Hollister
– After nearly a decade of drug abuse, San Juan Bautista native
Eileen Cole is putting her life back together.
Hollister – After nearly a decade of drug abuse, San Juan Bautista native Eileen Cole is putting her life back together.
Cole, a 29-year-old who celebrated her 49th day of sobriety on Wednesday, is participating in a drug and alcohol abuse recovery program and, with a little help from San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill, is getting a “shocking” tattoo removed from her forehead. The numbers “5150,” which refer the California Welfare and Institutions code section for a dangerous person with a mental disorder, were inked on her forehead more than a year ago. The tattoo made it difficult for Cole to get a job.
“It was the Sheriff’s idea to get it removed,” Cole said Wednesday at the San Benito Recovery Home in Hollister. “He told me he was willing to pay for it and I was blown away. I started crying. It was so nice.”
Hill, who had never met Cole before learning from deputies about her tattoo, had talked to several local laser tattoo removal specialists and decided to help Cole out after she was jailed last year for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Cole said she got the tattoo in 2005 while drinking with a boyfriend in Los Angeles.
“It was a dare and I was drunk,” she said. “I told my boyfriend that I was so crazy that I would get it tattooed on my forehead. I went to three (tattoo parlors) and they refused to do it. Finally, the fourth guy said he would do it and offered to do it for free.”
Although free, the tattoo didn’t prove to be a wise investment, Cole said.
“In jail you get clarity,” she said.
Hill offered to pay about $750 for the removal of the tattoo last year after Cole learned that she was eligible to be entered into a recovery home.
“I heard that she was going to be doing some time in jail and I knew that one condition of admittance to a recovery program is finding a job. You don’t have a chance with a tattoo like that,” Hill said. “I went out to the jail and I just said ‘How would you like to have that removed?’ She broke down.”
Hill said he dipped into inmate welfare funds generated from the San Benito County Jail’s commissary program to pay for the laser tattoo removal.
“That’s a shocking tattoo,” he said. “Hopefully getting it removed will help her.”
Cole is grateful for the assistance.
“(The tattoo) is so light that now I can put make up over it,” she said. “I still have to go back (for additional laser treatments) seven more times, but Sheriff Hill’s help really touched my heart. I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t just throw this in his face and go back to doing the same things.”
Cole said she realized in jail that she could turn her life around.
“Alcohol and drugs enslaved me,” she said. “I had to change.”
Cole is working in a retail store in Gilroy and has two more job interviews later this week.
“I feel good,” she said. “I have support and things are going well.”
Brett Rowland covers public safety for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or br******@fr***********.com.
