'Rehab' looks at the lives of five addicts

Oakland Tribune, Apr 17, 2005 by Susan Young, STAFF WRITER

THE CRISIS happened while Berkeley filmmaker Steven Okazaki was shooting "Rehab," a documentary about addicts.

Ally, a heroin addict, was yet again on her way to a rehabilitation facility and stopped at her car to fish out some possessions. Okazaki, whose crew already was at the facility, had stayed behind, carrying only his camera bag.

He watched Ally in the front seat of the car, sobbing.

He wasn't sure if he should intervene, or as a documentarian, simply film what was happening. But he went to Ally and realized she wasn't sobbing -- she was convulsing in a heroin overdose.

He reacted quickly, walking her around until someone came and called 9-1-1.

Ally is one of five suburban youths Okazaki followed in "America Undercover: Rehab," a film about the enormous struggles people have overcoming drug and alcohol abuse. The film airs today at 8:30 p.m. on HBO.

Every year, 2 million Americans enter drug and alcohol treatment programs. About 80 percent relapse.

"I wanted to show that this isn't just a problem for people who grew up in poverty or in an abusive environment. There are a lot of people who came from good, loving homes who become addicts -- and I didn't want to let people off the hook," Okazaki says in a phone interview.

"I didn't want people to write it off as something that could happen to other people, but not me."

A National Drug Intelligence Center report lists heroin as the second most serious drug threat in Northern California, at least in part because black tar heroin from Mexico is plentiful and prices are

low.

The most serious drug threat is methamphetamine. The report says although more people are admitted to treatment facilities for heroin abuse, meth represents a more serious concern because its producers and users are often violent and its by-products damage the environment.

At The Camp

"A year from now, two of you will be dead," says former addict Karla Leggett, director of a treatment center known as The Camp, as she addresses new patients whose stories are told in "Rehab."

"Four of you will be clean. Eight of you will come back and forth a couple of times, maybe. For those people who made the choice to stay clean, your life one year from today will be magic."

The subjects of "Rehab" are Brannon, 23, a heroin addict; Tiffani, 21, heroin addict;

Anitra, 20, a methamphetamine addict; Josh, 20, a cocaine addict; and Ally, 22, who says she "met" heroin as an art student in San Francisco.

"Ally was interesting, because she came from this really strong family," Okazaki says. "Her younger sister was the captain of the high school swim team and her older sister was a successful Silicon Valley person. But Ally always had this sort of dark side to her.

"Like, instead of having one of those (regular) school folders, she had spider webs and bleeding crosses on hers."

Okazaki, who won an Oscar in 1991 for his documentary "Days of Waiting" about a Caucasian artist in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, started working on "Rehab" after finishing another HBO film called "Black Tar Heroin." He said the concept of addiction fascinated him, and he wanted to know more about the people who became addicts.

"I went to a (Narcotics Anonymous) meeting and was taken aback by the variety of people at the meeting," Okazaki says. "It was like a PTA meeting with people from all walks of life."

He contacted Camp Recovery, known as The Camp, in Scotts Valley, near Santa Cruz, and asked to film some of the residents there.

"It's the place where the middle class and the working class with good unions go for help," Okazaki says. "The experts say that it takes 60 to 90 days (to kick the habit), but 30 days is all that insurance companies are willing to pay for."

He wanted to follow two young men and two young women, but former Girl Scout Tiffani horned her way in.

"She was just determined to be part of it," Okazaki says.

He met Ally when her parents were practicing tough love. They even locked their doors so she couldn't get into their home.

"I'm not saying it wasn't painful for them, but they felt it was the only way to get to her," Okazaki says. "I don't know how (they found the strength) to do it."

Okazaki says drug addicts aren't much different from people who can't seem to stay on a diet or stop smoking cigarettes -- it's just that society holds them to a different standard.

"Don't judge them so harshly as weak people," Okazaki says. "Everyone knows how hard it is to stop a habit."

Brannon looks like the kid next door, a good person who can't seem to whip his addiction. He comes from a wealthy Phoenix-area family and has an adoring mother who supports him emotionally and financially.

He sends her loving cards filled with gratitude for her love and hope for his recovery. But he also shot heroin in the hospital while his father lay dying of cancer.

His mom has sent him through a half-dozen rehab centers, but she allows him a gas credit card so when he goes off on his binges, she at least knows he's alive and where he is living.