Veterans Find Home Away From Addiction

In Vietnam, he took amphetamines to maintain what he called his “super sarge” image and once, while high on the drug, he said, he freaked out during a combat mission and almost killed a fellow American.

Bob Keith Jr., 43, a career military man, said he then began to drink in addition to taking drugs. However, he said it was not until he returned home after more than four years in Southeast Asia, and the nightmares began, that he began to drink heavily to escape from his problems.

Because of the stress and drinking, Keith said, he obtained a disability discharge from the Air Force in January, 1976.

Meanwhile, he said, he had a series of stormy marriages--one of which produced a son, now 13--and a variety of jobs. He moved from city to city and state to state. He worked as a mechanic, middle management executive and a private security officer, he said, but lost his jobs because of his drinking.

Living Day by Day

Now a resident of the Functional Living Centers in Tujunga, a nonprofit facility that gives a temporary home to former alcohol and drug abusers, Keith said he has been sober since February but has no plans for the future.

He said he wants to re-establish a relationship with his son, but added, “Right now, I’m just trying to get through today.”

James Larkin, executive director and founder of the organization, said Keith’s story is not unusual. Over the past three years, he said, at least five Vietnam veterans have lived at the complex at any given time under a program funded by the Veterans Hospital in Brentwood. In addition, 10 other recovering alcoholics and drug abusers, mainly veterans, also live at the center, Larkin said.

They are referred to the facility by a variety of agencies, including the Valley Vet Center in Northridge, the nation’s first storefront center to counsel veterans experiencing postwar trauma. The Northridge center, which opened in 1979, has no residential facilities.

Complex in Foothills

The Tujunga complex has four cottages at 10339 Fairgrove Ave., a quiet, semirural area in the foothills near Angeles National Forest. No sign out front distinguishes the facility from other homes on the street.

After five weeks of drying out and counseling at the Brentwood hospital, veterans can chose to participate in a 60-day follow-up program at the Tujunga facility. The Veterans Administration pays about $2,800 per veteran for the two months.

Larkin, 44, a recovering alcoholic from Boston who now lives in Agoura Hills, said many veterans choose the program because, although they are recovering from their addictions, they are not ready to face society on their own.

“Most are alone, scared and in pain,” Larkin said. “They are disenfranchised from their families, lacking in self-confidence and just need more time and support before they face the world. One of the big things is that they wonder what people do who don’t stay loaded all the time.”

Founded Three Years Ago

Several hundred veterans have completed the facility’s program since it was founded three years ago, he said. The number of veterans who approach the organization for help has almost doubled to 25 a day since the facility opened in 1980, he said.

“We have room for more,” Larkin said. “There is a great need for facilities of this type. We’re working on getting our license expanded so we can take in more people.”

Larkin, his wife, Dorna, and the staff support the veterans in their struggle to return to society’s mainstream. Counseling, good food, new clothing, recreation and medical aid are provided in a homelike atmosphere.

Wayne Andersen, a psychologist and substance-abuse consultant, said the Tujunga program is unique because it is the only facility, excluding hospitals, that offers counseling to Vietnam veterans while also providing a place to live.

In addition, Andersen said, the program in Tujunga was one of the first to treat Vietnam veterans for delayed-stress syndrome. He said patients are diagnosed on an individual basis.

“This is truly a prescription program,” he said. “Most programs are set up to treat the symptoms, not the causes. Here, we try to eliminate the causes.”

Won Federal Contract

After a two-year pilot program, the facility this year was awarded a permanent contract to provide residential after-care to veterans discharged from the Brentwood hospital.

Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, medical attention, assistance in applying for financial aid and paying jobs outside the center are available to veterans who live at the center.

“Sobriety with dignity is our motto,” Larkin said. “And dignity is achieved through work.”

Keith and most other Vietnam veterans who suffer from delayed-stress syndrome want to be responsible for their own lives, Larkin said.

“I really don’t find much difference in them than in anybody else suffering from stress,” he said.

Vietnam veterans turn to alcohol and drugs for the same reasons that other people who are under stress turn to chemicals, Larkin said.

Guilt and Flashbacks

“They have guilt feelings that have been suppressed,” he said. “They’ve usually been through some pretty intense combat experiences. Vietnam vets may have flashbacks and nightmares about things like throwing grenades into a building in which there were kids while a civilian suffering from stress might have nightmares because he caused a kid’s death in a traffic accident. There’s no difference.”

However, the Vietnam veteran, Larkin said, has come home to be called a “baby murderer.”

“They were sent over there by us to do a rather dirty job,” he said, “and then they got screwed over when they got back. It was an extremely unpopular war and we sent kids--22, 23--over there to do the dirty work. When they came home, they got no thanks.”

“They’ve been knocked around a lot and have little pride,” said Ron Daniels, who manages the facility and helps many of the veterans find jobs. “They want to be recognized for their service to their country. They feel cheated.”

Daniels, a veteran and recovering alcoholic who went through the program two years ago and stayed on as a staff member, said he believes many of the Vietnam veterans are “closet-proud of their service.”

‘A Closed Fraternity’

When they get together at the centers, he said, there is “instantaneous camaraderie. It’s like a closed fraternity.”

Younger veterans who did not serve in Vietnam are also part of the fraternity, Daniels said.

Melvin Carter, a 27-year-old who said he is a recovering alcoholic and drug abuser from Los Angeles, said the residents offer the support he needs to remain sober.

“The group here is very serious about the program,” he said.

Carter said that after high school, when his addiction began, he served two years in the military before he “hit rock bottom. I finally ended up committing a robbery to support my habit. I served some time in jail. That’s when I decided to seek help.”

A clean-cut young man, Carter said the program has given him the desire to face his problems. Without it, he said, “I possibly would have gone back. Now, I have goals. I want to work. I want to go back to school and make something of my life.”

Faced Own Addiction

Larkin, who holds a master’s degree in administration from Fairfield University in Connecticut, said he became involved in alcohol prevention programs after he faced his own addiction 10 years ago. A member of a “fairly affluent Boston family,” Larkin said he served as campus director of a junior college and as a special assistant to the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts before recognizing that he was an alcoholic.

He said he went through “scads of programs” before anything worked for him.

“It was like banging my head against a stone wall,” Larkin said. “I finally took what I thought was basic. I was on skid row in Boston. I was frightened to look at myself as I really was. The bottom line for me was AA.”

Larkin said he worked as a counselor at Cambridge City Hospital in Cambridge, Mass., and as administrator of South Shore Council on Alcoholism in Medfield, Mass., before deciding to start his own program.

He said he came to the Los Angeles area from Boston in 1981 “to look around” and found the community “very underserved.”