Unlikely Settings

Every weekday morning at 8:45, a handful of people stroll into a group therapy room in Santa Monica for a unique court-sanctioned treatment. They are lawyers and housewives, gangbangers and construction workers with one thing in common--each has been convicted of a nonviolent drug offense.

Inside, they dab at their ears with alcohol swabs, pour themselves a cup of herbal tea and settle back into comfy lounge chairs. For the next hour, they will listen to meditative music while a licensed acupuncturist inserts five thin, stainless-steel needles into each ear.

“We have found acupuncture to be effective in the detox part of drug court treatment,” says Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Laurence Rubin, who oversees Santa Monica’s drug court program for nonviolent and first-time offenders. “It was important enough that they wrote acupuncture into the program and got government funding for it.”

In a measure of how accepted such treatments have become, alternative therapies can be found today in the most unusual and unexpected of settings nationwide, including many institutions run by bureaucrats more known for red tape than innovation.

The range of therapies includes yoga classes in juvenile halls and probation camps; meditation classes in prisons; massage at hospices, domestic abuse shelters and facilities for homeless women; and acupuncture for incarcerated prisoners as well as drug addicts.

The therapies’ low cost and potential for spiritual growth have helped them gain ground in such settings, where it is thought that they may offer something especially valuable to those who are imprisoned, mentally ill, homeless or struggling with personal demons. As society grasps for solutions to these troubling problems, the use of alternative therapies is expected to spread further.

That has certainly been the case with acupuncture, originated thousands of years ago by the Chinese and already far from an isolated experiment in New Age medicine. One of the most common of the so-called alternative therapies, it is used in more than 600 drug rehabilitation programs and is a key treatment in drug courts nationwide, according to Dr. Bryan Frank, president of the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture, an association with 2,000 physician members who use acupuncture in their practices.

It’s a core part of the one-year detoxification and recovery program run by the Clare Foundation, a private, nonprofit drug and alcohol treatment center. The foundation contracts with Los Angeles County courts to provide services for those convicted of drug offenses in Santa Monica, Culver City, Beverly Hills and Malibu.

Although acupuncture has been offered sporadically as part of drug court programs for several years, medical and legal experts have found it so helpful in relaxing patients and reducing cravings for drugs that the therapy has been incorporated officially into the one-year detox and maintenance program for all patients who want it--and most do.

About 80% of those who go through the one-year drug court programs have no further contact with the criminal justice system, Rubin says. By contrast, he points out, 60% of those who are incarcerated for drug offenses commit another crime within two years.

Of course, it’s impossible to break down how much of that success stems from acupuncture and how much is due to the drug court program itself, which instead of incarceration puts offenders through detox and then one full year of group and individual counseling, 12-step programs, drug testing, acupuncture and court appearances. If they’re still clean by then, criminal charges against them are dropped.

But medical and legal experts say there’s no doubt that acupuncture helps.

“Acupuncture is not a treatment in itself, but it seems to help in relaxing people and reducing their cravings,” says Bob Mimura, executive director of the countywide Criminal Justice Coordination Committee, an advisory body to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

“It’s a little out of the ordinary for us,” Mimura admits of the widespread use of acupuncture in L.A. County’s 11 community drug courts, which have served 900 people since 1994. “In the justice community, it’s very difficult for them to look at new approaches like drug court. But there’s growing support for this program.”

The use of acupuncture in drug rehabilitation was pioneered in the United States by Dr. Michael Smith, who runs a renowned substance abuse recovery program at Lincoln Medical Center in New York. In 1974, Smith read about a Hong Kong doctor who was using acupuncture to treat addicts in Asia and adapted that research at his own clinic.

Smith says that much remains unknown about exactly how acupuncture affects cravings. Some scientists have linked the treatment to the release of the body’s natural painkillers, which might help reduce cravings. It may also relax patients by stimulating the vagus nerve that runs through the ear.

“When you work in the field, you realize how agitated and disruptive people are, and acupuncture helps people feel more comfortable, balanced, at ease with their own thoughts,” Smith says.

His anecdotal comments are buttressed by a report published last month by researchers at Yale University. They found that acupuncture may help ease cravings in people addicted to cocaine, which, because of its highly addictive nature, is one of the most difficult drugs to kick.

That report, in the August issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, found that 53.8% of patients who had acupuncture treatments five times a week tested negative for cocaine at the end of the eight-week study period. In contrast, 23.5% of patients who were given an ersatz acupuncture treatment and 9.1% of patients who only watched relaxation videos tested negative for cocaine.

Among acupuncture’s benefits, experts say, are its low cost and lack of side effects, which means it can be used on a broader population, including pregnant women.

A Human Connection through Massage

Another alternative therapy that has come into vogue at prisons, homeless shelters and other institutions is therapeutic massage. While acupuncture addresses specific physical problems, massage helpxs overall emotional balance.

“Safe, healthy touch is important for everyone, but perhaps especially so for those suffering from neglect, abuse or serious illnesses like cancer,” says Karen Menehan, editor of the Santa Cruz-based Massage magazine. “For those people, massage provides the human connection that allows for feelings of comfort and relaxation to occur--feelings that might not otherwise happen much, or ever, in their day-to-day lives.”

Massage therapists can be found at the scene of emergencies, working on search-and-rescue teams, among firefighters, police and volunteers, and in more unusual cases, working on cancer patients in Louisiana; premature infants in Miami; abused and homeless kids in St. Louis; and veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome in Palm Beach, Fla.

In Cleveland, a volunteer group of licensed massage therapists called Charlie’s Angels gives free massages each month at hospices, psychiatric institutions, Ronald McDonald Houses for parents of children with long-term and terminal illnesses, and battered women’s shelters.

There are usually lines of people waiting for the 15-minute massages, says Charlotte Versagi, the group’s spokeswoman. The volunteers reap their own rewards, she says, recalling a visit to a psychiatric institution.

“These are people who have been on medication for years and they are not normally touched,” Versagi says. “One gentleman would only rock and moan, and a therapist was able to get him down from his wheelchair onto a mat. After she started massaging him, he actually uncurled his body and stopped humming and banging his head. The staff was shocked.”

What accounts for the change?

“There are physiological bases for what massage does,” Versagi says. “It reduces blood pressure, it takes stress out of the muscle. It increases endorphins.”

In Portland, Ore., licensed massage therapist Diane Foster organizes a group of female colleagues who give massages at Rosehaven, a facility for homeless women.

“If you’re on the street, you really don’t get any nurturing touch at all; the only reason someone would want to touch you is to get something from you,” Foster says. “The other day, I put my hands on this woman’s back and it was so stiff, so I asked her, ‘Where did you sleep last night?’ and she said, ‘I didn’t, I was laying on a concrete park bench,’ and that’s exactly what her back felt like--a piece of cement.”

Petria Malone, Rosehaven’s volunteer coordinator, says that many of the center’s clients have to keep their guard up to survive. Massage gives them a safe way to relax.

“A lot of our women have been abused and touched in inappropriate ways, and the touch provided by massage therapy is very healing. Women return time and again saying they just need that touch to reduce stress in their lives,” she says.

That was the case with Frances De Angelo, who dropped in at Rosehaven one recent day for a massage. “All our shoulders really ache from carrying bags and such, and I feel so good when I have a massage. I’m able to close my eyes and relax. It will last a good 1 1/2 to two weeks, and then it’s time for another one. I’ve told several of the other ladies about it.”

Yoga Classes in Juvenile Hall

With many alternative therapies, it’s hard to quantify the benefits. But medical and psychiatric professionals say over and over that such treatment promotes a general sense of well-being and focuses the individual, all of which are crucial to those suffering hardships--especially those in institutional settings.

This is the case in Los Angeles County’s vast juvenile justice system, where there are waiting lists at juvenile hall and probation camps to get into the yoga classes that serve up to 500 youths each week.

“Yoga provides an all-encompassing physical, spiritual and mental training system that really challenges these kids,” says Karen Moran, a mental health caseworker and probation officer at Camp Fred Miller for juvenile offenders in Malibu, which houses youths convicted of crimes including murder and assault.

“At first they all think it’s going to be something for wusses, then they find they can barely do it. But they get so relaxed, they get to a place they’ve never gotten before, except through drugs,” Moran says.

The yoga classes are the brainchild of Mark Stephens, a management consultant with the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court schools and dedicated yoga practitioner who started the Yoga Inside Foundation two years ago to introduce the Eastern practice to juvenile offenders and inner-city schoolchildren.

“Yoga provides a safe, nurturing environment for allowing someone to tune in to their own bodies, develop an awareness of themselves and confront the problems in their lives,” Stephens says.

The nonprofit foundation provides a $25 to $50 a class stipend for teachers who lead classes in inner-city schools and juvenile facilities. Stephens concedes that is a lot less than the $200 per class these teachers could earn at Westside yoga studios, but says his program ties into the concept of “karma yoga,” in which practitioners are urged to bring the principles and values of yoga to the community, especially the disadvantaged.

The success of the Yoga Inside Foundation can be seen in its expansion, from a $14,000 operating budget in 1999 to a projected $125,000 next year. All the staff, including Stephens, are volunteers. But spreading the gospel of yoga, and seeing it touch young bodies and minds motivates them.

Says Diane Carpentieri, a yoga instructor who also teaches a weekly one-hour class at MacLaren Children’s Center in El Monte: “A lot of the kids have no idea what yoga is to begin with. But they start doing it, and realize that their mind is connected to their body, and they like the way that makes them feel. It unleashes something spiritual in them.”

John Robbins, the administrator at the children’s shelter, agrees.

“It’s not the cure-all in terms of all of a sudden you’ve got a changed child,” he says. “But it allows them the space to get inside their heads and be a little more introspective, and that’s valuable to them.”