An Interview with Jason Levine: Executive Director of Promises West LA

From working with HIV/AIDS patients in New York to helping the homeless on Skid Row in Los Angeles, Jason Levine, Executive Director of Promises West LA, has been in the trenches with some of the most challenging clients from all walks of life.

Jason was inspired to start working in the addiction field while he was getting his masters’ degree in psychology and working at Regent Hospital in New York. There, he met an older man who was being treated for alcohol dependency. “The man’s wife had died the previous year, and he essentially fell apart. He told me he couldn’t believe what he had done to himself, and that he vowed to never do it again,” Jason explained.

“I was very touched by this, and truly believed what he was saying. I told a nurse about the encounter and she said, ‘You bought that?’ A few months later, the man was back,” Jason continued. “That’s when I started asking myself, what is addiction? As someone with no family history of substance abuse, I didn’t understand how a man who seemed so sure that he wasn’t going to drink again fell back into it so quickly. That’s when I really started seeing addiction as a disease.”

Jason explained that many aspects of addiction treatment appealed to him, especially the transformation that occurs shortly after treatment begins. “You can see the lights go on in clients’ eyes pretty quickly, where they were just a shell of themselves when they arrived,” he said. “It’s amazing to see the emotional, psychological, spiritual, and physical changes that occur. That’s what I wanted going into the psychology field, and I found it in addiction treatment.”

While Jason was earning his doctorate, he started working on an HIV/AIDS unit at a hospital in Brooklyn. Drug cocktails had only been available for a short time, and patients were actually getting better and living longer. “It was very rewarding work, but I left to move to California,” Jason said. “I was tired of living in a tiny, cramped apartment with no natural light and a fire escape for a balcony.”

Jason moved to California in 2000 without a job but with a Ph.D., and was quickly hired as the Director of Clinical Services at the Weingart Center Association on Skid Row, an area of downtown Los Angeles with one of the largest populations of homeless individuals in the United States. Jason ran the Clinical Services department for a 116-bed homeless shelter, where he helped individuals who needed psychiatric care and addiction treatment. “I said I would give it one year, but ended up staying for seven,” Jason said. “It was so fast-paced and rewarding that I couldn’t leave.”

“In 2005, one of my staff members told me he could give me a tour of Promises, and I thought it would be nice for the whole staff to get off Skid Row for a day and go to Malibu,” he continued. “I remember standing on the front lawn and thinking, ‘I could work in an environment like this…I don’t need to stay on Skid Row forever.’ Two years later, I was working at Promises as the Clinical Director.”

In August 2010, Jason was promoted to Executive Director at Promises West LA. “I felt drawn to Promises when I arrived for the first interview. I felt like it was going to be a good match, and that the staff was like a family. I still feel that, even more so, today,” Jason said. “I meet with my staff five days a week for an hour every morning, and we review every client. I also meet with each of my staff members individually for an hour each week. I really believe that the relationships we build and the supervision I’m involved with is key to the success here.”

When asked what he thinks makes Promises stand out from other treatment centers, Jason said that Promises offers a range of services to treat the mind, body, and spirit. “After detoxification, clients are offered individual and family therapy, psychiatric services, yoga, meditation, acupuncture, psychodrama, art therapy, equine therapy, and more. There’s just so much available.” Promises also allows for creativity, he said. “We are able to be nimble. If something’s not working properly, we can change it. If someone has a creative idea, we can see what works and what doesn’t.”

Jason added that the support clients receive, both from the staff and peers, is unparalleled. “About 70 to 75 percent of our clients at West LA are in their late teens and early- to mid-20s, so it’s an intimate milieu. The clients get a lot of support from each other, as well as from the staff. When they go on to 60-day treatment, they continue with the same peer group and the same support.”

In his time at Promises West LA, Jason has seen the percentage of clients who finish the entire 90 days of treatment increase by 25 percent. When he arrived at Promises in 2008, about 51 percent of clients who completed 30-day treatment continued to 60-day treatment; in 2011, that number has increased to 76 percent, including clients from out of state.

Another key to Promises’ success is its length of treatment, Jason said. “It’s essential that clients receive 90 days of treatment. When clients are done with the 30 days in residential treatment, they get three weeks of day-patient treatment and five weeks of outpatient treatment. Those of us at residential meet with outpatient staff every week, so that by the time the clients get to outpatient, the staff there knows the clients well.”

“Addiction treatment is like taking antibiotics,” Jason said. “You don’t just quit when you feel better. There are tools that we need to give clients, and they have to start from a solid base. My philosophy of treatment is that the staff is here to create a safe environment for the clients to do their work; we’re here to support that work but we can’t do it for them, and we remind them that it’s ultimately up to them.”