We used to think we knew what a drug addict looked like, Coweta County Drug Court Coordinator Pam Shepherd told the Newnan Rotary Club on Friday.

"The movies told us," she said. They were usually hardened criminals, gang members like Al Pacino's "Scarface," violent and irredeemable.

That's not what the face of addiction looks like today, she said.

"These are our children, our mothers, our fathers, aunts and uncles," said Shepherd. "That's what the drug problem is today."

There are now 35 people in the Coweta County Drug Court's two-year recovery/ alternative sentencing program, she said. They cover the age spectrum, from 18 to 59.

"They come from all walks of life," she said. "We even have ex-law enforcement in the program. It used to be that one out of seven people had used illegal drugs. Now that's down to one out of four."

It costs $45 a day to house someone in the Coweta County Jail, she said. If the local participants in the drug court program were doing nothing more than warming a cell bed, it would cost $171,990 a year to house them and feed them.

"And that costs you and me, the taxpayers," she said.

The drug court, with the assistance of volunteer "mentors" and drug recovery/rehabilitation programs like Alcoholics Anonymous and Celebrate Recovery, helps to get people who are addicted to drugs sobered up and back into a job, she said.

"These are people who have lost everything they had," she said. That often includes their teeth, since methamphetamine addiction is the biggest problem out there.

"They are just putting their lives back together, starting from square one," she said.

"A lot of these people don't have the family support they need, because they've lost that family trust because of the decisions they've made," she said. The drug court monitors them, counsels them, makes sure they're staying off drugs, and helps them form connections with the business community so they can become productive citizens again, Shepherd said.

"We even have our own drug testing lab," she said. In fact, the program is trying to leverage that asset as a revenue generator so that it can free itself from dependence on temporary grants.

Eighteen of the participants in the drug court program are getting their GED certificate, and five are in college.

"The rest will be in school, soon, too, although they may not know it, yet," she said.

She said other counties with drug courts have seen success rates above 70 percent. Coweta's drug court is very new, and those figures haven't been tallied yet, she said.

"But I do think our program goes above and beyond," she said. "Our people are working very hard to get where they are hoping to go."