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Crack Cocaine (image source: DEA)

Addiction develops much more rapidly with cocaine than alcohol, often within a few weeks or months, and especially when smoked as freebase (crack). Thus, the dynamics of cocaine addiction are different from those of alcoholism, including its impact on the individual and the family. Cocaine addiction can be likened to a rapid-onset trauma that stuns its victims, compared with alcoholism, which progressively and insidiously debilitates the drinker over a much longer period. The cocaine-affected family is less likely to show the deeply ingrained systemic aberrations and codependent relationships so commonly seen in alcoholic families.

~ from “Outpatient Treatment of Cocaine and Crack Addiction: A Clinical Perspective,” by Arnold M. Washton and Nannatte Stone-Washton (PDF)

Read more on Bottle vs. rock = Slide vs. slam…

Learning the science behind addiction frees us from judging, condemning and shaming the alcoholics and addicts in our lives.

Trusting the unchanging Word of God, living daily by the power of His Holy Spirit and keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ comforts us, strengthens us and allows us to detach with love and live in peace even in the midst of heartbreak and chaos in our lives.

Read more on Science + Faith: Learning to live in peace in the midst of addiction…

The Al-Anon Family Groups are a fellowship of relatives and friends of alcoholics who share their experience, strength, and hope in order to solve their common problems. We believe alcoholism is a family illness and that changed attitudes can aid recovery.

Read more on Al-Anon & Alateen…

Alcoholics Anonymous® is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.

Read more on Alcoholics Anonymous…

Jeri Rowe writes about Roscoe, a homeless man I first met at a Wednesday night dinner at Grace Community Church, years ago.

undated family photo of Roscoe; published in N&R

He was 17 when he was drafted into the Army and given a parachute and a gun to fight the enemy in Southeast Asia.

He earned a Purple Heart for the two bullets lodged just beneath his scalp. He also got lost in the jungle for 27 days , living on bugs, tree bark and snakes he killed and ate raw.

He saw his buddies torn apart by bullets and watched young children offer his fellow soldiers shoeboxes purported to be gifts. The shoeboxes contained live grenades.

Davis could never shake those memories.

Wow, I never knew this about Roscoe. The purple heart, the war memories. There’s a lot I didn’t know about Roscoe.

Read more on I never knew that Roscoe had a purple heart…

From The New York Times:

A man was down, immobile at the edge of one of this city’s busiest intersections. No sirens sounded, no ambulance rushed to the scene. Dealing with the scourge that has consumed Alaska’s biggest city is often delegated to two men in a white van, the Community Service Patrol.

Read more on Deaths spur Anchorage to involuntarily commit homeless alcoholics…

image credit: Kuba Bozanowski

Jim Schlosser somehow fashions a heartwarming, aw-shucks tale from the life of Jack Fuquay, a homeless alcoholic who slept on a park bench in downtown  Greensboro in the 70’s, and died alone in a public toilet.  I guess we’re all supposed to feel good about Fuquay’s homelessness, alcoholism, tragic life, and lonely death because he was a “character” who spent his benefactor’s charitable contributions on milk instead of wine. Wow, I feel so… not uplifted.

Read more on Seen through rose-colored glasses: The life of a homeless alcoholic in Greensboro…

The News & Record and WFMY report that the owner of the University Mart in Greensboro has been charged with food stamp fraud. He’s accused of making purchases at local grocery stores with food stamps that weren’t assigned to him. The University Mart is on Warren Street, near the intersection with Spring Garden.

Read more on Finally! A Greensboro store owner gets charged with food stamp fraud…

Did you read News & Record editorial page editor Allen Johnson’s Sunday, October 4, 2009 column? Read it online: My conflicted views about panhandlers.

Allen writes in response to the heavily restrictive changes to the city’s panhandling ordinance, which have made it illegal to panhandle almost everywhere downtown, and have limited panhandling throughout the city. Allen talks about why he has mixed feelings about panhandlers.

Read more on Allen Johnson: Conflicted about panhandlers…

Be sure to read Lorraine Ahearn’s News & Record article, “Benches highlight a bigger problem”, which begins like this:

“The location of artistic benches, which were removed from the Downtown Greenway on Friday after neighbors complained, looked good on paper but ignored some basic urban topography. Just a stone’s throw from where the benches were removed, amid complaints that they drew drunken and lewd behavior, sits ‘The Block.’ At the southwest corner of Eugene and Lee streets, at the entrance to HealthServe clinic and Greensboro Urban Ministry’s night shelter, this stretch of sidewalk has been a magnet for loitering, drugs and prostitution for 20 years….”

The benches were never the problem, so removing them won’t solve it. The problem on the block is primarily addiction. People drink there, and buy and smoke pot and crack. And where you find crack, you find dealers and prostitutes.

Read more on Bilbro benches gone, next target: homeless on the block?…

The Greensboro City Council has adopted changes in the City ordinance governing begging and panhandling. Sec. 20-69 will be amended as follows:

Sec. 20-69: Place
Any person who begs or solicits alms for his or her personal gain when the person is in any of the places listed below is guilty of a misdemeanor:
(1) At any bus or train stop;
(2) In any public transportation vehicle, facility, transit stop or taxi stand;
(3) In any vehicle on the street; or
(4) On private property, unless the person has written permission from the owner of the property to beg or solicit alms on the property; or
(5) On any school property during the student arrival times or during the student departure times.
(6) On any sidewalk adjacent to a motion picture theater, outdoor theater or palladium, any valid licensed vendor location, or where a line of patrons has formed.
(7) Within 20 feet of the entrance to any financial institution or automated teller machine, regardless of whether or not such automated teller machine is located at or near a financial institution. Financial institution as used in this section means any bank, trust company, savings and loan association, credit union, check-cashing business, any other entity principally engaged in the business of lending or receiving or soliciting money on deposit; or
(8) Within 20 feet of the entrance to any commercial establishment or private residence, or
(9) In any parking, deck, garage or surface parking lot and not within 20 feet of the entrance and exits of these areas and not within 20 feet of any parking meter or parking kiosk, or
(10) While under the influence of alcohol or other non-prescribed drugs or illegal substance, or
(11) Within 20 feet of the visible barricade of any outdoor café whether such café is on the public sidewalk or on private property.

The amended ordinance became effective upon adoption.

Read more on What the amendment to the panhandling ordinance says…

Image credit: Nelson Kepley, N&R

UPDATE:  The amendments to the panhandling ordinance passed unanimously.

Tonight, the Greensboro City Council considers significant revisions to the ordinance governing public soliciting, begging and panhandling.  The proposed changes would result in a de facto ban on panhandling in the downtown area, and would strictly limit panhandling throughout the rest of the city.

Read more on N&R: Proposal would just about ban panhandling…