DURHAM, N.C. - At age 42, John Crumpler has earned a new nickname: the Karate Kid.

It's what his family calls him jokingly now that Crumpler - a wiry man with Texas in his voice and a curlicue tattoo spelling "Teresa" on his chest - has been drug-free for more than 20 months and, for the three most recent months of his sobriety, learning kyushin karate at a downtown Durham dojo or martial-arts school.

Every Tuesday and Thursday evening, residents and graduates of the Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers (TROSA) program file into the Ligo Dojo on Parrish Street as part of their treatment.

When Crumpler arrived on a breezy May day, he twice yelled "Ooosh!" - the Chinese character "osu," which translates roughly to "I'll push forward in the face of resistance."

Persevering through hardship is something that the TROSA members and the dojo's owner, Nathan Ligo, 34, know all about.

This is Crumpler's fifth try in rehab, and this time, he says, he'll succeed with the karate and Ligo's strict instruction.

"I have to maintain that rigidness, that structure. That's the way we learn. I make this karate a priority, just like I make it a priority to go to work. I always wanted to take karate as a kid, but my mom and dad couldn't afford it. I think this is the biggest blessing besides getting in TROSA. I was doing drugs, didn't care, lost all respect. "Karate gives me the discipline I need."

Crumpler is one of Ligo's most experienced TROSA students; he started when the dojo opened in March. And even when he's tired and Ligo asks him to demonstrate a circular kick, Crumpler is up for the task.

Because as some contortionist stretches leave him glistening with perspiration or as an opponent delivers a bruising kick to his lower body, it's proof that he's alive and free to experience life without "chemical help."

Crumpler gets to see himself as a leader, contrary to the society's general view of drug addicts.

"Sometimes people look at people who are substance abusers as self-destructive, but sometimes they see them as society's garbage," said Kevin McDonald, TROSA president and founder. "And they forget that they are somebody's father or daughter."

Ligo, however, remembers. He thinks that karate can heal - even as students pummel each other - if the individual is committed to bettering themselves.

Buzz-cut hair and square-shouldered, Ligo has a military edge to his look. But he wasn't always the formidable sensei, or teacher, that he is today.

"I wasn't very happy when I was a teenager. I was the smallest in my class and I was rebelling by the time I was 14, doing marijuana and smoking. But I lucked into taking (karate) classes with a graduate student at UNC who was a physics student. That man (Seong Soo Choi) impressed upon me how I could change my life," Ligo said.

After about 20 years of karate training in Hungary, Japan, Korea and here in the United States, Ligo approached McDonald with an idea: to teach his style of full-body contact karate to TROSA residents during their two-year treatment.

Ligo and McDonald have a friendly, informal mentoring relationship. While TROSA became self-sustaining by building painting and moving businesses that employ the residents, Ligo's karate nonprofit has sometimes struggled to stay afloat. McDonald formed TROSA in 1994; Ligo also has a three-year residential program where he teaches karate to at-risk young men in a dormitory attached to his Chapel Hill home.

But friendship aside, McDonald had reservations about equipping TROSA residents with skills that could injure others.

"Our two big things with TROSA are no violence and no threats of violence. I thought that the karate was violence, something in the streets. But as (Ligo) explained it to me, it's a mental thing," McDonald said.

Ligo said: "I had to really convince him. A lot of those guys are on probation. If they break it, they're going to jail. They're not even allowed to mimic any aggressive action. They can't practice outside my dojo."

Crumpler said the emphasis on nonviolence was crystal clear.

"By no means do you go back and practice what you learned. What we do at the dojo stays at the dojo. Some guy may think Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and the first time he comes to the dojo, he's going to be put on his butt and asked not to come back. We're not here to beat the crap out of each other."

But the TROSA students apply other class lessons to life inside and outside the TROSA campus.

Karate resides in the mind as much as the muscle, said Crumpler. It is learning how to stretch limbs made inflexible by years of inactivity and hard living. But it's also how to concentrate on something other than the body's craving for alcohol or heroin.

"I have an 8-year-old and a 5-year-old and a lot of their friends go and take karate. I look at TROSA and think that these are adults who stopped maturing emotionally, for whatever reason," McDonald said. "And like young kids, these adults are learning to follow directions and do the right thing."

The physical activity lowers stress and if a substance abuser's stress goes down and he's got something to focus on other than the next fix, he's less likely to end up in treatment again.

But karate is not a panacea. Some men or women come once or a couple of times and never return to class.

Recently, one of Ligo's more experienced students was arrested for breaking into cars. A crack addict for 16 years, the man is an experienced electrical worker, but couldn't find a job because of his record. He graduated from TROSA, but soon fell back into his old patterns. His choices now: prison or, if he can get admitted, another stint in TROSA or a similar program.

It was a disappointment for Ligo, but he said it was also a vivid illustration of the uphill battle his students face and how hard it is to teach people to remake their lives.

"Rome wasn't built in a day. We have to remember these are hard-core drug addicts and that a percentage of people who go through TROSA will relapse," Ligo said. "When they get out and go back to the people they were with, it's hard."