PROFILES IN RECOVERY: For self-proclaimed outlaw, recovery from addiction is a coming of age journey

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Stories about addiction and recovery rarely focus on the work it takes to get and stay sober. Salem Reporter spoke with three people who have gone through drug treatment about their journey to sobriety, what helped them and the challenges along the way. This is the third in a three-part series, Profiles in Recovery.

On a fall night in central Salem, Billy Sly saw the police car pull up behind him and knew this traffic stop was different from the rest.

For over a year and a half, he’d been avoiding a warrant for his arrest for driving under the influence. It was one of several charges he faced after leaving prison in 2017.

That night in November 2022, Sly, now 49, thought about running. For the last three decades, Sly was a repeat drug and property crime offender and had mostly used methamphetamine along with heroin.

“Some people say it’s called rock bottom, but I don’t call it rock bottom,” Sly said, describing the moment he was pulled over. “I decided not to run, that I had done enough running, and that whatever I was afraid of facing was not worse than what I was living.”

After being arrested that night, Sly faced a potential 30-month prison sentence.

He knew of a Marion County program that gave drug users an alternative to prison. Unfortunately, he said, the program wouldn’t consider him due to his history of running from law enforcement.

“Well, I gotta somehow get myself into recovery, and I wasn’t willing to stop” using, he said, recalling his thoughts at the time. “I was good at what I did, but I had a feeling that I was gonna be really good at what I wanted to do.”

What Sly wanted to do was be one of the first people at his homeless camp in northeast Salem to commit to recovery and stay out of prison.

He wrote to the county’s drug court program while in jail following the arrest and asked to be considered but heard nothing back. At his hearing in June 2023, Marion County Circuit Court judge Lindsay Partridge sentenced Sly to start drug court.

Drug court requires participants to complete counseling, regular court check-ins and maintain six months of sobriety to graduate. If he doesn’t complete the program, he could go back to prison.

Sly recently celebrated two years clean and got a medallion to commemorate the accomplishment.

He is expected to graduate from drug court in May.

A young outlaw

Sly said he had an unmanageable childhood which started with the breakdown of his nuclear family.

Originally from Wisconsin, his parents moved the family to Albany, where he and his younger brother looked out for each other.

In elementary school, Sly made sure he and his brother got to school every day. When his parents couldn’t afford new shoes for his brother, Sly stole pairs from stores.

Sly’s father soon left the family to return to Wisconsin because the move had violated his parole for armed robbery. This left Sly and his brother with their mom, who struggled with drinking. The brothers went into foster care when Sly was in seventh grade.

When he was around 15, Sly started living with a drug dealer and took care of the dealer’s children.

“I remember selling the stuff that I had for an eight ball of speed and an eighth of weed and a chance,” Sly said. He also did work cleaning up the mess people left behind after cooking meth.

For his work, he said, he was paid in meth crystals.

Around then, Sly started drinking, he said, to protect his brother and friends.

“I knew that I had to, because, if not, the people that I cared about were going to be exposed or picked off one by one,” he said. Sly said he wanted to know what alcohol and other substances were like to discourage his younger brother from using drugs.  

When he was around 17, Sly was charged with burglary, theft and criminal mischief, leading to a 13 month sentence as a juvenile. 

The sentence was the beginning of over a decade in total that Sly spent incarcerated until his recovery. After turning 18, he was in and out of prison and county jails for charges including theft, burglary, assault and drug possession.

Entangled with his prison sentences was Sly’s tough ego which he maintained with both law enforcement and other criminals. Over the years, he ran into police officers or sheriff’s deputies he had known growing up or got to know through his time in and out of jail. 

He said he’s seen four officers cry over his repeat criminal offenses and addiction. 

“If I’m gonna burn, I’m going to burn so bright, so that when you look at me, you have to ask a question, ‘What’s wrong?’” Sly said. “It didn’t matter who you were, you would be compelled to wonder, because I just wore it like an honor, like a shield.”

Recovery 

The night Sly decided to stop running from law enforcement — Nov. 28, 2022 — also marks the start of his sobriety. 

Sly spent almost eight months in jail after his arrest and said he stayed clean throughout it as part of his choice to stop running.

“If you willingly walk into detox, it’s a lot better than being forced. Your mind can play tricks on you like nobody’s business,” Sly said. “It’s harder for that to happen if you got your head about you, and knowing that I’d only have to go through it one time … it felt good.”

After about six months in jail, Sly appeared in front of Partridge, the Marion County judge, for his sentencing which included drug court. Sly remembers asking Partridge if the judge planned to quit him, which would land him back in prison. 

According to Sly, Partridge said, “‘No, I won’t quit you, but if you think I’m gonna do more work than you are, you got me messed up for someone else.’”

“I knew right then that I met my match,” Sly said. 

Soon after his sentencing, another man in custody gave Sly a small vial with a shard of meth in it.

“I just looked at it, and it was like my high power saw fit, because I believe I was living in alignment with my values, to show me just how strong I was,” Sly said. He hid the vial in his mattress, considering whether to use it after being sober for six months. 

“I gave it back the next morning knowing that I was strong enough to ask for help, that I wasn’t alone and that my recovery was going to challenge every part of me,” Sly said. 

Sly was released from jail in June 2023 and began drug court, which started with outpatient treatment through Bridgeway Community Health. There he did individual and group counseling. He also moved into an Oxford House in Salem, which are self-run recovery homes. 

Sly soon became his Oxford chapter’s president and was in charge of keeping other residents in line with the nonprofit’s rules, the most important one being sobriety. 

“Being present for my recovery, for someone else’s recovery, really matters,” he said. “To not have to do it alone, that’s the ticket, that is the answer to addiction.”

He also started attending recovery groups like Narcotics Anonymous and other meetings at Salem’s SOS Club on Northeast Center Street.

Sly ended up having all of his teeth removed due to poor dental care in the foster care and prison systems along with around 30 years of drug use. 

In early November, he got his long-awaited new teeth. When he saw them for the first time, he said he thought to himself, “I never really had a smile in the first place.”

He said that since he was often around people who’d also lost teeth, he never felt that it was a big deal. But around people who have all of their teeth, “you feel it.” Sly said. 

With around three months left until his drug court graduation, Sly recently joined the Pathfinder Network’s advisory board, where he will use his personal experience to help guide the nonprofit in supporting people involved in the criminal justice system.

To Sly, his recovery is a coming of age journey. He’s gotten to work on mental health challenges he’s dealt with over his life, including post-traumatic stress disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He said he often feels like a grown kid. 

“Most of my recovery has to do with breaking through that ego, that survival thing that came to protect that little boy,” Sly said, referring to himself when he was younger.

THE SERIES:

Jailhouse intervention led woman to success in drug court

Local musician carries music and faith in his sobriety

Contact reporter Madeleine Moore: [email protected].

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