Editor’s note: This is the second installment of a three-part series. The first installment ran in Tuesday’s edition of The Commercial Dispatch, and the final installment will print in Thursday’s newspaper. 

Unfortunately for Haines, calling it quits was easier said than done.

Haines’ ill-fated night with Marlee kickstarted an eight-month period in which he took steps back from his addiction but was far from able to completely kick it. He’d go two or three weeks at a time without taking pills, but they became a coping mechanism when work or his ongoing divorce proceedings with Shelley became too much.

Haines was prescribed suboxone to manage cravings and mitigate withdrawal symptoms, but it couldn’t solve everything. For the first few weeks, he went through withdrawals so severe he could hardly lift his weakened body off the couch — cold sweats, diarrhea, vomiting and a diminished sense of taste.

Worried the symptoms might get worse, Haines continued to seek out pills. Each time, he told himself, “This will be the last one I’ll ever take.” 

It never was.

Still, he managed to stay clean for over 100 days at the close of 2012 and decided to head to his brother Matt’s house in Alexander City, Alabama, for a few days over Christmas. On the final day of a relaxing trip, Haines was packing his bag to head home after a stop at Sixth Street Baptist Church where his brother was a preacher. Matt, his wife Alison and his four kids had already left.

Looking for hairspray in the bathroom, Haines opened a cabinet to find a bottle of Xanax staring him in the face.

“It was like a neon sign,” he said.

He picked up the bottle, checked the label and unscrewed the cap. The medication had been prescribed to his sister-in-law earlier in the year; 28 of the 30 pills were still there.

“She’s only taken two in six months,” Haines thought to himself. “She’s not going to miss a few.”

Haines downed a tablet and poured out 10 into his hand. On the drive back to Columbus, he took two more. An hour from home, he called his old dealer, asking for more pills.

After eight months of improvement, Haines relapsed completely. It lasted until March 15, 2013.

Down to his last three Xanax, Haines was on his way to New Hope to score pills from a former Trojans player he used to coach. With the pills sitting in the cupholder beside him, Haines headed down the road with his seatbelt off — he never wore it — when red and blue lights flashed in his rearview mirror.

The officer, unaware of anything but having nabbed another driver without a seatbelt, asked for Haines’ license and began to walk back to his patrol car. Then, Haines realized the pills were there, in plain sight, just waiting to be discovered.

Trying to be surreptitious, he scooped the three tablets into his hand. The officer noticed him through the rear driver’s-side window.

“What’s in your hand?” the cop asked Haines.

“Three pills,” Haines replied.

Haines was arrested that day. 

The Branch of Hope

Since he was booked on a Friday evening, Haines couldn’t see a judge to be released on bail until Monday.

Bound in leg irons, he shambled through the side door into Lee Coleman’s courtroom in an orange jumpsuit March 19 for his arraignment.

The first person he saw was his mother, Mary Alice Rasberry, staring straight at him with “the saddest look you can imagine.” Not thinking, Haines hadn’t realized his family members would be there, and seeing Mary Alice’s face was crushing.

“It broke you,” he said.

In his long weekend in jail, Haines had spent time on the phone with his mom, working out details like lawyers and bond payments. He was released on roughly $5,000 bail to await trial, and Mary Alice took him home. She procured Taco Bell for him as requested and offered to stay with him overnight before Haines declined.

The next morning, she showed up with breakfast and a plan.

After spending her nights embroiled in online research, looking up every rehab facility in Mississippi and examining the cost, Mary Alice reached a decision: Haines would be the newest resident at The Branch of Hope, a Christian sober living center on Highway 7 in Water Valley.

In mid-April, she drove her son to his new temporary home, her optimism filling the car.

“This is the beginning of the rest of your life,” she told him.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Haines replied. “I’m never going to get better.”

He was wrong.

Ultimately, it didn’t have much to do with The Branch of Hope, which was “just a place to sleep” — not much more than a few outdoor cabins and loose rules and regulations. In his time there, Haines said he saw only three true success stories and far more failures. He planned to stay the 30 to 60 days suggested by his family and promptly head back to his old life, where he likely would have been consumed again by addiction.

Instead, at church his first weekend in Water Valley, Haines was introduced by a relative of a family friend to W.R. Newman, who owned a local cattle farm. Newman asked Haines if he had gotten a job yet, and when Haines said no, Newman grabbed a slip of paper and wrote out an address. He left Haines with an instruction: Be here at 5:30 a.m. the next day.

Before sunrise, Haines arrived at the Newman residence to find a Bible out and a four-course breakfast gracing the table.

“Sit down, son,” Newman told him.

Newman read from the good book and told Haines his own story. A former alcoholic who has been in recovery for the past 30 years, Newman said he’s tried his best to help other addicts. Haines worked for the Newmans for months, doing “everything you could do” — brush hogging, milking cows, baling hay, painting houses, building fences, moving mobile homes.

During the day, Newman and his wife Barbara left their house and fridge open, which surprised Haines: They trusted him not to steal from them.

“It was the first time in a long time I didn’t feel ashamed or unwanted or dirty,” Haines said.

Shelley allowed Marlee to visit the Newmans’ farm, where she fell in love with the cows and horses and was treated well by the kind couple. When Haines moved back to Columbus in August, he still hadn’t taken a pill since the day he was arrested.

“That old man and that old woman just made the biggest difference in my life,” he said.

Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.