Rehabilitation Center Fighting to Save Addicts From Themselves

The achingly thin, ghostly pale blond woman with too-bright blue eyes sits for only a few minutes, waiting nervously among a dozen people seeking drug and alcohol abuse treatment at Walden House.

Then she heads for the door.

“She said she doesn’t belong with ‘those people,’ ” says Chris Canter, a staff member who followed her outside and chased her down to talk. She never returned.

In truth, the woman in her 20s has much in common with other members of the Walden House “family.”

They smoked crack and shot heroin. They abandoned their children and robbed stores. They snatched purses and sold their bodies.

California has embarked on an ambitious experiment to divert thousands of these nonviolent drug offenders out of the prison system and into community treatment programs like this one in the tough Mission District.

Treatment is tricky. Chemical dependency doesn’t disappear after addicts swallow a magic pill or learn to “just say no.” Addicts’ treatment needs are as varied as their drugs of choice.

However, experts agree that behavior modification is a necessary part of any successful treatment program and the longer addicts stay in treatment, the better their chances of staying clean.

Walden House, established in 1969, focuses on a “reparenting process”--examining one’s life, eliminating bad habits and growing up all over again.

Between 25% and 45% of Walden House clients successfully complete their treatment programs, with residential and older clients doing better than outpatient and younger ones. Six months after graduation, 70% to 80% reported full-time employment or school attendance and general satisfaction with their lives.

“If you listen you will see the love of the staff members,” a client named Angelique says during a break at a recent anger-management workshop, part of her densely scheduled day. “Once you stop being angry and stop feeling sorry for yourself . . . once you start trying, everything falls into place.”

At 32, the petite woman has 10 children but custody of none. She desperately wants Walden House to work for her. It’s her “once in a lifetime chance.”

“And I don’t have any more chances left,” she says. “It’s either use drugs and die or go get help.”

Sixty-one percent of Californians passed Proposition 36 last November, despite opposition from police, prosecutors and prison officials. The measure requires treatment rather than time behind bars for those convicted for the first or second time of being under the influence of drugs or possessing drugs for personal use.

The initiative provides $120 million annually to treat 37,000 drug offenders, funneled through county governments based on local drug arrests, treatment caseloads and population. The state has already distributed $60 million in start-up funds.

But it’s not enough to clear the state’s already lengthy waiting lists for treatment, and experts fear much of the money won’t go to the most effective programs.

The new law, which goes into effect July 1, doesn’t specify what type of treatment offenders receive, and Canter and others believe that most will be directed to outpatient programs, which are less expensive but also generally less effective than residential programs.

A 1994 study showed that cocaine use decreased by 67% one year after completion of a long-term residential program; that’s compared to a 57% decrease after outpatient treatment. Unemployment dropped 13% and 7%, respectively; law-breaking decreased 61% and 36%, respectively.

Still, addiction experts say there will be cost savings, citing another 1994 study that found every treatment dollar saves taxpayers $7.46 in money not spent cleaning up after addicts’ crimes and health problems.

Although exclusive retreats like the Betty Ford Clinic charge as much as $1,400 a day, treatment need not be so costly. At Walden House, which is supported by local, state and federal funds and private donations, residential treatment costs about $78 a day and outpatient, about $3.

Addiction is an equalizer. Walden House’s population is 43% female, 39% white, 35% black, the rest a mix of Latinos, Asians and other races. Nearly all had lost their jobs; about half are parents.

All say they want to jettison their destructive habits. Walden House helps by making the roughly 100 clients follow a very structured routine. It begins with a loudspeaker wake-up call:

“Good morning, family. It’s 6 o’clock.”

Breakfast follows at 6:30, the house gets cleaned at 7 and the morning meeting is at 8:30. Lunch is at noon and dinner is at 5 p.m. The remainder of the day--until lights-out at 10 for newcomers, 11 for everyone else--is packed with workshops and group therapy sessions.

Walden House does operate as a family. Staffers are on hand to lead discussions, and a physician and psychiatrist are on call, but the residents--calling each other “brother” and “sister”--run the house.

Because many addicts come from dysfunctional families, Walden House tries to teach what being a family really means. Clients learn to share feelings, be honest about fears and insecurities and better understand and support one another.

There are dozens of rules: no violence or threats of violence, no contact with addicts not in treatment, no name-calling, no sunglasses, no Walkmans, no sleeping during the day, no feet on chairs, no eating in bedrooms, no borrowing anything, no sex.

Mistakes are “learning experiences.” Punishments are “contracts.”

Residents range in age from 18 to 57. Many have tried kicking their habits many times, sometimes with outside help.

Talon, a heroin and crack addict, came to Walden House--his eighth treatment program--after spending almost a year in jail. He’s 21.

“You have to be in jail with nothing and realize how much life is out there and how much I took life for granted,” says the onetime model and acting student. “It took me five or six months to start thinking about that. You can do a lot of rehabilitating by yourself in jail.”

Talon, whose clear skin, chiseled features and stylishly baggy jeans belie his troubled background, says his father is an alcoholic and his mother a recovering drug addict. He first smoked pot at 11, sold drugs in the city’s Tenderloin district at 15 and was hooked on heroin by 18.

“Society is hard on people,” he explains. “You’re always being looked at, you’re always being judged. Life is hard. There’s a lot of things to throw you off. When you use drugs you feel on top of the world.

“I’ve thrown my life away and I refuse to do it anymore.” He says he has been clean for a year.

Many at Walden House say they feel trapped in a cycle of drug abuse that grew into a five-, 10- or 20-year habit.

Paula, a 15-year crack smoker, is about a month into her second stay at Walden House. She has been in six residential treatment programs. She’s 44 now and fed up.

“You just get tired of doing the same thing over and over and over again,” she says. “You’re just tired of being tired.”

Joseph, 39, a daily pot smoker for 15 years, has been hooked on crack since 1993. With pants hanging off his hips and hollow cheeks, he could be mistaken for a starving refugee rather than a waiter in some of the city’s swankiest restaurants. He says he’s been fired by the same employer three times and has squandered every penny he’s earned on drugs.

“My life has been dedicated to escaping my life,” says Joseph, who’s been in day treatment about six weeks.

The key to staying clean and sober seems to be completely trading in one’s old life for a new one: Moving to a different neighborhood, surrounding oneself with friends and family who avoid drugs and alcohol and recommitting oneself to recovery every single day.

But staying clean is a daily battle.

Talon, the 21-year-old heroin addict, thought he was up to the challenge.

“I’ve made the decision to quit doing drugs and drinking,” he said in late January. “If you use drugs, you’re dead already. . . . People get addicted to relieving themselves. Giving up on life is drug addiction.”

Talon quit treatment less than three weeks later.

Angelique, the mother of 10, stayed at Walden House for five months before graduating to a halfway house where she was supposed to be reunited with her kids.

She disappeared two days later.