2011 as an alternative to being incarcerated for drug-related crimes. The program offers intensive supervision and rehabilitation instead.
“It saved my life,” as more than one Drug Court “graduate” testified Thursday.
Eight people graduated that day. Each shared a story of how they got there, how Drug Court changed their life and how it could help other defendants in the audience, all in different phases of the program.
Daryl Beaman
Beaman “picked up two more meth charges” about a year and a half ago, he said. He was a regular in the court system and had already been to prison.
“It became clear I was not going to make it,” he said. “Somebody here thought enough of me to get me a ride to Mirror,” a residential treatment program in Shawnee.
It wasn’t easy, but Beaman “started putting my life back together. I didn’t have nothing.”
His first goal was to regain visitation rights with his daughter, which required getting a driver’s license, finding reliable transportation and securing a two-bedroom home.
“I found out I could get my ID with an old mugshot,” he said, eliciting sympathetic laughter from the crowd.
Beaman took a job sacking groceries at a Hy-Vee near the rehab center and eventually moved to Oxford House, a recovery facility. He began attending Alcoholics Anonymous and got a sponsor.
As he started sharing his story with others, he found it resonated. Before long, he was asked to speak at other AA meetings. Another sign of his progress was when he became a sponsor for other alcoholics.
Today, Beaman works at a nursing home, doing maintenance and serving food. He has a driver’s license — including his CDL — and bought a pickup. He has his own place. And after four years without seeing his daughter, he visits her every other weekend.
