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| 12 January 2000 - The Californian Drug court program offers addicts second chance By Wally Pickford EL CAJON – A 29-year-old mother of two who could easily have spent the next three years in prison or lost custody of her daughter because of drug addiction will graduate tonight from the county's drug court program, with family intact. Kristin Houlihan will be joined by 22 other East County residents lucky enough to suffer the corrective coercion of Judge Patricia Cookson's drug court, an alternative to traditional criminal adjudication and punishment. Houlihan, a former athlete at Valhalla and Christian High schools, started snorting methamphetamine to lose weight, she said, when she was 16. She lost much more than 18 pounds and a lot of sleep, however, when meth and, later, the prescription drug Vicodin stole her will, her personality, and very nearly her life. After becoming addicted to both meth and the prescription drug ordered for her postmeningitis back pain, Kristin Houlihan wrote her own ticket, literally, to self-destruction. Working in a medical office, she forged her own nearly lethal daily overdose of Vicodin form 1996 until she was arrested June 5, 1998. "I was walking around the pharmacy, waiting for my prescription to be called, when someone tapped me on the shoulder from behind. It was a deputy," she recalled. Or maybe it was an angel. From that initial arrest on a Sunday to tonight's ceremony at Lakeside Community Center, Houlihan has undergone a complete metamorphosis. After detoxification, she said, she was forced to comply with Cookson's stringent drug court standards - undergoing intensive therapy, subjecting herself to regular and random urinalysis, attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings, bonding with a sponsor, and, most of all, staying clean. With the help of a loving and loyal husband and a devoted mother, and with the support of counselors like Wayne Eddington, Houlihan has climbed the 10 steps to recovery, stumbling once and finding herself in jail. "It's been a long, one-year program," she said in an interview Monday, "divided into four parts, as you progress." The fifth part of rehabilitation is life itself, incorporating the "tools" for sobriety into daily decision-making - tools like never backing, into isolation again or turning to chemicals for consolation. On Sept. 4, in the middle of what Houlihan calls her "180-degree turnaround," her son, Jacob, was born drug-free. His sister, Katelyn is now 9. District Attorney Paul Pfingst, a formative proponent of the drug court concept when it took hold in North County municipal courts two years ago, will be at tonight's graduation to wish Houlihan and her classmates well and to congratulate them for their perseverance. In a telephone interview Monday, Pfingst said "when non-violent drug offenders are willing to become clean and sober and show a real commitment to the program, we're happy to welcome them back into society. "If they can't make that commitment - and keep it - we'll still send them to jail to protect society." Cookson's graduating class brings to 81 the number of nonviolent drug offenders who have successfully confronted their addictions under the threat of jail time or losing their children. The program has worked so well, according to court officials, that it may be experimentally expanded to addicts who are arrested on other charges, like burglary, but whose root problem is addiction. Pfingst has yet to endorse any expansion of the program. "It's working because it was designed to help those who have hurt themselves by reason of their drug use, not others. "I remain reticent," Pfingst said, "to include violent criminals in the drug court, protocol or offenders who have committed residential burglaries. "If we are to open up the program, I recommend that we do it carefully and conservatively if at all, and not beyond misdemeanor-level violent offenders." A similar reservation as recently registered by the San Diego City Attorney's office at a county Board of Supervisors discussion on the question of an expanded drug court. Article Snapshot 1 (29K) Article Snapshot 2 (32K) |
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