Carolyn Reuben, LAc

Carolyn Reuben is a founding member of the Board of Directors of CARA and on the Executive Committee of the Alliance for Addiction Solutions. She is a licensed acupuncturist, medical journalist, and the author of four self-help health books.
 
From 1981-1991 she was the voice of alternative medicine in Los Angeles as health columnist for the L.A. Weekly newspaper. She also attended UCLA's Graduate School of Motion Pictures and Television and worked in educational TV in Los Angeles and Israel. However, nutrition and natural medicine were always her passion.

Her work in addiction treatment began in 1980 when she heard Michael Smith, MD speak at her acupuncture college in Los Angeles about his acupuncture detox program in the South Bronx, New York. Carolyn began using Smith's five-point ear acupuncture protocol in Sacramento in 1992, helped establish CARA in 1994, and developed contracts for acupuncture with the Sacramento County Drug Court and Kaiser Permanente, among other sites. Carolyn quickly added nutrition to the Drug Court program and then other energy and mind-body medicine techniques. She has lectured at statewide and national conferences and written magazine articles on the use of these alternative treatments for withdrawal and early recovery, and serves as a consultant with health clinics and treatment programs that want help developing nutrition and acupuncture programs of their own.