CALEDONIA – Mike Hobbs couldn’t sleep. For years, it was one of the things that plagued him after returning from a stint in Vietnam.

Drug addition did, too; barbiturates were his drug of choice, he said.

His family was the first to notice he was changed, he said. That was more than 40 years ago. The women in his life noticed, too.

As Hobbs headed for the brink, a group of friends realized he needed help. That was 25 years ago. Hobbs eventually spent 18 months in a stress unit at the North Chicago Veterans Administration hospital where he was treated for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

He’s been on the road to recovery ever since, he said. It’s been a long road for Hobbs, who now lives at the VA Center in Dover, where he is trying to get his life back on track.

After years of therapy, a tiny needle has proven a boon to getting healthier, said Hobbs, who turned to acupuncture after seeing a flier at the veterans center.

Linda Stengel saw the value in using acupuncture to treat PTSD in veterans like Hobbs. Stengel, owner of Partners in Health in Caledonia, along with another local acupuncturist, started offering free treatments to veterans at their clinic on Douglas Avenue.

They’re trying to get the word out so younger veterans, returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, might seek treatment and hopefully avoid the struggles Hobbs encountered upon returning from war.

Stengel and Christie Kern, owner of Racine Community Acupuncture, trained with Acupuncturists without Borders, a program started as a response to Hurricane Katrina. The program proved successful in helping veterans relieve stress, according to Stengel.

“I think it would be so helpful if the military would offer reintegration. They spend so much time on training to prepare you to go to war,” Stengel said. “Then there’s seemingly no treatment to debrief you from all that you’ve done to learn how to be this killing machine … there’s no training on how to get rid of all that aggression.”

Hobbs agrees. At first, he wasn’t sure about the idea of having several tiny needles stuck anywhere on his body.

After a few months, he said, he and his friend, Gary, who also lives at the Veterans Venter, figured “Why not?”

The first thing Hobbs noticed, he said, was that he could sleep better. The second thing he said he noticed was that whenever he and Gary missed a week or two of treatment, he would start thinking “we need to go out and see Linda.”

Meeting Stengel has been the culmination of many years of therapy, Hobbs said.

“It happened at the right time in my life to kind of get me healthier than I’ve been, I think, ever,” Hobbs said.
PAUL SLOTH paul.sloth@journaltimes.com | Posted: Saturday, November 28, 2009 6:30 pm