Together at last
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Johnnie Quinores remembers the day her son Kaylen put everything in perspective, as only an 8-year-old can.
"It's good to have you back, Mom," he said.
Not just back in the house, but back from years of hard living. Back from more than a decade of drug and alcohol abuse and crime. Back from the long, downward spiral that ripped her family apart. Back from the homeless encampment in Mokule'ia, where authorities first took her kids into protective custody.
"I went to h-e-l-l," she says. "I had to really hit bottom before I could start to bounce back."
How Quinores and Albert Braine hit bottom, got straight with the help of publicly available services and still struggle with the day-to-day joys and trials of family life is a story worth celebrating, officials say. And that's just what will happen next week when the Child & Family Service organization honors them as the 'Ohana of the Year at a luncheon in Waikiki.
The annual award honors families who have shown great progress on the issues they face with help from the agency.
"They've worked so hard just to get to this point," said Kathy Fetters, who met the couple through the organization's Healthy Start program and nominated them for the family honor. "They really deserve to have something good happening to them now."
Today, Quinores, Braine and four children live in a brightly lit, well-furnished, two-bedroom Waipahu apartment that is filled with the sounds of kids playing. They've been drug- and alcohol-free for 18 months, and they candidly tell the story of their family's decline and rebirth.
They met in a Pearl City bar 8 1/2 years ago and found out quickly that they had something in common: "We both liked to get high," Braine said. Before the night was over, that's what they were doing at a friend's house.
Their problems didn't start there, though.
Quinores, 38, had been drinking heavily since she was a teenager in Waikiki and admits that the partying often affected the way she took care of three children from a previous relationship. Braine, 37, grew up in a tough part of Waimanalo and had been using drugs since his early 20s. Both say they have childhood memories of domestic violence, substance abuse and being abused in their own homes.
Their life together seemed to alternate between the high times and the low ones, marked by constant bickering and fighting. "The police knew us in every part of the Island," Braine said.
They don't expect everyone to understand how drugs can grip you so much that you simply end up neglecting your own children. They don't always understand it themselves.
"You know what you're doing isn't right, but you just can't stop," Quinores said. "You think it can't get worse, but it still does."
They tried to get help, they said, but it wasn't easy to deal with a system when you don't have a phone, much less a permanent address. So the downward spiral continued.
How bad could it get?
Quinores doesn't know which moment was the worst. She just remembers that when Braine was arrested in another stolen car 18 months ago and was ordered to spend five months in O'ahu Community Correctional Center, she had to start getting her life — and her family — back together.
While Braine was in prison, she entered a Hina Mauka treatment program and re-established her faith in God. "If she can do it, so can I 'cause I love her," Braine remembers thinking in prison. As soon as he got out, he entered a drug rehabilitation center.
But there was still one more crisis to endure.
About a year ago, Braine and Quinores had their second child together, Victory. Authorities, using what Quinores said was a 7-month-old positive drug test, took Victory into custody, too, at the hospital.
"I was ready to give up already," Braine said.
"I wasn't," Quinores shot back.
Victory was in foster care for 30 days. "I cried and pleaded for someone in my family to take her, but no one was willing," Quinores said. Only after another drug test and an 'ohana conference with state officials were they allowed to bring Victory home.
Then slowly, with the help of community programs, they rebuilt their family, first with Triston, then Kaylen and Koa coming home. Kaysha, the 12-year-old, still lives with an aunt. "She's almost a teenager and needs her own room," Quinores said.
The family credits the assistance they've received from a number of state and private agencies with helping them negotiate the path to recovery.
Living in a Victory Ohana halfway house for families for a time, they signed up for the Child & Family Service's Healthy Start program for parents with young children. They've had drug, financial and spouse-abuse counseling, as well as anger-management classes. They've studied parenting skills and learned age-appropriate child development methods. They've found an affordable apartment and filled it with furniture donated from private agencies.
"The help is out there, but you've really got to want it first and be willing to ask for it," Quinores said.
The next step is to find well-paying, full-time jobs.
"It's going to happen," said Braine, who has found part-time work in a flower shop and would like to join the laborer union. Quinores wants to go back to the nursing school program she left many years ago as soon as she can find affordable childcare. Both are involved in developing a support group for substance abusers through their church, New Hope Leeward.
They say they're grateful for all the help they've received and a little overwhelmed that they've been selected for the 'Ohana of the Year honor, which includes a ride to the luncheon event in a limousine, and a night in the hotel.
"It's humbling at times," said Braine, "but life now at its worst is better than life was at its best when we were using."
Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.
