THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 4, 1996 TAG: 9603040041
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
Prostitution to support a cocaine addiction had become a way of life for Debra Barber - a vicious daily pirouette that had spun her out of control in one of the most deadly of dances.
But now she is fighting to break free.
The 31-year-old Norfolk woman says she has overcome her drug habit and the prostitution that fed it. She believes she is well on the way to reclaiming her life and providing a better life for her two daughters.
Barber gives much of the credit to the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center, the Virginia Beach shelter where she has lived for the past two months. Barber is among the 3,000 people served since the shelter opened in 1988.
Shelter Director Richard Powell says 40 percent of the clients go on to lead self-sufficient lives.
The former prostitute now has a regular job and plans to stay straight. And she hopes her 13 years of experience on the dark side of Ocean View will serve as a lesson.
When Barber learned recently that one of her former prostitute friends had been found nude and strangled, she thought, ``It could have been me.''
``It's a chance you take,'' says Barber with a shrug. She believes that had she not decided to put drugs and prostitution behind her, she, too, soon would have been dead - killed by a customer or an overdose.
Barber started turning her life around after her teenage daughter confronted her, saying she was tired of her mother's life and didn't want her baby sister to go through what she'd gone through. That was last Thanksgiving.
Her daughter, who lives with grandparents, rebuffed her during a call Barber made while she was in jail. It made her realize that her rationalization - ``at least I'm not hurting anybody'' - wasn't true. When she got out of jail, she went into Virginia Beach's day program for substance abusers and checked into the shelter.
Her infant daughter, now 1 year, was the result of a short relationship with a man Barber had been dating. The baby was born while Barber was in jail - a bittersweet moment for her because she was returned to the jail from the hospital after the delivery. The baby has lived with Barber's brother since she was born, but Barber hopes to get another chance to raise her daughter once she's proven she has changed her life.
Barber was born in Norfolk and attended Norview High School, but she quit school at 17 after she became pregnant. She married the baby's father, but the relationship didn't last, and by 18, Barber says she was regularly getting high on cocaine. The next 13 years are a blur of drugs and selling sex - a fast-forward flick that doesn't include many shots of her as a mother. Sometimes Barber worked as a bartender and at menial jobs, but none of those compared with the money she could make as a prostitute. On a good day, she says, dozens of tricks netted her as much as $900. And most of what she made went to pay for crack cocaine.
High on cocaine, Barber sometimes didn't sleep or eat for five or six days at a time and would rest only when she passed out from exhaustion. She'd wear the same clothing day after day.
Though ``a lot of girls out there are dying of AIDS,'' Barber says she is not unduly worried that she might have contracted the virus because she ``always used protection.'' Yet she concedes that condoms are not always effective in preventing AIDS infection.
On four separate occasions, Barber spent three to six months in jail for soliciting. But each time she got out - to go right back hawking sex to buy crack cocaine. Until the last time - in late December, when her life changed at the outreach center.
As soon as you get back (on the street), the addiction is talking to you: `Get high, get high.' The last time, it was only going to be one night, but a week went by, then another,'' Barber says.
``There are people around - seems like all the friends in the world - and the money's good. The lifestyle's an addiction.''
Unlike most prostitutes she knew, Barber says she refused to be kept by a pimp, someone who acts as the prostitute's boss and protector for a large percentage of the profit.
The revolving door of sex and drugs left Barber no time for her older daughter.
``Sometimes my family might not see me for four or five months. I was too busy getting high,'' she says sadly.
``I've lost everything. I'm trying to get it back now. My daughter wants to come back and live with me. Her nightmares have gone away. She's getting good grades. It's like she's in recovery with me.'' MEMO: [For a related story, see page B3 for this date.]
ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
D. KEVIN ELLIOTT
The Virginian-Pilot
At one time, Debra Barber, 31, was a prostitute. But she's trying to
reclaim her life at the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB