Sobriety Through Serenity : Addicts Use a Secluded ‘Village’ as Their Way Station to a New Life

Eleven miles up a road that winds north from Castaic Lake into Angeles National Forest, hidden among steep, brush-covered hills, a cluster of redwood bungalows resembles a small village complete with chapel, library and fire engine.

Last week, there was even a hot race for mayor going on, with flyers touting the merits of “Mayor Mike” tacked to nearly every tree.

But the similarity to a small village ends when most of the 199 male residents readily admit that they are drug addicts or alcoholics.

The complex, built during the Depression as a work camp, was converted in the 1940s into a “drunk farm” and has since evolved into Warm Springs Rehabilitation Center. Along with a similar center in Acton, Warm Springs has been operated by Los Angeles County since the 1960s as a secluded site where addicts and alcoholics can try to recover their physical and emotional strength.

Every resident is greeted by name, never just with a “hello,” said Kurt Freeman, director of both facilities. “For some of these people, the only thing they have is their name,” he said.

Warm Springs residents take part in a 90-day or longer program of sobriety, therapy, job training and physical activity designed to increase the chance that they can find a niche in the outside world, Freeman said.

More than 1,000 men go through the Warm Springs program each year, said Donald Stapleton, who directs rehabilitation counseling. The center in Acton accepts men and women.

The facilities are always full, Stapleton said. In September, there was a 130-man waiting list for Warm Springs, he said.

About 40% of the residents on average have been referred by the courts, with many entering the program after serving a jail sentence. No one is forced into the program, Stapleton said, but it is what he called “a voluntary-or-else” option, the alternative being a stiffer jail sentence.

Other residents are referred by county hospitals, drug rehabilitation centers or, in some cases, admit themselves, he said.

One of the biggest changes at Warm Springs in the last decade has been in the kind of clientele, Stapleton said. Where homeless alcoholics were once warehoused, lawyers, actors, even doctors are now frequently admitted, he said.

Also, 10 years ago the average age of residents was 45; now it is 32, and some of the residents are as young as 18. The younger men have responded much better to the program, he said.

“The old guys had nothing,” Stapleton said. “They had no job skills, they had no health. . . . They had everything going against them. The younger fellows have some job skills, family, some support.”

When a man arrives at the center, he is given a physical and psychological examination and introduced to a counselor who will oversee his progress throughout his stay. He is also told immediately not to get his hopes up, Stapleton said.

“We tell these guys right off the bat that . . . there’s no way in the world anybody’s going to be able to wave any magic wands up here and all their problems will disappear. This is just the first step in their recovery process, because recovery is a long, long process.”

The primary goals are simple, Stapleton said.

The most basic is that residents are offered 90 days of sobriety and isolation.

“It’s nice to be secluded a little bit from the city,” said Hughie, a red-haired, 27-year-old alcoholic. “When you’re an alcoholic, a lot of times you feel like, why is he making it? Why has he got the car, the job and the family and all these beautiful things? And why don’t I?”

Through activities ranging from athletics to theater therapy and Bible readings, residents are encouraged to renew their physical and emotional health.

Freeman, whose broad shoulders reflect a passion for exercise, works out regularly with residents at the “Iron Pile,” an outdoor weight-training facility he built soon after he started at Warm Springs 18 years ago.

He said the emphasis on physical as well as emotional well-being grew out of graduate work he did at USC on what he calls “recreational deprivation” among alcoholics. That work also was the seed of the Alcoholic Olympics, an event Freeman created in 1972 that now draws several thousand participants each year to College of the Canyons in Valencia.

At the end of a resident’s stay, Warm Springs staff work with other county health and social services to place the man in a halfway house or another type of supportive environment, Stapleton said.

Warm Springs was built in 1933 as a forestry camp by the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1941, four barracks-like buildings were added. These now provide sleeping quarters for the residents.

From the 1940s to 1960, when it was acquired by the county hospital system, Warm Springs was a “dumping ground for skid-row derelicts,” Freeman said. After the county took over, it remained overcrowded and understaffed, housing 300 patients and employing only 11 staff members.

Freeman was hired at Acton in 1967 as a rehabilitation counselor and moved to Warm Springs as administrator in 1968. He became director of both centers in 1974.

“I decided I was going to make a lot of changes,” Freeman said. The patient population was cut to 225, and then to its current level of 199. The staff eventually grew to 41, including a psychologist, recreational and occupational therapists and a social worker.

Nursing care is provided 24 hours a day, and a physician visits the center three times a week.

Inspections performed by the state Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs have consistently given Warm Springs a clean bill of health, said Kimberly Klagge, a spokeswoman for that agency.

The only problems found in the most recent inspection were a torn shower curtain and a dirty floor in a storeroom.

Only one complaint has been registered with the state by a Warm Springs patient this year, Klagge said. In June, a resident reported that he had been tested for drugs and alcohol seven times in 10 days because another resident claimed he was under the influence. All seven tests were negative, Klagge said.

The facility was told to establish a policy on drug and alcohol testing, she said, and to protect the rights of residents by informing them of the policy when they are admitted.

The greatest challenge in operating the center--not surprisingly--is to keep out drugs and alcohol, Stapleton said. In fact, he said, it is impossible to keep out all illicit substances.

He said the program focuses on developing “a consensus among the residents that they’re not going to stand for the use of alcohol and drugs up here. It’s only that self-government, that peer pressure that maintains this place as it is. It’s a tremendous force.”

There is a community council--made up of representatives from each dormitory and a mayor--which is responsible for keeping the facility free of drugs and alcohol.

One 22-year-old resident agreed that drugs and alcohol inevitably find their way into the center. But he also provided an example of how the positive peer pressure described by Stapleton works:

“I’ve been exposed to this situation, and it was a tough decision for me to make,” said the man, who said he has had a drug problem since he was 13. He said he discovered that one of the facility’s residents was using drugs about a month after he entered Warm Springs.

“I made what I thought was the right decision and brought it to the attention of the staff,” he said. “It was scary to me. I was on the verge of using. I came up here to get away from it. Then, to have it in my face was scary.”

Warm Springs operates on what its managers term a shoestring budget of about $2 million, which works out to about $28 per resident per day, Freeman said.

The financial situation of each enrollee is evaluated to determine if he can afford to pay some or all of the cost of his stay, Stapleton said. Because many of the men have worked part of the year, they are eligible for state disability insurance, which pays for the stay at Warm Springs, he said.

The state also contributes some money from the Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, Stapleton said.

Work Done by Residents

“One reason costs are so low is that virtually everything done here is done by the residents,” Stapleton said. “The county benefits, of course, but the big benefit is to the residents themselves, who are in a job-training situation.

“We try to approximate the same situation as would occur in the community,” he said. “They have to come to work on time. They’re evaluated. They’re paid--50 cents an hour. That doesn’t seem like a lot but at least they leave here with a few bucks in their pocket.”

Residents who enroll in vocational training programs often stay beyond the standard three months. The most advanced occupational training is given to men who work a yearlong stint at Warm Springs’ county-operated waste water treatment plant, Stapleton said. Many of the trainees leave the program with a license for waste treatment work, he said.

Everywhere at Warm Springs, there are signs of the center’s reliance on the skills of its residents. One morning last week, a resident who is a roofer was tacking down the last shingles on a new roof on one dormitory.

The cement foundation of the basketball and handball courts, which double as an outdoor movie theater, was poured six years ago when, “by a stroke of luck,” two masons were enrolled in the program at the same time, Freeman said.

Labor, Materials Donated

Warm Springs occasionally receives donations of labor and materials from former residents and businesses in the community. Last year, a local construction company, using donated lumber and labor, built a roof and lighting for the Iron Pile, Freeman said.

A few weeks later, one of the carpenters admitted himself to Warm Springs, he said.

Freeman said it is not uncommon for people who have been exposed to the center to admit themselves for treatment, and for those who have been treated to maintain a close connection.

“There was an attorney who used to refer clients to me,” Freeman said. “He called one day and referred himself.” The man, who had been disbarred, was elected mayor of the community council. He eventually was reinstated to the State Bar and is now on the Warm Springs advisory board, Freeman said.

David, a young resident who runs the kitchen and audio-visual equipment, said he feels that the effect of Warm Springs, unlike many of the other rehabilitation programs he has been through, will be lasting.

“Past experiences always made me feel like once it’s over, it’s over,” he said. “I’ve learned that it doesn’t have to end here.”