their daughters. Now, as two of the people behind Fair Havens Christian Care Association, Bermuda's first live-in drug rehabilitation centre for women, they are offering a beacon of hope to the Island's growing number of female addicts.

Gryneth Robinson is listening to the young woman sitting across the desk from her, but she makes Robinson think of someone else.

The woman, in her late 20s, is ashamed of herself and feeling low. She's out of money and she's in danger of losing her job. Her boyfriend is angry with her because she's been out all night again. She talks about stealing, bout lying, about having sex with men she barely knows so they would give her drugs, or at least the money to pay for them. The woman has an addiction to crack cocaine.

It is not her daughter siting across from Robinson, but it might have been.

"I keep wondering what Debbie's story was,'' Robinson says as she sits in that same office at Addiction Services. "I listen to these horrible things the girls tell me, and I think any one of them could be my own daughter.

Debbie protected me from the ugly side of her addiction, but I'm sure she was as indiscreet as the next person.'' Either way, she'll never know for sure what lengths her daughter went to feed her own addiction to crack. Debra Lee Robinson died in July, 1991, five months short of her 32nd birthday. Her body was found floating off North Shore, Pembroke behind Grace Methodist Church. An autopsy revealed scant races of cocaine in her blood. Though drowing was the actual cause of death, her mother still says Debra's death was related to her addiction to drugs. and she believes that if there had been more options for rehabilitation her here Bermuda when her daughter got involved in drugs -- if there had been a live-in centre like Fair Havens Christian Care Association, for example -- Debra might be alive today.

Clare Mello, who is the same age now that Debra was when she died, was luckier. After battling a four year addiction to crack, she has spent the past four years drug free. But she can never forget the many nights she forced herself to stay awake, pacing watching television, or drinking to bring herself down, fearing that if she lost control and drifted off to sleep, she might never wake up. "There were times when I thought that if I went to sleep, I would have a heart attack and die.'' There are many similarities between Clare and Debra, yet much is different about them. Clare is white, Debra black. They were born two years apart, but Clare is the eldest of two, Debra the youngest of four. Both were raised by single mothers -- their fathers left when they were young. Both smoked the occasional marijuana joint in their teens, and both were addicted to crack.

Both went to Addiction Services for help -- Clare stayed in Bermuda for the duration of a 20-month treatment programme. Debra completed a nine-month programme at Le Portage, a rehabilitation centre in Quebec which has an affiliation with Addiction Services.

The most ironic thing of all is that the mothers of both women are involved in drug and alcohol treatment.

Robinson has worked at Addiction Services for 10 years and is a counsellor there having taken courses at Le Portage in Quebec, the Addiction Research Foundation in Toronto, as well as others in the US and Canada. She started FIRST (Families In Recovery Support Team) in 1987. She is also one of the founders of Fair havens Christian Care Association, Bermuda's first live in rehabilitation centre for women, and was one of its first interim directors.

Pat Lynn, Clare's mother was last year named the chairman of the Board of Directors at Fair havens. The first substantial donation made to Fair Havens ($10,000) was raised at a benefit concert held in Debra's memory. And a plaque rests on the wall of the new facility with Debra's name on it.

Debra developed an addiction to cocaine sometime in her early 20s, though it reached its worst stage between 1986 and 1989. She had been off drugs for about four months until the weekend before her death, when she had another relapse. Her mother is not sure exactly when or how it happened. And it is only now that she is coming to terms with many things about her daughter, though she believes Debra went a long way to protect her family from the drug world.

"I think if she had any fault at all, it was that she could never see the bad in people. She never bore grudges. She wasn't a harsh critic of people. Even when she was a young girl at school and I would find out she was hanging around some of the bad kids, she would tell me all the good things about them.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it shows a weakness -- a weakness that other people could pick up on and abuse.'' To even hint that Debra might have been a weak person, insecure or unsure of herself, undermines everything that she appeared to be. She was good at virtually everything she did. She was a part of Black Love, one of the most poplar singing groups in Bermuda during the early 1970s. She graduated at the top of her class from the Bermuda College hotel school. She was the first woman to reach the position of assistant maitr'd at Mid Ocean club -- she was also hostess at Fourways Inn. She won a top local body building competition in 1983, and was involved in tennis, cycling, and loved to cook.

And she was a dedicated family person. She was close to everyone around her, her sisters Dee Dee and Dawnelle, her brother Cooley, and had an especially strong bond with her mother. "She spent quality time with her family doing quality things,'' her mother says. "There was a lot of love and a lot of bonding --the kids would play music at home and laugh and dance. they would take trips together. She was talking about getting married and having a family. She loved kids. She was very close to her nieces -- they were the apple of her eye. She spent a lot of time with them.'' The fact that she had so much going for her on the outside, yet was so vulnerable underneath is perhaps why her own mother had such a difficult time accepting the fact that her daughter was an addict.

"I've searched myself and wondered if I was in denial. I don't ever recall being in denial. I get the `I wish I would haves', even prior to her death I did. But I don't feel guilty anymore. I was a good mother and I did the best I could. When I realised the drugs were a problem, I tried to make her see that it was a problem, I tried to protect her, we all monitored the phone -- maybe if there was call that didn't sound right. We were never quite sure about some of the people that she was with.

"I'm not sure that she became a different person through drugs. Debra never really showed her feelings. She didn't want to worry us. She had a sunny disposition all the time. Debra never displayed any insecurity and if she had I don't know that I would have recognised it.

"I remember the most shocking thing ever for me. I really hit right between the eyes. It was November 12, 1984, at 4 p.m. I had an appointment scheduled with a man but he didn't show. Another counsellor came in and informed me that he had called and said he wasn't coming. The message he left was `If you can't help your own daughter, how can you help me.' I told the counsellor to tell him if love could do it, he could be at home with his mother getting help. I was ready to quit. I was in tears.

"It was hard for me to deal with the reality of being the mother of someone who abused drugs. I went through all the co-dependent behaviour, the rigidity, the silence, the isolation. I lived with the shame and humiliation. There is such a helpless feeling. I was not my daughter's counsellor, I was her mother.

Parents don't make the best drug counsellor for their children. When I tried to give her any advice, she would see me as an over-anxious mother. I don't think she saw the danger even though she lived it every day. she might have been in denial more than I was.'' The most upsetting part of it all for Robinson -- and the one thing she rarely talks about -- is that even as a drug counsellor she was unable to help Debra because Debra was her daughter. "It wasn't that she hesitated to come and get help, she hesitated to come here to Addiction Services because her mother was here. At that time, Addiction Services was the only place to go for help. Can you image you go to get help at the only show in town and your mother's there? "I was helpless not only as a mother but as a counsellor. And because I was a counsellor, there was that much more helplessness. I think a lot about that .

. . how awful it must have been for her with me here,'' she says crying. "She never had a chance. Even when she came here, all the rest of her group made her feel ashamed of herself. They would tell her that she should clean herself up and do better because I was her mother, because I was a drug counsellor.

And she knew that with anything she did say, there was a possibility is would get back to her mother. she didn't have a good chance -- not from the beginning.'' Robinson says she tried to give her daughter the room to develop just like any other client of Addiction Services. Even today she has not read her daughter's file at Addiction Services because no other parent would have had that privilege, so neither should she. It was decided between the staff at Addiction Services and Le Portage that Debra might have a better chance at rehabilitation if she got always from Bermuda and did the programme in Canada.

"But it was the same there. They all knew me. That's where I did many of my courses. She couldn't get away from her mother at Portage either.'' As much as Robinson tried to help her daughter, Debra tried to help herself and make her mother proud. In a letter to her mother who was on holiday in Barbados three months before her death, Debra said: "Mom, I had to write to you, I miss you so much. I wish you were her to share my happiness. I am so happy with my progress, responsibilities, self-esteem, job. ...I want you to be happy and relax, enjoy and praise God because your child is doing great.

"...Mom, I love you more and more, when I think about you, tears come to my eyes for the pain and more pain I've given you, how did you survive? I put myself in your place and wonder, Mom, we both had our share of losing. I am going to see you proud and a happy mother you deserve to be, trust me on this.'' Clare's mother had many of the same feelings of helplessness, the same feelings of guilt, the same denial. Her daughter's addiction was some of the driving reason she accepted the position of chairman of the Board at Fair Havens. "I was worried, I was concerned. I think as a parent it's fair to say that you experience all types of emotions -- anger because of the behaviour patterns you see, frustration because you want to help and can't, concern for her life and health, and love because of the bonding you have.

"As a mother, you wonder where you might have failed. You ask yourself, "Was there something that I should have done that I didn't?'' I think there is an awareness among all parents that drugs are around us -- maybe 10 years ago it was not as great as it is today. It begins with the marijuana smoking -- an occasional joint. I think that was the problem with Clare.

"The drug problem that we have in Bermuda is horrific. I can't think of any other word to describe it. It's under our noses and we don't even see it. Each parent feels it isn't happening to them. I thought that and it was happening to me. I personally had the benefit of counselling, and though that I was able to recognise that Clare's recovery was something she had to initiate herself.

As a parent you can advise until the cows come home. You see what's happening to your daughter -- it's frightening. It's such a waste of a life, but you can't do anything about it.

"There were several attempts at discussing the potential for treatment. Then when she was ready, she said that treatment was something she really wanted, that she needed my love and support, and that she preferred not to go overseas because she was that as a quick fix.'' It is possibly that one decision -- to get help at home in Bermuda, where temptation was all around her -- that saved Clare. And it was the support of her family and many friends that helped her stay off drugs.

"I chose to do my rehabilitation here. I didn't want to go overseas and be in a controlled environment and develop a support system there, when the reality of my every day life was here. If you go away and do it, where is that support system when you caome back? I wanted to do it here so that I could interact with friends and family. That was a big part of my recovery. I develped a huge support system outside of Addiction Services.'' Clare, who is now working parttime as a pojects co-ordinator, remembers the first time she freebased crack. She had smoked marijuana as a teeanger and snorted an occasional line of cocaine. But it was purly out of curiosity that she tried crack one night wiha a friend in 1985. It was not something that she pursued, simply an opportunity that presented itself that one night.

"There's this advertisement that says `You only have to try it once...' It's so true. As soon as I tried it the first time I wanted to do it again. It's so hard to describe what it's like because there's nothing else like it. It wasn't like anything I had ever done before. You get this feeling of euphoria.

It's not like smoking a joint or doing a line where you have a aggressive, and then it's gone. It's a very attractive feeling -- once it gets a hold of you, everything else pales -- the satisfation is that great. That's what makes it so addictive.

"The first hit is the most intense. It would be perfect if that was all you could do. But it's not that easy. Every hit after that first one is spent chasing that one feeling, but you never get it again. You never have the same feeling you get from the first high. You keep trying and trying and trying.

You spend the rest of your time and money -- chasing that high.'' Clare's desire for more eventually led her into financial difficulties. By late 1988, she was spending between $300--$500 a week on crack. She went through her savings, and would arrange to get paid early from her job on the tour desk of one of Bermuda's largest hotel. She would borrow money from friends and pay them back later.

"I think I was lucky. My ability to manage day-to-day wasn't all that bad, but it became desperate enough for me to seek help. I never did any drugs when I was working, and I don't know that my drug use was evident to others I worked with. But that's part of the addiction -- you delude yourself. There are a lot more people around you who do know than you think. I remember I was planning to take a trip to Central Aemrica -- I had three months off work. It was then that I realised my future was nothing further that the next day. I was living for my next high. Needless to say that when I thought about it, I was panicked at going away for three months.

"I went and I didn't do any cocaine or marijuana -- not once in the three months. There were times when I might have used alcohol as a substitute -- having a few more glasses of wine than ususal. Because I had hid behind a high for so long, all of a sudden I was experiencing all these emotions for the frist time. Anger. Joy. Surprise. They seemed almost larger than life. It scared me. That's why I would turn to a extra glass of wine to medicate that feeling. I couldn't handle it.

"That's when I knew it was paramount that when I returned to Bermuda I had to get help. But I walked back into Bermuda and the first thing I did was freebase. I knew I was going to do it the moment I hit the gound. I remember I was afraid to come home for that very reason, but there was another part of me that said `just this once'. There was nothing different about that high at all. That's what scared me. I felt the same pain, the same fear, the anxiety.

I was thinking I can handle it, I can smoke cocaine.

"But deep down I knew that I couldn't stop -- I couldn't control it, and that realisation is very frightening. It built up to the point that I really had no control at all. You get these physical symptoms, a loss of appetite, diarrhoea, inability to concentrate, you renege on plans. I lost about 15 pounds. I became a lot more reclusive -- getting high more often on my own rather than with other people.'' Clare stops for a moment. Her eyes well up and her lips begin to quiver. Her voice is shaky. "Doing drugs doesn't help, but momentarily it makes you feel better. It make you feel like you can escape the guilt you feel about everything you've done. But when you come down, the guilt is still there, and usually it's worse.

"You don't like yourself for how you feel -- you're not the person you want to be. You cover up your feelings. When you have no self worth, it doesn't really matter what you do. I remember one bright when I was coming down from a high, I took down all the mirrors in my apartment because I couldn't bear to look at myself. To confront yourself in a mirror and not be able to escape yourself, it's frightening. I hated myself so bad. I felt pathetic and ashamed. I was always thinking about what my mother thought -- that's what I was afraid of during my addiciton. My relationship with my family suffered -- I didn't get along with them.

"But I was afraid to reach out. I was just too scared. I went to Addiction Services in June 1988 and ended up going maybe three times. I thought I could handle it. But you lie. You lie to yourself and everyone else around you. I can tell you that once I did get help and began my recovery it was a big relief to find out that I really was an honest person.'' Robinson's involvement in drug rehabilitation has helped her understand much about her own daughter in the times since her death. She can only now look back and see behaviour patterns in her daughter that she would have immediately recognised as drug-induced in any of the clients she counsels at Addiction ervices. Of course, there were incidents in the late 1980s -- an overdose in 1988 -- that confirmed to her Debra was an addict.

"I think what may have happened was that because of the nature of her job she was working until late at night and on holidays when everyone else was off enjoying themselves. I think with a job like that that's demanding on your time, you go to places to unwind that are open at off hours -- after hours places.

"Even when it became obvious that she had a problem, I thought she had been smoking marijuana, but I found out it was cocaine later on. One day in 1983 she called me at work and she was crying. I left and went to pick her up. She wouldn't stop crying and I couldn't understand why. I took her to the doctor and he said to take her to the hospital. No one could figure it out. They gave her something to calm her down. We went home and she settled down. It was only much later in 1985 that she told me she had had a cigarette laced with cocaine. It was depression from the cocaine that was the problem. I guess there were times when she was very irritable. There are things I recognise now.

"We tried very hard for a long time to deal with it within the family. We had meetings with the family, and with my brothers and sisters, to discuss what we could do. We all worked together to help. But I think Debra worked extremely hard at covering it up. She never came home smelling of marijuana, and she never ever brought drugs home. After she told me about the cocaine in 1985, I was always watching for things. There was a lot of pressure on her to get it together.

"In 1988, I could see it was really bad. She admitted she was using cocaine and that it was becoming a problem. She had an overdose in June that year. She was taken to hospital. She was there for about eight hours, and the family was all there for her. A neighbour heard her crying and called the Police.

"It was right after that that she came to Addiction Services, and they sent her away for nine months to Le Portage. When she came home, she was okay for awhile, then about four months later she relapse. Before her death she had been clean for about four months. I remember she was really positive about things. We had talked about relapse and temptation.

"I think some people really need to get cleaned up in their own country. That was the case with Debra. There are candy stores everywhere -- all over the Island. There's no help, and you come back it's such a shock especially for women. I think the reason female addicts get so far in addiction is everyone's trying to protect them -- the husband is trying to protect the wife, the parents are trying to protect the daughter, the brothers are trying to protect their sisters.

"Debra would have been the perfect person for Fair Havens. She was a very religious person, more so than any of my other children -- her very first boyfriend is now ministering in Jamaica. I think if there had been that sort of a facility here when she was in trouble, she could have been helped and she could have helped others. I think there's a very good chance she would be alive today.'' RG MAGAZINE MAY 1993