Group Viewed as Mirror of Increase in Users : Cocaine Anonymous: A Growing Concern

If the number of Cocaine Anonymous meetings in Orange County is any indication, coke’s still it.

The self-help program, which attracted just a handful of people to its first meeting four years ago in Newport Beach, is now in session seven days a week with almost 40 separate meetings throughout Orange County.

That is double the number of meetings from just 18 months ago, and members of Cocaine Anonymous predict that the number of Orange County chapters will double again in the next few years.

“Currently, there is no Cocaine Anonymous meeting in Irvine,” said Ken E., a 29-year-old furniture maker and former cocaine addict. “Does it mean there is no using in the heart of Yuppieville? No, that’s called denial.”

‘In the Closet’

David G., an attorney and Cocaine Anonymous’ Orange County chairman, said that “so many people who are using are in the closet. Once people get into the serious stages of the disease, they are not out there at parties; they are locked inside their house or in a hotel. They just want to get high all the time and don’t want anyone around them.”

According to the most recent figures from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the number of current cocaine users nationwide increased from 4.2 million in 1982 to 5.8 million in 1985. In addition, a 1986 study on cocaine use among high school seniors indicated that 17% of the students had tried cocaine, including 25,000 seniors who had used the drug in the last year and who were unable to stop.

Despite increased cocaine arrests and the growing number of chemical dependency rehabilitation clinics in Orange County, law enforcement and drug abuse authorities say that cocaine addiction continues to climb.

“The cocaine problem in Orange County is massive, epidemic and getting worse,” said Dr. Michael Stone. As medical director of the CareUnit programs in Orange and at Anaheim’s Western Medical Center, Stone says he is admitting 200 people a month to the rehabilitation programs. “There are probably triple that number in inquiries from people who need help but who can’t afford the program,” he said.

‘The Perfect Profile’

Michael Barnes, special agent supervisor for the state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, describes Orange County as “probably the perfect profile of a county that could kill itself on cocaine. The money is here, the hedonistic life style is here and there’s ready access to the drug through the ports and nearby borders.”

Experts say it is not only Orange County’s young, moneyed professionals who are drawn to the euphoria-inducing powder, which can sell for $100 a gram.

“A substantial group of older, very successful individuals get introduced to cocaine in a million different ways--an older guy dating younger girls who turn him on, friends at a party, or it could be their bridge group,” David G. said. He says he spent thousands of dollars to maintain his seven-year habit before he hit emotional and financial rock bottom.

He says he recalls a man in his 50s who came to a meeting after he lost several of his real estate investments because of the drug. “He told the group he discovered a magic formula for turning buildings into white powder.”

In the parking lot outside a recent Cocaine Anonymous meeting at CareUnit of Orange, Lora, a bubbly 15-year-old Irvine girl, talked of how her habit caused her to drop out of school and her parents to disown her.

“That’s what it does to you,” she said, wanly puffing on a cigarette.

“No matter what people say, cocaine can overpower you,” added her friend, Tracy, 18, who dropped out of UC Santa Cruz after her freshman year because of cocaine and LSD. The two teen-agers, who live with Tracy’s parents in Irvine, said they had been sober for three weeks.

In a sparse, one-room office in Costa Mesa, former cocaine addicts take turns staffing Orange County’s Cocaine Anonymous hot line. According to Vicky Tannler, most addicts are too frightened to call for help, so the majority of calls are from relatives or friends.

“We tell them about the meetings and refer them to where they can get help,” said Tannler, 25, who recounted how she was once so high on cocaine that she was deluded into thinking she had the strength to push her stalled car up a hill as it hovered near a cliff.

‘Shut Off the Voice’

Tannler, who now works for an accounting firm and is expecting a baby, says she finally came to Cocaine Anonymous for help because she was afraid she was going to die.

“In the last days, I’d use cocaine to shut off the voice in my head which was saying, ‘You shouldn’t do be doing this. End it now. Go off the cliff.’

“It’s been quite a road,” said Tannler. She has been cocaine-free for two years, and “there isn’t a day that passes that I’m not grateful. I got married last year, and I have money in the bank. God, I owed so much money!”

The meetings--which are held in more than a dozen cities in Orange County from Anaheim to Dana Point--are patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous. Newcomers are introduced to a 12-step plan for recovery.

Step 1 calls for the addict to admit to being powerless over his problem. Later steps tell the addict to take “fearless moral inventory” of his life, to make amends for his wrongs to others and to commit himself to God or a “higher power.”

Rose to Speak

At a recent meeting in the smoke-filled Newport Club across the street from Newport Beach City Hall, a 30-year-old dentist rose to speak.

“Hi, my name is Doug and I’m an addict,” he said, looking somewhat uncomfortable. “Hi, Doug,” the chorus of 40 or so strangers answered back.

“This is my first time. I finally realized I had a problem,” he said. After a few minutes of what Cocaine Anonymous members call “sharing,” everyone applauded its newest member. Doug, like others who had reached some kind of milestone of sobriety that night, was given a hug by a fellow member.

While health professionals and addicts agree that the strength of the meetings is their group support, drug experts say that attending Cocaine Anonymous meetings isn’t enough to kick the habit. “Just going to a C. A. meeting is not going to interrupt that cycle (of cocaine abuse),” said Ruth Stafford, a Mission Viejo psychologist who treats addicts. “Most people must go to a treatment program, and then attending the meetings becomes imperative.”

Also Attend A. A.

Moreover, Stafford said, the patients who do best are the ones who also attend Alcoholic Anonymous, the 52-year-old organization with a proven track record.

“Because Cocaine Anonymous is relatively new and immature, we also encourage them to go to A. A. meetings . . . where the more mature sobriety and sponsorship exist. There they can get educated from learned, recovered people. Years and years of experience with alcoholism shows that in the long run, going to A. A. meetings is what keeps what is a chronic, lifetime problem from returning.”

Cocaine addicts seeking to help themselves first gathered in Orange County at the Newport Club on April 15, 1983. Although no statistics are kept, Paul F., one of Cocaine Anonymous’ organizers, estimated that about 3,000 people have come to meetings in the last year.

A collection basket is passed at each meeting, and people usually donate $1 to cover the cost of literature, office space and rent.

Reach Only a Fraction

Increasing revenues indicate the increasing attendance, Paul F. said. “We now have about $11,000, which is double the $5,500 we had a year ago.”

Still, members of the organization’s operating committee think the program is reaching only a fraction of Orange County’s cocaine abusers.

“If used on a daily basis, the program can provide a daily remission from the symptoms of the disease,” David G. said.

“Cocaine is a large part of life in and about Orange County. To those who use it, it’s pretty chic--until their lives get ruined.”