GOING CLEAN -- IN A TARO PATCH

It's a relatively short distance between the school campus where Stephen
Kila Jr. fell into his drug habit and the peaceful taro farm in Wai'anae
where he now stood on the road to recovery, weed whacker in hand.

In a cultural sense, it's a world away.

"The first time I started was in a bathroom and I saw some guys using," he
said. "They easily coaxed me into it."

Kila had long since lost touch with his own Hawaiian cultural values, or
even with members of his family. Both parents had died by the time he was
14, he said.

"There was no one there to tell me that I can or I can't do this," he said.

Now Kila, 35, is one of 14 clients enrolled in the 75-day residential
program of Ho'omau Ke Ola, a nonprofit, federally financed substance abuse
program in Wai'anae that interweaves Western treatment strategies with
instruction in Hawaiian culture. It's an approach, program leaders say, that
attempts to reconnect abusers with the indigenous values, re-establishing a
sense of belonging for people who often feel estranged in the clinical
setting.

Those of Native Hawaiian ancestry, along with O'ahu's homeless, are the
primary target group at Ho'omau because of a large incidence of substance
abuse in this population, said director James Siebert.

Among the statistics that bear this out: Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians
represent the largest ethnic group among admissions to Hawai'i substance
abuse treatment programs -- almost 41 percent of the total.

Using a cultural approach in addressing this problem is not unique to
Ho'omau Ke Ola. Elaine Wilson, chief of the Health Department's alcohol and
drug abuse division, cited another program, Drug Addiction Services of
Hawai'i, which does something similar on an outpatient basis in Puna, a Big
Island district with a large Hawaiian population.

"They use kupuna, who talk a lot to the clients about Hawaiian ways, and
about how abusing substances is not part of the Hawaiian culture," Wilson
said. "Weaving cultural values into a program is really important ... you
need to reach people where they are at."

Cultural practices employed by Ho'omau Ke Ola include everything from
learning chants to weekly canoe training sessions at nearby Poka'i Bay. And
every Wednesday, the residents deck themselves out in their grubbiest attire
and head for Ka'ala Farms to work in the kalo lo'i, the wet terraced fields
where the taro is nudged to maturity only through hours of backbreaking
labor.

Uncomfortable, yes -- but comfortable, too. Waikelekele Cockett and other
women were tending to a patch of wauke, which Ka'ala Farms also cultivates
for the production of kapa for crafters and others who use the traditional
barkcloth.

"It's like coming home," said Cockett, 26, tugging at a muddy gardener's
glove. "You just feel right."

All of it helps to reach a group that feels out of sync with Western
society, said program director Jay Lee.

"For this population, another type of approach would be more effective in
reaching them," he said. "They have been disenfranchised."

The success rate here, defined as the proportion of clients who stay
drug-free long term and are able to live a productive life, seems to
indicate it's working, he said. Lee cited a national abuse treatment success
rate of 1-in-15; at Ho'omau Ke Ola, the number is more like 1-in-8, he said.

Working in the fields is part of the "aloha 'aina" -- love of the land --
aspect of treatment, said Momi Cruz-Losano. As cultural coordinator,
Cruz-Losano serves as a kind of kumu, teaching about this and other key
Hawaiian techniques and concepts.

A partial list:

* Ho'oponopono, the collective means of resolving conflict, becomes a tool
for managing the discord that is both a cause and a result of their
substance abuse. Many of the clients have damaged their family ties, she
said, so the process usually begins with only the counselor before there's
enough healing to bring relatives back into the circle.

* Pono, a sense of balance, enables them to see that their bodies, minds and
spirits need to align and that the abuse disrupts this equilibrium.

* Kuleana refers to their job, their responsibility. No task or chore can be
justly shirked.

* Laulima refers to accomplishment through cooperation and unity.

* Ha'aha'a is the Hawaiian idea of humility. The individual must put the
needs of the group before his or her own.

For the clients who are not Hawaiian -- about one-fourth of the 132
residential and outpatient clients served last year were not -- the program
can be adapted to address other cultural needs, Siebert said.

"And we do believe these values are transcultural," he said. "What we would
try to do is ask where are these values in another culture and try to tailor
the program for them."

Subsistence societies like the Hawaiians' depended on these values for their
survival, Lee said, which is why they became so ingrained. Most of the
clients know them from stages of their upbringing but fell away because of
family upheavals, drug abuse or both.

Peter Akuna Jr., 30, was a military dependent who chafed with being uprooted
so frequently. When the family moved back to Maui, he quickly fell into a
drug use habit.

"I turned rebellious," he said with a smile.

Akuna and Kila were lucky in that neither had been arrested for anything
worse than a traffic violation, although both know it was only a matter of
time.

"Drugs take us away from reality," Kila said. "I don't know when addiction
starts, but getting your next hit, your next high, becomes the most
important thing. And most resort to crime."

Western and Hawaiian sensibilities intertwine in this treatment strategy,
and neither can be abandoned, Siebert said. For example, the conventional
approach to a client who is coping with emotional pain is to address his or
her low self-esteem, he said.

"The question is: How do you build that back up?" he said. "But from a
cultural perspective, it's building their sense of identity, who they are as
a Hawaiian."

This is Kila's second rehabilitation program. At the first, he attended only
the group therapy offered on site; Ho'omau Ke Ola insists that its clients
become connected with external Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous
groups while still in treatment.

Beyond that transitional assist, Akuna said, there's something even more
essential at work here.

"For me," he said, "it's the spiritual part of the program. It's very in
tune with your spiritual side."