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Hope for
substance abusers
The Hina Mauka treatment facility
has boosted its reach but is
'just scratching the need'Former facility patient now 'just wonderful'
By Helen Altonn
Star-BulletinTHE Hina Mauka treatment facility is treating about 400 to 500 people daily for substance abuse in expanded statewide services, yet is "just scratching the need," says executive director Myron "Andy" Anderson.
Nearly 83,000 adults were estimated in need of treatment in 1998, he said. That same year, a state survey of 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th graders found 16,700, or 16 percent, needed alcohol and drug-abuse treatment -- double the number of four years earlier, he said. "What's going to happen in the next four years?"
Hina Mauka is trying to reach out to people needing help through teen and adult treatment programs on Oahu, Maui and Kauai.
It has a $4 million annual budget, with about $2 million in state Health Department contracts. Insurance and contracts with other agencies make up the balance.
The nonprofit organization began providing residential and outpatient services in 1966. It was accredited for three years last year by the Rehabilitation Accreditation Commission.
Among its most recent services is an outpatient program at the Institute for Human Services.
Many of the homeless at the IHS shelter have emotional and substance-abuse issues, Anderson said. "We're trying to get them engaged in being part of a counseling group."
About 20 are in the group and counselors have found others who qualify for Hina Mauka's 45-bed residential treatment facility at 45-845 Po'okela St. in Kaneohe.
Hina Mauka treats 60 patients at the state hospital and averages up to eight people in day treatment at its residential facility, plus the 45 living there.
Anderson said outpatient and day-treatment services are growing on Maui and Kauai and in Waipahu.
Patti Toda Johnson, manager of Hina Mauka's outpatient programs and supervisor at the Waipahu facility, said about 90 percent of the clients have problems with crystal methamphetamine. Many are women involved with Child Protective Services.
A family program is open to everyone "because just about everyone is affected by drugs and alcohol, whether family or friend," she said.
The Waipahu program is geared to the cultural background of the area and has a success rate of 75 to 80 percent, Johnson said.
"We see a lot of people healing here," she said.
"They come in -- they're really afraid, they're resistant. They notice our program here is really geared to people going through legal issues, through social issues, through job issues, and they realize they're not alone."
Johnson attributes much of Hina Mauka's success to the staff. Many are "in personal recovery" from drugs and "are really excited about helping others," she said.
She said the state-funded IHS program is completely different from one in Waipahu because it deals with clients "who have already hit bottom. They're devastated. They have no hope."
The goal is to transfer them into residential treatment, she said.
"We want to let them know there is hope and we believe in them ... and they can have a better life."
Qualified Maui and Kauai clients also are able to get residential treatment in the Kaneohe facility.
Johnson said the two-year-old Kauai outpatient program is difficult because it's a more rural society. "Families there are a lot tighter, plus they're in denial. Clients are a lot sicker, too."
However, she said Hina Mauka is starting to educate Kauai residents about alcoholism and drugs and "families are starting to call. They want to know about us; they're curious."
On Maui, an outpatient program that Hina Mauka took over from Castle Medical Center has grown from 20 to 50 or 60 clients, Anderson said.
It has a Spanish-speaking counselor and a Maui County grant to start a program for 25 to 30 Spanish-speaking residents, he said.
Hina Mauka also is reaching out to young people with four more school-based TeenCARE programs -- three on Kauai and one on Lanai -- for a total of 11, Anderson said.
He stressed the need for another adolescent residential treatment center. Oahu's Bobby Benson Center, with 24 or 25 beds, and Maui Youth and Family Services, with 16 to 20 beds, always have waiting lists of 50 to 100 kids, he said.
Former facility patient
By Helen Altonn
now ‘just wonderful’
Star-BulletinPatti Kaili is upbeat about her future after a turbulent life of drug abuse, domestic violence and prison time.
The vivacious, 39-year-old woman is employed and going to classes to learn computer skills.
Kaili is "the profile of a local woman addict," said Sarah Lindsey, her primary counselor in a Hina Mauka drug treatment outpatient program.
"All the stuff she was looking for (self-esteem and acceptance), she thought she could find in drugs ... and if she had to use sex to do it, that was a small price to pay," Lindsey said.
"Where her life has taken her, she was going to end up either in treatment, jail or dead, or a crazy house. Lucky for her, she hasn't done that."
When Lindsey asked her recently how she was doing, Kaili replied: "Doing fine -- just wonderful, in fact."
Until January, however, she was on a path back to drugs and prison.
Kaili started smoking marijuana occasionally at age 12 and "started selling joints for 75 cents in the 8th grade ... It was just more to be social, really."
Her stepfather sent her to relatives on Molokai "for discipline."
She returned to Honolulu to graduate from high school, then went back to Molokai and worked for five years. She acquired "a hanai family" there and moved with them to an Oahu nudist park, where they lived from 1982-1984.
By then, she was using cocaine and never had to buy drugs, she said. "My hanai father was my banker, dealer, doctor and counselor." He also was her lover.
In Honolulu, Kaili resumed a relationship with a former Molokai boyfriend. They eventually married and have two daughters, now ages 10 and 8.
For awhile, she said, "We were a picture-perfect happy family type of thing."
Things started to go sour in 1993. She and her husband both were using cocaine and crystal methamphetamine (ice). They had what Kaili calls "domestics," separating and reconciling several times.
She said she held a full-time job and two part-time ones in 1995.
Her husband moved out and she became hooked on ice with another man. When that relationship fell apart, she reconciled with her husband until the end of 1996.
She and her children moved in with a girlfriend and she continued using crystal meth. She stopped working and lived off child support and unemployment checks until they ran out.
In January, 1997, she and her husband reunited yet again, but were constantly doing drugs, she said.
That summer, she became involved with a girlfriend who was a "total klepto," and they began shoplifting. Still, she said, "I made sure the kids were fed, that the kids had a roof over their heads and had clothes. I was not gonna make it look like my kids were kids of a drug parent."
She was arrested and charged with theft. Then, she was arrested as an accomplice in a burglary when she thought she was just giving a male friend a ride to someone's house.
In December, 1997, her husband went to jail for 30 days after they had a big fight and so she had no money coming in, she said. She helped a girlfriend shoplift fireworks from a market and they were arrested on theft charges.
She went to jail twice in 1998, serving a total of six months, and was given five years' probation.
Her probation officer ordered her into a drug program after positive drug tests twice in November and December last year.
Kaili feels she won't use drugs again because of Hina Mauka's program. But no treatment facility will work, she says, "if that person is not willing to live a clean and sober life."
Her oldest daughter graduated from DARE and she said she's trying to guide the children to stay away from drugs.
"I ask them to reflect back on the past. 'Do you folks remember how mommy and daddy were?'
"And they know the difference, how good it is for us (now)."
