Yurok tribe's wellness court heals with tradition

Lauren Alvarado states it simply: “Meth is everywhere in Indian country.”

Like many here, she first tried methamphetamine at age 12. Legal trouble came at 13 with an arrest for public intoxication. In the years that followed, she relied on charm and manipulation to get by, letting her grandmother down often.

But today, at 31, Alvarado and her grandmother have built a new trust. She has been clean for nine months, she said recently, and is “hopeful, more grateful.”

Her recovery has come through a novel wellness program that puts traditional Yurok values to work to heal addicted men and women from California’s largest tribe, whose ancestral land -- and reservation -- hugs the banks of the Klamath River...