Advocate staff writer

Having spent much of the previous 20 years drinking, using drugs, bouncing from job to job and living on New Orleans' streets, Rufus Shepherd initially shrugged off news that he was HIV-positive.

"I wasn't devastated," Shepherd said. "It was actually welcome to me. It was, like, 'Now, Lord, I know what I'm going to die from. I'm homeless. My life has always been a mess. Now we really know what's going to happen with me.' Y'all can just discharge me, and I'll drink myself into oblivion."

Shepherd, however, went in a different direction. He is trying to help others do the same thing.

Almost four years after receiving this terrible medical news, Shepherd is a man transformed. Shepherd provides HIV/AIDS counseling through the Capital City Family Health Center at the Martin Luther King Center, 4000 Gus Young Ave.

"I want to be able to let somebody know that, hey, though you may experience hopelessness ... you can experience freedom," he said. "There is a freedom to going this route that I've chosen to go."

Shepherd, 43, grew up in New Orleans and joined the Marine Corps after graduating from high school. He began drinking and discovered he was an alcoholic. He continued drinking after his discharge, busing tables or washing dishes in restaurants and occasionally doing security work. Off and on, he was homeless.

In April 2000, Shepherd became unable to hold down food or drink, then began dry heaving. He visited the emergency room at Mercy-Baptist Medical Center, which admitted him for dehydration and asked if he wanted an HIV test. Shepherd said previous tests had come back negative, but this one showed he had HIV, which Shepherd said he contracted sexually "under the influence of crack cocaine and alcohol."

Getting the chemical dependency under control was the immediate problem. The hospital sent Shepherd to the DePaul detox center.

"It was in DePaul where the nursing staff -- and I thank God for them every day -- took a real interest in me," he said. "They wouldn't discharge me from there. They worked past the clock trying to find a place to place me in long-term treatment of some sort."

They sent Shepherd to the Progressive Health Center in Zachary, a residential facility where he stayed about three months receiving alcohol abuse counseling each day. Volunteers of America would send a vehicle so Shepherd could attend an HIV support group.

Such groups seek to restore hope for participants, said Patti Capouch, director of VOA's support services for people with HIV/AIDS. Though the disease remains incurable, people with it are living longer in relatively normal health, particularly when permanent housing and access to medical care are available.

"I began to do my soul-searching," Shepherd said. "What am I going to do? Am I going to stay sober or attempt to stay sober and try to live with disease? In the process of doing a lot of soul-searching and going in groups and God placing a lot of people in my life planting positive seeds, I began to start deciding that maybe I can live with this, even though I didn't know nothing about the disease.

"I had a talk with my God as I understand God to be. I told God, 'Lord, it's all up to you. If you're going to let me live with this disease, you know my history about trying to get over relapse for 20 years. You're going to have to help me.'"

The counseling sessions prompted Shepherd to create something he had lacked for a long time: goals. He wrote them down -- be a productive member of society and help other people who are HIV positive and have addiction problems.

He began as an AmeriCorps volunteer for two years before getting his current job as outreach coordinator. Shepherd leads a weekly all-men's HIV support group and makes home visits to about 60 clients. He helps those who come to the center to change appointments and get their appointments moved up if it is an urgent situation.

"I help encourage them to get to their appointments, to not miss their appointments, to take their medicines, to find more creative ways of taking their medicines, talk about things that they usually wouldn't talk about with their families: 'Let's talk about death.' Nobody likes to talk about death. That's taboo," he said.

Shepherd said his clients relate to him because he also has HIV.

"They tend to rely on the fact that I understand what's going on, and I do," he said. "It's kind of painful, though, when they start dying, because it kind of brings me back to me. It gives me that urgency: 'Lord, I want to do as much as I can in this lifetime. I don't want to wait until I get sick to say I wish I had done this while I was in good health. While I'm in good health I want to find out what was my purpose in life, to find out what it is that I was born for.'

"I don't think nobody should die and leave this world ... without experiencing what I'm experiencing," he said. "I was going to die and not experience work and self-esteem and all that kind of stuff. A lot of people are going to die and not experience that, and I like to be a channel of some sort to help somebody experience what I'm experiencing."

Awareness Events

Events today and Saturday will highlight local recognition of the fourth annual National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness and Information Day.

A neighborhood block party will be held from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. today at the Martin Luther King Center, 4000 Gus Young Ave. A National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day Gathering will be held at the Southern University AgCenter from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

Both events are free and open to the public. For information, call 225-927-9810.

Although African Americans make up about 12 percent of the U.S. population, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the group accounts for 38 percent of the nation's AIDS cases. CDC figures also show that in 2002, AIDS was the leading cause of death for African Americans between ages 25-44, and that African Americans accounted for 54 percent of estimated new HIV infections that year in the U.S.

"Statistics show that African Americans have been disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS since the epidemic's beginning," said Dr. John Robertson, executive director of the National Black Alcoholism and Addictions Council. "If we increase the dialogue and get everyone involved, we will be able to galvanize our communities to take action and stop the spread of HIV/AIDS."

For information on National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness and Information Day, visit the Web site at http://www.blackaidsday.org or call 877-867-1446.