Rehabilitation Programs

Less than a week after expressing doubt whether he would ever pitch again, Josh Beckett said Wednesday that he was confident he would one day stand on a major league mound again. But Beckett acknowledged he didn't know if that day would come this season or next, as he said he could undergo a season-ending operation if rehabilitation doesn't rid him of numbness in his pitching hand. Beckett visited specialists in the Dallas area for the last three days, after which he and the Dodgers decided he wouldn't throw for the next four weeks as he underwent a rigorous rehabilitation program.

Chris Mullin, suspended by Golden State for missing a practice last Thursday, has entered an alcohol rehabilitation program, the team announced Saturday. Mullin "came forward today to seek help for an alcohol problem," a team spokesman said. "He has admitted to excessive consumption of beer over a period of time. He is now in the care of professional counselors at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood.

A paint job, a new roof and a new driveway for one homeowner are all part of Moorpark's first program to rehabilitate run-down homes downtown. The Moorpark City Council approved a grant and loan covering about $14,000 worth of repairs for one downtown homeowner at a meeting Wednesday night. Moorpark has about $500,000 of redevelopment agency funds to spend on the program, meant to help low-income residents make needed repairs to their homes.

A six-month cardiac rehabilitation program designed to assist persons who have returned to work to develop and maintain an exercise/risk factor modification program is open to the public at the Medical Fitness Center at the Los Angeles Athletic Club at 431 West 7th St. in downtown Los Angeles. To enter the cardiac rehabilitation program, an individual may be self-referred or referred by a physician. Medical records will be requested in either case.

David Lewis, an ex-convict turned social activist who co-founded a drug treatment and prisoner rehabilitation program that gained national recognition, died June 9 of a bullet wound to the abdomen, said his mother, Cora. He was 54. Lewis was shot outside a mall in San Mateo, Calif., in what police are calling a targeted attack. With a Stanford University student in 1992, Lewis started Free at Last in East Palo Alto, Calif. The organization helps more than 4,200 people annually and has become a model of community-based treatment, said Lara Galinksy of Echoing Green, a nonprofit that provided seed money to Free at Last.

In a nondescript two-story, white stucco house on 70th Street, girls who have worked as prostitutes in San Diego will be taught independent living skills in an attempt to change their lives. The house is the beginning of an extensive program, launched by the St. Vincent De Paul Center, to give the city's teen-age prostitutes a chance to start over.

On his knees, his head aching, his body shaking, his stomach churning, Golden Richards, in a cold sweat, would hover in his bathroom over the toilet in desperate search. He had to do something. There were no more painkillers--no more Percodan pills--in the medicine cabinet or under the bed or in whatever hole he had chosen as the latest hiding place for his drugs. His demons demanded immediate satisfaction. He had consumed the last of his stash.

As birds of prey do, XC-366 stayed as high on her dead-limb perch as a chain-link fence would allow, peering over the plywood slab that gave her some privacy. The gunshot wound that had brought the bald eagle from southeastern Alaska to Woodland Park Zoo's eagle rehabilitation center couldn't be detected, but it had left her wing weak and the bones slightly out of line. She had been nursed back to health, her wing repaired and set, since arriving at the zoo. But XC-366's soaring days were over.

Project New Start specialized in raising women from the dead. It took in crack addicts, street prostitutes and prison inmates and transformed them into working professionals and responsible mothers. Such miracles earned the small, nonprofit organization a reputation as one of the more effective programs ever devised to rehabilitate female prisoners. Nevertheless, six years after its founding, Project New Start is about to face a death of its own, of the budgetary variety.

Mark Reed, 15, is soft-spoken and polite, his eyes reflective of the intelligence that has earned him respect as one of the better chess players among his peers. Three months ago, Reed played a different kind of game, with members of his Hawthorne-based gang, Kings Takin' Respect. The pieces: a TEC-9 semiautomatic handgun and drugs--speed, coke and pot.