Keneen McNiven checks the vertebrae of a patient at the Serenity Center in Boulder. The new center uses chiropractic, acupuncture and amino acid therapy to help recovering addicts overcome cravings and avoid relapse.

Mary Lou McCollum smoked cigarettes for 20 years and couldn't fall asleep without first having a snack of white bread or graham crackers.

Donna Dunbar, 73, binged compulsively and battled obesity for seven decades.

Lisa, a 33-year-old Boulder woman, was at one point drinking a half-gallon of rum a day, waking in the middle of the night to drink vodka and quelling her morning hangover by cracking open a beer.

While each woman prefers a different "drug of choice," the source of their addictions is the same, say the founders of the Serenity Center, a new Boulder clinic which uses alternative therapies to treat what they call "Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS)."

The phrase, coined in 1995 by addiction researcher Kenneth Blum, refers to a genetic pre-disposition which "hard-wires" one in three Americans for one addiction or another, says Blum.

Born with an inadequate supply of certain neurotransmitters (chemical messengers that bring us pleasure and calm), a kink in the line that delivers them, or a lack of receptors, sufferers of RDS can't get enough satisfaction from such simple things as a hot meal or a good massage. Left perpetually numb, or stressed, they reach for reward externally, through such things as drugs, alcohol, sugar, tobacco, excessive sex, gambling, binge eating or thrill-seeking behaviors, Blum says.

The idea that addiction is, at least in-part, biochemically based is not new.

Since 1990, when Blum published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association pinpointing a gene associated with alcoholism, the idea that addiction may be a product of brain chemistry has grown increasingly more accepted.

Use of medication in drug treatment programs is on the rise, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse is trying to devise new pills to counteract the biochemical precursors to addiction.

What is new is the concept that the biological basis for addiction can be reversed through natural, alternative methods.

With Blum, a former University of Texas pharmacology professor, leading the charge, therapists nationwide are beginning to take a more holistic approach to treating addiction. And the Denver-Boulder area is ground zero for the movement.

At Excel Treatment Program in Denver, court-ordered patients in the outpatient drug and alcohol recovery program now receive daily doses of amino acids, what Blum calls "the building blocks of neurotransmitters", intravenously.

Boulder's Serenity Center combines chiropractic work, needle-less ear acupuncture and amino acid therapy with traditional talk therapy.

"The more you do to manipulate the physiology of the brain and the body, the better off you will be," says Blum, who co-founded the Las Vegas-based American College of Addictionology and Compulsive Disorders to teach such methods.

He envisions a day when a child can be tested for RDS, through a simple DNA test taken from a cheek cell, and given the proper treatment before addiction ever emerges.

But the movement is not without critics.

Some local addiction specialists have never heard of RDS and say alternative methods, such as acupuncture and chiropractic work, have never been proven effective with addicts. Others question the legitimacy, and motives, of those championing the alterna

tives. But many recovering addicts swear by the program.

"I've always wanted that sense of well-being and I never remember feeling it unless I was high," says Lisa, now in her third month of sobriety after an 18-year-battle with alcoholism and several failed attempts at getting sober. "I feel it now. I'm starting to feel like more of a real person."

Static in the system

Sitting upright in a sunny, plant-filled room, Lisa closes her eyes as Keneen McNiven, a chiropractor and co-founder of the Serenity Center, slowly moves a thermometer-like device along her inner ear.

"Whatever you did yesterday worked," Lisa says. "It's really helped with the cravings."

When the device emits a high pitch, indicating a weakness in the organ or area of the limbic system associated with that point, McNiven presses a button, sending a microwave signal into a nerve ending in Lisa's ear. The intent: to stimulate the nervous system, switching on the cascade of feel-good chemical messengers.

But switching it on is not enough, says McNiven. The line that carries the messengers must also be clear.

Next, Lisa lies down on a massage table as McNiven fires a pen-sized spring-loaded torque device called an "integrator" at the base of her spine. Chiropractors use the device, recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration, to slightly reposition the spinal column which they believe eases the flow of neurotransmitters.

In a recent highly publicized study published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, 33 patients in a residential drug treatment program in Miami completed the program at a remarkable 100 percent rate after undergoing the chiropractic treatment. Comparatively, only 56 percent in one control group, and 75 percent in another completed the 30-day program.

"It's like tuning the radio, getting rid of the static," says chiropractor James Ray, co-founder of the Serenity Center. "It's freeing up the interference in that system."

Lisa goes through the procedure three times a week, takes amino acids every day, goes to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and sees a psychotherapist every other week.

Such a combination is critical, says McNiven, if a patient is going to stay sober.

"The problem with addiction treatment today is that they are not addressing the nutritional and neurological components," she says. "Talk therapy is important, but if you don't address the physiology too it will undermine the whole program."

Skepticism abounds

Jack Colmore, director of the Harmony Foundation, a drug and alcohol treatment center in Estes Park, disagrees.

Now in its 32nd year, the center has long relied on traditional 12-step programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous to help patients get and stay sober.

"There are plenty of people out there who don't have a clue about acupuncture or amino acids and probably don't even eat that well, and they are still in a good mode of recovery, are stable and have a fruitful life," Colmore says.

Ann Noonan, clinical coordinator of substance abuse programs for Boulder County, says she has looked into incorporating alternative practices, such as acupuncture, into the programs, but has yet to see enough scientific proof that they work.

Colmore says he also fears that some addicts may put too much faith in a "quick fix" and refuse to "do the work."

"I agree that there is a big neurological basis for addiction, but anyone that thinks they can get some acupuncture done and take some amino acids and not have an addiction problem anymore are chasing a puff of smoke," says Colmore. "Addiction is an illness of lifestyle. It takes a lifestyle change to treat it."

The movement toward a more holistic approach to addiction treatment could also be thwarted by skepticism about its origins.

Chiropractor Jay Holder, lead author of the Molecular Psychiatry study and co-founder of the American College of Addictionology and Compulsive Disorders, where McNiven and Holder got their addiction training, has been professionally sanctioned for making false claims about his credentials. In 1998, the Oregon Board of Chiropractic Examiners reprimanded Holder for, it alleged, falsely claiming to hold doctor of medicine and doctor of philosophy degrees. The board initially refused to renew Holder's application to teach continuing education at the College of Addictionology. After Holder appealed the decision, the board approved the application, as long as Holder agreed to cease using M.D. and Ph.D. credentials.

Blum, who co-founded the college and co-wrote several papers with Holder, recently quit the college and cut all ties with Holder.

"He is not reputable and I do not want to be associated with him," says Blum, who holds a PhD in neuropharmacology from New York Medical College.

Blum is president of Nutrigenomics Inc., a company that researches and markets amino acids.

Living proof

Controversies aside, some therapists and recovering addicts say the results can not be denied.

"The people that are getting people well are taking this approach," says Tamea Sisco, clinical director for Excel in Denver.

Ten months ago, the facility became the first in the nation to administer intravenous amino acids to addicts on an outpatient basis.

Out of 108, only 13 have dropped out of the program, a remarkably high retention rate for a program that deals with severe drug and alcohol addicts.

Sisco says she has placed some addicts on anti-craving medications, such as naltrexone, to help ward off relapse.

"But any of that is just a temporary fix," she says. "The amino acids repair the genetic link that is absent at birth in people with addictive behaviors. I've been in the business for nine years and this is way overdue."

McCollum and Dunbar are equally impressed.

Both drive from Denver for regular chiropractic and auricular therapy treatments at the Serenity Center and take amino acids regularly.

McCollum, 59, goes to bed without a snack now, and doesn't drink or smoke -- both longtime addictions -- anymore. Dunbar has lost 20 pounds in three months.

A decade ago, Lisa was sitting in a court-ordered class after her first DUI sipping an orange juice spiked with vodka. Two years ago, after a second drinking and driving offense, she staggered, drunk, into a county office to take her daily dose of Antabuse and was promptly arrested and sent to detox.

At last, after going in and out of treatment, falling off the wagon and landing in the hospital, she believes she has found something that works, she says.

"When you just do AA or you just go to counseling you are missing a whole slice of the pie," she says. "I feel like what was missing before is being taken care of now."

　　From Healthy.net