FIRST GRADUATES PRAISE DRUG TREATMENT PROGRAM

Two Inmates Who Finished The Sheriff's Addiction-Relief Regimen Are
Optimistic About Staying Clean.

The Orange County Sheriff's Department showcased two of the 10
graduates of its progressive drug-and-alcohol-treatment program
Tuesday in an effort to win additional support for the project.

Both men said that if it hadn't been for the 3-month-old program at
Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange, they might be headed back to jail
instead of pursuing lives with their families.

The inmates spend 6 1/2 days a week in a special area of the jail
learning about their addiction, anger management, parenting and the
medical effects of addiction.

The program, the brainchild of Sheriff Mike Carona, began in November
after county supervisors approved $1.6 million for it. Supervisors
have not decided on a permanent way to fund it.

Inmates enter the 64-bed program voluntarily. About 80% leave jail
and voluntarily enter substance abuse residence programs, Sheriff's
Lt. Mike Heacock said.

"I was tired of coming to jail. For me, it was like a revolving
door," said Bill Lindley, 49, who was arrested Sept. 11 on a charge
of being under the influence of drugs and will be released next week.

His fellow graduate, Steven Stout, 40, agreed: "I was tired of waking
up in gutters, in strange places." Stout, who said he used
methamphetamine intermittently for 20 years, was convicted of
possessing stolen property.

Heacock said it was too early to know the program's success rate, but
he added that the sheriff hoped to have an indication within six
months.

Carona's goal is to expand the program to 500 beds "to break the
cycle of incarceration," Heath said. Addicts are repeat offenders
whose criminal behavior can be stopped, Heath said.

Stout, now living in a residential treatment program in Costa Mesa,
said the jail program "was different. People always would put me
down, call me a drug addict. [The jail program] let me admit it [to]
myself. If it weren't for the program, I would have gone out and used
right away."

Instead, he is working as a construction worker and attending
meetings of various self-help programs.

Lindley is looking forward to joining Stout in the residential
program after his release March 16. Then he will go home to his four
children and wife in Buena Park.

His wife "is ecstatic," he said. "But I've burned her so many times,
she's waiting to see if it's real."