Drug court grads look back at a life-saving choice

Darryl Smith had a choice to make. The year was 2003 and the city native was back in jail for dealing drugs -- this time for a five-year stretch. Now he was being offered the chance to trade his sentence for a five-year intensive drug rehabilitation program run by the county courts.

"I had to decide if I wanted to get help or just do my time and go back to the streets," Smith said.

He chose the rehab program and has never looked back. At least not until yesterday when he joined 13 other Drug Court graduates who collected their diplomas and reflected on how the program changed their lives.

"Without it, I'd be dead," said Smith, 43, who works full time and attends community college. "This program turned my life around and gave me direction."

Similar stories of triumph and redemption were recounted by the men and women who made up the 10th graduating class of Mercer's Drug Court. Some tearful, some jubilant, the proud graduates thanked their counselors, probation officers and drug court staff for helping them navigate the rocky road to recovery.

"Today is the tomorrow I dreamed about yesterday," said Scott Church, as his proud family cheered for him. "Not only did drug court give me the opportunity to find out who I am, drug court gave me back my family."

"I am so proud of myself and all of us graduating today," said Jennifer Williams. "I've come a long way. Drug court was the best decision I've made for myself in a long time."

Operated in states across the nation, drug courts divert non-violent, substance abusing offenders from prison and jail into treatment. In a blending of justice, treatment, and social service systems, drug court participants undergo an intensive regimen of substance abuse treatment, case management, drug testing, supervision and monitoring, and immediate sanctions and incentives while reporting to regularly scheduled status hearings before a judge with expertise in the drug court model. To increase the probability of participants' success, the program also provides ancillary services such as mental health treatment, trauma and family therapy, and job skills training.

Mercer's program, implemented in 1999, has graduated 21 participants. Currently there are 148 men and women in the program.

Superior Court Judge Gerald J. Council, who presides over Mercer's Drug Court, lauded it as a way to break the cycle of substance abuse, addiction and crime by getting non-violent, addicted offenders the help they need instead of merely banishing them to jail.

These are people's lives. It's serious. It's life and death," Council said." With Drug Court people become meaningful members of society."

Council's role in the program is clearly hands-on. As program participants filed into the ceremonial courtroom of the criminal courthouse to watch the graduation -- their presence was mandatory -- Council was there to greet them with slapping handshakes and hugs.

"What's up, money? What's up man?" Council joked as he admired outfits and exchanged good-natured ribbing with the men and women.

When the ceremony got under way before a packed crowd, Deputy Public Defender Vernon Clash marveled that this year's graduating class of 14 was the biggest ever.

"When you reach this phase, you've reached a level of self-discipline that allows you to come back and help other people in the program," Clash told the graduates. "It's a struggle, people have doubts. They don't think they can do it."

County Executive Brian Hughes, told the crowd that he knows personally the importance of getting help with addiction.

"I'm entering my 19th year of recovery," Hughes said. "That's something I don't often talk about in public but I talk about it here. It keeps me in the place where I need to be. Recovery isn't just a one-time thing. For me, I had to go back and practice a couple times. I'm here before you as county executive because there was one person in my life who reached out their hand and said 'I'm not going to let this one go.' That's what Drug Court is about -- giving people an opportunity, giving them a path."

Many of the graduates admitted they were less than cooperative when they first entered the program.

"I struggled. I fought authority. I didn't want to change," Nicole Sanders told the crowd after claiming her diploma. "But I finally got my act together. I shut up. I got sober and I started listening to people."

Many of the graduates credited a big portion of their success to Council, who was moved to tears throughout the program.

"If it wasn't for him, I would not be where I am today," said Laurie Woody. "I have a job in Mercer Hospital because of him. I have my own little apartment because of him."

Gary Colston thanked Council for being tough on him.

"You sat me down when I needed to be sat down. Thank you," Colston said.

Man out of rehab faces new drug charges

A man who had reportedly just been released from a drug rehabilitation unit in the Twin Cities has been charged with multiple drug offenses.

Matthew P. Betters, 37, 519 Chippewa St., Chippewa Falls, has been charged in one complaint with three counts of possessing an illegally obtained prescription, possession of narcotics, marijuana, cocaine and drug paraphernalia and one count of bail jumping.

A Chippewa Falls man said he let Betters stay at his residence about a week after Betters was released from rehab in exchange for some work around the house. Instead, Betters reportedly went to the Twin Cities to find heroin, and two fur coats valued over $10,000 were missing from the residence.

An investigating officer found drugs among Betters’ personal items left behind. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.

In a separate complaint, Betters is charged with forgery and bail jumping for allegedly forging his estranged wife’s name on checks.

Caring Staff Make A Drug Rehabilitation Center A Better Experience

Drug rehabs aren't all alike. On the contrary, every drug rehab facility is distinguished by the quality of the caregivers it employs. As should perhaps go without saying, the best inpatient drug rehabilitation facilities are those managed by the most experienced and compassionate experts. In the end, you simply can't expect to get sober if you don't get help from the right kind of allies.

Malibu's most exclusive drug rehabilitation facility prides itself on the acumen and empathy of its staff. The center's licensed therapists and counselors are the best in the world at what they do. No less importantly, they care deeply about each and every one of their clients. As those clients will tell you, there's simply no substitute for that sort of combination. Not every long term drug rehabilitation program can compare. All that remains, now, is for you to learn the truth on your own terms.

The fact that you're here, reading this, suggests that you don't need a lecture on the perils of addiction. Drug rehabilitation programs can help you in more ways that you know. You already know what's at stake in the healing process. Now it's time for you to learn just how valuable rehabilitation can be. The day you arrive at Malibu's most successful luxury drug rehabilitation center will be the day you start remembering why you ever believed life to be a thing worth living. It's hard to imagine that any selling point could ever be more persuasive than that one.

New Christian Drug Rehab & Alcohol Treatment Program in California is a Huge Success

Welcome to Celebrate A New Life at Hope By The Sea. The new Christian Drug Rehab is up and flying, no, it's soaring. Here to help chemically addicted people get well. Located in beautiful coastal Southern California, in the county of Orange. Seventeen miles south of Disneyland/Anaheim and minutes from the sun and the sand of the blue Pacific Ocean.

Celebrate A New Life is a Christian residential drug rehab and alcohol treatment center, located in the coastal communities of Orange County Southern California. Their faith-focused mission is to minister the love of Jesus Christ to the least, the last and the lost. The pain, turmoil, and devastation caused by addiction needs to come to an end. Help is needed. Help is available. Call today! Toll-Free (800) 708-3173

State Licensed by Alcohol and Drug Programs of California. Comprehensive Treatment Planning.

Celebrate A New Life has multi-dimensional services for the treatment needs of the addict, the alcoholic, those dually diagnosed and most other illnesses classified under the category of obsessive/compulsive disorders. 'Therapy' means finding the truth, and working to improve a life and building a strong foundation. People are better equipped, then, to make responsible decisions and use good judgment to improve their lives.

Steps to Admission

Initial phone contact/ Assessment/ General treatment plan/ financial arrangements. $1,000 reduction of admission fees if 90 day treatment package is paid in advance. Also, 2 months of Residential Transition Care is included at no charge. (That's 5 months of In-Patient Recovery Service for the price of 3) Travel arrangements/ A Travel Coordinator will give you a list of flight and airfare choices. Departure times and locations. Admission/ Orientation and Specific Treatment Plan Strategy Call Now Toll free (800) 708-3173 Visit the web-site: Christian Alcohol Rehab

Admission to Celebrate A New Life is the first-step to redeeming a life. Here is how the process works:

The Intake Admissions Counselor Bobby Nicholl will guide callers through the steps necessary for admission and resolve all questions related the curriculum, visiting, and what to bring. The Admissions Counselor Bobby Nicholl will aid with all travel arrangements including flight schedules and transportation from the airport.

Financial agreements are made to reserving a stay with Celebrate A New Life at Hope by the Sea. Pack for a trip (2 to 3 week stay). New clients are greeted at close airports in Orange County or Los Angeles.

Celebrate A New Life faculty from day one, right up to the day of discharge, addresses each client with dignity, care, love and respect. The 1st day makes an all important impression on the new client and faculty members wish it to be a positive experience.

Drugs rehabilitation centre to be established soon

The proposal of establishing a ‘Central Rehabilitation Centre’ for drug addicts out of the City, and treatment centres in the metropolis, will be finalised in a meeting that will be held in the coming week, said Naveed Younus, president Drug Free Pakistan Foundation (DFPF).

The Central Rehabilitation Centre will be established on 40 acres of land, which includes area for cattle farming and agricultural land. At this centre, addicts after their treatment will be placed to develop social and moral conducts in themselves, in order to be useful citizens, said Younus.

He said that during our several meetings with the officials of City District Government Karachi (CDGK), we have pointed out the need for treatment of drug addicted people in the metropolitan. City Nazim Mustafa Kamal has also shown interest in this regard. We have proposed to establish 18 treatment centres in 18 towns of the City on public private partnership basis. Initially, 2 centres will be formed and after the feedback from these 2 centres, other towns will also have such treatment centres. He added that the decision of establishing these centres will be decided after the meeting of all the town nazims. 

Younus said that the drugs addiction in the country and especially in Karachi is increasing day by day. According to the data provided by UNODC and Anti-narcotics, more than 15,000 children, below 15 years of age, are drug addict. The drug addiction is also gaining ground among our female population; the ratio of drug addicts in the City is rising by 7 per cent annually. “More than 5 million drugs addicts are in the country and out of them one million are only in Karachi,” he added. “Almost all of the areas in the City have been witnessing rapid growth in drug addicts, from posh areas to slum localities. But it is noteworthy that this menace is rising rapidly in slum areas. The reason behind this rapid growth is that these drugs are easily available to the public due to drug mafia in the City,” mentioned Younus. 

Rehab centers a nuisance, residents say

Malibu residents and city leaders plan to lobby state legislators to end the clustering of drug and alcohol treatment centers in Malibu. There are 34 licensed centers in the city.

By Olivia Damavandi / Staff Writer

Recent incidents have exasperated and convinced numerous residents that what is estimated to be a $100 million drug and alcohol rehabilitation industry operating within the City of Malibu is attracting individuals who pose a threat to community safety. Residents also complain that the centers are using loopholes to avoid patient number limitations, and city leaders say their hands are tied as far as any kind of enforcement.

Scott Tallal, president of the Trancas Highlands Homeowners Association, wrote in a letter to The Malibu Times last week that a Malibu rehab facility in Trancas Highlands was allegedly set on fire two weeks ago by one of its own patients who then verbally threatened to ignite the entire neighborhood. The patient escaped into Trancas Canyon and was found five hours later by Sheriff's deputies, Tallal wrote.

In addition to any kind of behavioral problems, the traffic generated by the clustering of centers' homes in residential neighborhoods also pose a threat, residents say.

A total of 34 licensed residential alcohol and drug rehab facilities currently exist within the City of Malibu, according to a list published on the Web site of the State of California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs.

Home to 13,000 people, Malibu has one licensed residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation program for every 810 or so residents, according to the Los Angeles Times. For Los Angeles County overall, the ratio is one center for every 58,100 people.

State law allows private homes with six beds or less to be occupied and used as private addiction treatment centers. There is no law that regulates how many rehab facilities may exist in any given neighborhood or city.

Most rehabs in Malibu charge at least $35,000 for a month of treatment, according to an earlier report conducted by Realtor and writer Rick Wallace. The rehabilitation facility Passages charges nearly $60,000 per month.

To avoid the six-beds per residence limitation, some treatment centers rent or purchase nearby homes to expand their business, a process known as "clustering."

"Basically what we end up with is a medical neighborhood and commercial businesses in our multifamily residences but there's nothing we can say about it," Ken Kearsley, Malibu resident and former city mayor, said Friday in a telephone interview. "The state doesn't even have to notify us if one's about to go in."

Kearsley said his several trips to the state Capitol to discuss the matter were fruitless. "We couldn't get any of our state legislators to even put a bill into the committee," he said.

The clustering of the rehab centers not only increases the amount of patients, but also the number of employees per facility, which residents say has caused a plethora of problems.

Passages Malibu on its Web site lists 56 professional employees (not counting cooks, housekeeping, landscaping or maintenance staff); Promises Treatment Center lists 38 professional employees (excluding support staff); Creative Care Inc and Malibu Recovery each list 26 professional staff; Cliffside Malibu lists 31 professional staff; Visions lists 40 professional staff; and Echo Malibu, a treatment center for adolescents, lists 33.

Industrial food service vehicles and other commercial vehicles servicing the centers clog the neighborhood and make it difficult for emergency vehicles to access them, Tallal said.

Mayor Andy Stern called the clustering of rehabs "terrible" and explained that the heightened employee count contributes to city pollution because the septic tanks utilized by most of the private homes are designed for occupancy by up to two parents and their children, and would not typically be used around the clock.

Employees at both the Promises and Passages facilities on Monday declined to comment on this story before hanging up on The Malibu Times.

Promises, however, issued the following statement in an e-mail on Tuesday.

"Promises tries to be good neighbors and [is] compliant with licensing requirements of alcohol and drug programs. It is Promises' goal to be a good neighbor and respect the needs of the community."

State-issued permits to the treatment centers are valid for two years during which the California Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs must make at least one onsite program visit to verify compliance with various regulations. However, residents say this once-every-two-year visit make it impossible to ensure that the rehabs are not housing more than the six patients allowed.

"Many of us run businesses out of our own homes, but if we each had upwards of 56 professional employees coming and going twenty-four-seven, we can't help but think that the city would immediately take action," Tallal said.

Tallal and other residents are asking the city to pass new regulations that would limit the number of employees who can work for any home-based business, and then apply that regulation to all local businesses operating on a residential property.

Residents are also requesting that the state Senate and Assembly pass new regulations that would allow a maximum of one six-bed rehab facility per square mile; prohibit rehab staff and patients from smoking at any facility located in a wildfire-prone area; restrict non-resident patients to rehab centers zoned for commercial-medical facilities; and require all rehabs to abide by the same regulations that apply to other commercial medical facilities.

As far as what the City of Malibu is doing to address the matter, City Manager Jim Thorsen said, "We've been working with our strategist in Sacramento and other cities to regulate how and where the rehabs are operated and implement some sensible land-use laws."

Local residents plan on formally addressing the city council at an upcoming meeting to take action.

Is Drug Addiction A Recoverable Condition?

Some theories of drug addiction claim that addiction is an "incurable disease", that once an addict, always an addict. However, when William Benitez, Founder of the Narconon Drug Rehab Program, decided to start his "Narcotics Foundation", things were a bit different.
"Drug addiction wasn’t called a disease yet in 1966," comments Mary Rieser, Executive Director for Narconon Drug Rehab Georgia."That was 'discovered' many years later. But already in the 60s and 70s doctors were throwing every medication they could think of at drug addicts to 'treat' them."


As Benitez, who went on to found the successful Narconon Drug Rehab, said in a recently discovered lecture he gave in 1968, “After 19 years of trying, probed and picked at by psychiatrists and psychologists, everybody was evaluating for me, telling me what my problems were…I noticed that all of us [drug addicts] in prison were in the same boat. We didn’t know what the problem was.” After reading a few philosophical texts by L. Ron Hubbard, which he had found in the prison library, Benitez realized that he had found a radically different approach. Learning how to think for yourself, how to solve problems for yourself. How? By concentrating on your abilities, Hubbard said, instead of your disabilities. Become more able. Sounds simple, but not so if you are an addict stuck in prison, whether mental or physical.
“I thought back over the years of all the junkies I had shot up with,” Bill later wrote, “and remembered their most treasured conversation, ‘One of these days I’m going to quit.’ I had found the means and was going to share it with them. That’s when I made the decision real by writing it down on my calendar page in my cell.”
“So effective was the technology I had learned,” he continues, “that I experienced a freedom long lost to me. The tall prison walls became only temporary barriers. I realized that my 6x8 foot cell was all that I needed as a command post. Even back then, I knew the Narconon program would reach international proportions.”
It certainly has. After the first residential rehab center in Los Angeles, the next opened in Stockholm, Sweden. Sweden has been delivering Narconon drug rehabilitation ever since. The full network now spans over 150 programs in 50 countries, from Kathmadu, Nepal to Hastings, England.
Even better news is the stable success rate. An Arizona State Prison staff report, signed August 13, 1972, stated that 75% of the Arizona Narconon program students were drug-free one year after release. Recent Narconon routine outcome monitoring for rehabilitation programs in California and Oklahoma report the same results.
A case study on the Narconon juvenile program, presented to the Western Attorneys General Conference in 2005, found nearly the same -- 63.5% of the youth lived totally crime free for 2 years following the program (compared to 30.1% of a comparison group).
Narconon graduates are famously proud of Benitez because he was “one of them.” And then some. He had the courage to disbelieve the falsehood that one cannot escape the trap of heroin or other drugs. “I started to look. I started to handle. The other men discovered the same thing. They started to become sane and able to resolve their problems.”

Explaining Drug Dependency and Rehabitation

The fundamental connection between professional addiction recovery care and long-term addiction recovery success is explained by the nature of drug dependency itself. Remember, drug addiction is a disease: a clinical condition with clinical roots that demands, in the end, clinical solutions from clinical rehab experts. You can't get better without addiction treatment because drug abuse is not a choice, and because healing isn't simply a function of will. To beat drug or alcohol addiction for good, you need the kind of help you can't get outside of a drug rehab center.

Effective addiction recovery must take stock of drug addiction as it actually exists: as a disorder with both physical and psychological origins. From a physical perspective, long-term addicts develop metabolic dependencies on their drugs of abuse, with the consequence that chronic drug abusers literally need drugs to survive. Psychologically, addicts are addicts because they rely on drug use as a sort of emotional crutch: They can't find the strength to face the world through any lens except that of a drug high.

For addiction recovery patients, the lesson here is a simple one: Addiction and addiction recovery aren't functions of personal will. No addict decides to be an addict, and no addiction recovery patient can simply decide to get sober. On the contrary, addiction, like all diseases, can only be eradicated by virtue of expert addiction recovery care from a professional addiction treatment center.

Again, the ball is in your court here. Addiction recovery really can help you beat drug dependency…but not until you let it, and not until you resolve to make it work. It's true that addiction recovery isn't a choice. It's also truth that the decision to enter an addiction recovery program very certainly is a choice, and that only those addicts with the courage to make it can ever hope to achieve lasting sobriety. Please, for so your own sake, don't wait another day to do what you have to do.


Addiction Treatment and Addiction Recovery

Addiction recovery, of course, can only be the product of addiction treatment that addresses the entire extent of addiction itself. Drug treatment that works is that which fosters holistic healing: healing of the mind as well as the body, the emotional as well as the physical. Remember, drug abuse exists in both physiological and psychological dimensions, and a drug rehab program that fails to account for both forms of the disease is and can only ever be doomed to fail. Again, if you're going to get better, you're going to have to get the right kind of help.

Physical addiction recovery concerns itself mostly with eradicating the physiological dependencies associated with chronic addiction. Doctors and caregivers at specialized drug detox centers help addiction recovery patients weather the first stage of sobriety with a minimum of physical trauma, employing an advanced range of medical therapies to ensure that drug withdrawal is no more trying than it has to be. Subsequent physical care is aimed at reducing the drug cravings experienced by addiction recovery patients, with the ultimate goal of facilitating the intensive addiction counseling that must stand at the heart of any effective addiction recovery program.

The psychological nature of addiction is such that no addiction recovery patient can hope to stay sober without undergoing an expansive sort of personal growth. Addiction, after all, is an emotionally overwhelming disease, one that colors an addict's capacity for analytical thought and moral judgment. What that means, from a methodological perspective, is that successful California addiction treatment programs must help addicts develop new ways of perceiving the world and themselves; sobriety, if it's going to last, has got to be predicated on individual transformation.

And, again: It isn't easy. The sort of self-exploration entailed by addiction recovery programs will try even the heartiest soul, and no addiction recovery patient ever gets sober without struggling a little along the way. But, obviously, the results speak for themselves. If you've made it this far, you already know how important addiction recovery is, and that no price could ever be too high to pay for sobriety.

Two Ways of Handling Drug Addiction

Narconon founder one of the first to implement drug education and successful drug rehab.

William Benitez, the founder of the Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program, was one of the first people to recognize the importance of educating our youth on drug addiction. He understood that it was vital to get to people before the problem started.

A drug education video of Benetiz during one of his first drug education talks was just released where Willie speaks about the dangers of drugs and alcohol and the importance of drug education. Benetiz, who was a heroin addict himself, overcame his own addiction through the Narconon technology while incarcerated in Arizona state prison and then opened the first Narconon center behind the prison walls. As a result of his tremendous success with the Narconon technology Benetiz was granted early release from prison and went on to establish several Narconon education and rehabilitation programs throughout the country.

Narconon Louisiana is just one of the latest additions to William Benitez’s vision of a drug-free world. It was created in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to provide help to people who were struggling with addiction. After three years it has a 75% success rate and has graduated over 130 students!

“The difference between us and a traditional rehab is that we focus on why the student started using drugs in the first place,” explains Jeff Lukas, Executive Director of Narconon Louisiana. “We don’t subscribe to the idea that addiction is a disease. We believe that drugs were a solution to a problem. Once that problem is isolated and handled, student can break free from the grips of addiction.”

While Mr. Benitez was giving drug education lectures in Arizona, his drug and alcohol rehabilitation program, Narconon, was just taking off. The first inpatient treatment center was established in California and the program has now grown to 150 centers in over 50 countries and as a result Narconon has graduated 25,000 people since 1995. The Narconon drug prevention program and its drug prevention specialists present to over half a million children yearly.

If you or anyone you know is in need of help please call Jeff Lukas at 866-422-4650 or log onto http://www.drugabusesolution.com/. The Narconon program proudly uses the technology of American author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard.

Ryan O'Neal's son ordered to undergo drug rehab

The son of actor Ryan O'Neal has been sentenced to pursue a strict drug rehabilitation program after a series of arrests for drug possession, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office said.
Redmond O'Neal, 24, was ordered back to court on May 28 for a progress report, a spokeswoman for the office said Thursday.
"If he successfully completes the program, which is at least a year but could be longer, his criminal convictions in two separate cases for drug possession will be dismissed. If he fails, he could face up to four years in state prison," said Jane Robison, the district attorney's press secretary.
O'Neal, whose mother is actress Farrah Fawcett, pleaded no contest this month to a felony charge of methamphetamine possession after drugs were found in a raid on his 67-year-old father's Malibu home in September.
He was on probation at the time of the raid following a guilty plea in June 2008 for possession of heroine and methamphetamines, and driving under the influence.
He was arrested for drug possession again on April 5 outside a prison after visiting a friend. He is due in court May 22 for a preliminary hearing in that case.
Ryan O'Neal, who received an Oscar nomination for Love Story in 1971 and also starred in Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon," was sentenced in January to 18 months in a drug rehabilitation program.