Steps 4 to 7: Clean it up.

Steps 8 to 9: Make it up.

Steps 10 to 12: Keep it up.

* borrowed from my friend JB

>> Read 12 Steps with Bible verses

Find a program:

Alcoholics Anonymous: “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. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.”

Al-Anon: “Strength and hope for friends and families of problem drinkers.”

Narcotics Anonymous: “NA is a nonprofit fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs had become a major problem. We… meet regularly to help each other stay clean. … We are not interested
in what or how much you used… but only in what you want to do about your problem and how we can help.”

Nar-Anon: “The Nar-Anon Family Groups are a worldwide fellowship for those affected by someone else’s addiction. As a Twelve-Step Program, we offer our help by sharing our experience, strength, and hope. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of addiction in a relative or friend.”

Tweets I sent while doing StreetWatch homeless outreach this past week:

23 Mar 2012: Talked to homeless vets dishonorably discharged for mental illness/addiction related issues. Not eligible for VA treatment.

23 Mar 2012: Hanging out in the shade behind a store talking with 4 homeless guys about jobs, family, military & cops.

22 Mar 2012: Ever wonder about the permits the homeless people on the corner are wearing? Panhandling 101, Greensboro Style http://bit.ly/GNaBY9
Background: Several people we saw this week had panhandling charges. There are lots of rules and it can get complicated.

22 Mar 2012: Homeless lady went to jail for panhandling without permit. Got out. Went back to her corner. Same cop saw her. Back in jail within hours.
Update: Second arrest was for Failure To Appear on an earlier charge.

22 Mar 2012: Humbled by compassion of property management staffer for homeless men whose camp has to go. Doing his job as mercifully as possible.

22 Mar 2012: Grateful for Greensboro Police officer who took homeless man to rehab in January; visits him, stays in touch with family.

21 Mar 2012: Talked to a homeless guy today who sold his bicycle for $2.50 to buy a 40 oz beer. And it seemed normal to him.

But there’s the unspoken: mental illness, alcoholism, addiction, trauma, family dysfunction. Obtaining or maintaining a job or housing is difficult (and out of reach for some). A number of folks I’ve seen just this week are newly released from jail or prison. Their chances for jobs and housing seem to rise and fall with the economy.

I think of the words a homeless friend once said to me, “If we could get a job, we’d have one.” And another, referencing Greensboro’s wealth of free meal sites and dearth of affordable housing, “We appreciate the food. But you can’t cover up with a chicken wing.” True word.

>> Related post: “Urgent needs for our ministry to unsheltered homeless people: Please help!”

“For the love of God people, stop giving money to drunken panhandlers. These panhandlers are alcoholics and drug addicts. The money you give them will only go towards more alcohol and drugs, enabling their disease. With your money, these panhandlers will spend the rest of the day drunk, harassing other people, and interfering with other homeless people who are actually making attempts to get off streets.”

Some of Kevin’s FB friends were offended by his perspective and commented to tell him so. But Kevin told them that he knows what he’s talking about:

“Both of my grandfathers were alcoholics, I became homeless the first time at the age of 21, and have been in and out of homelessness the past 29 years. I have known more drunks and addicts than you’d ever imagine. I’ve witnessed people die from their addictions…”

And he speaks truth:

“There is sympathy for people hurting and struggling. But in your sympathy for them you have to maintain your objectivity. If someone was displaying suicidal tendencies and then they asked to borrow your gun, you wouldn’t really let them have it would you? Caring for, caring about others is more than just giving in to their wants and desires. Alcohol is slowly but surely killing these panhandling drunks, and as much as it alleviates their immediate pain and desires, giving them access to more drink is not doing them any favors.”

I talked to a crack addict the other day who hasn’t let the 100°F heat discourage him from flying a sign. It makes me frustrated. And sad. I love the addicts and alcoholics in my life, but I hate addiction. Everyone has their own path to recovery and I pray for them to find it. But I will not fund addiction. As Kevin says, it’s like handing a loaded gun to someone who’s trying to commit suicide.

“A new study says that drug treatment courts, which state legislators cut funding for in the recent budget, are effective at reducing crime and drug use.

Drug courts also saved an average of nearly $5,700 per participant, resulting in a net benefit of $2 for every $1 spent, according to the study released Tuesday by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington, D.C. The Center for Court Innovation in New York and RTI International in the Research Triangle Park assisted with the study.

This year, North Carolina legislators cut $2 million in funding for drug treatment courts across the state…”

>> Continue reading “Study: Drug courts effective in reducing” at News-Record.com.

I’ve seen first-hand the effectiveness of Guilford County’s drug court. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to cut programs that save taxpayer dollars and change lives.

Here is a list of the Guilford County providers who received renewal funding, along with the amount each received this year and last year:

Our county had a good treatment center which offered detox, outpatient, and inpatient services. The center stayed full, with a waiting list, from the day it opened, but still, it was good treatment, and people got help there. But there were issues with Bridgeway, the operator contracted to provide services, and the state suspended admissions in August. The county is transitioning to a new provider, DayMark, but new patients won’t be admitted until at least late November. So that’s four months with no county substance abuse treatment.

Uninsured/under-insured Guilford County residents in need of substance abuse treatment can go to ARCA in Winston, RTS in Burlington or ADATC in Butner for detox and crisis stabilization. But those services are limited to 14 days. While that’s helpful in some cases, in many cases, it’s like sticking a bandaid on a seriously injured car crash victim and dumping them back into the middle of the interstate. Those in recovery from cocaine addiction, for example, often need significantly more residential treatment. They need to be in a safe, structured environment while their brains begin to heal. And at just 14 days’ clean time, a crack addict’s brain looks like someone turned the lights out.

Much is said about “community-based treatment,” which means non-residential (not in a facility), but in reality, it sounds a lot better than it often works. “Best practices” and “client-centered therapy” are also important parts of good treatment. But the substance abuse treatment available locally to alcoholics and addicts who don’t have good health insurance coverage doesn’t always measure up to those terms.

I’m a realist. I know that the biggest reason why we don’t have the needed treatment is because there’s not enough money to pay for it. Local and state treatment programs are paid for primarily with tax dollars. There’s always been a shortage of treatment beds and treatment options. And the current economy has no doubt worsened the situation. But I also know the cost of addiction that most taxpayers don’t see or think about. It’s “pay me now or pay me later.” When treatment-ready alcoholics and addicts can’t get the help they need, and they continue in their addictions, taxpayers still end up paying for it.

People who can’t access needed treatment services often continue to cycle through emergency rooms (the most expensive form of healthcare) and detox programs. That costs taxpayers money. Active alcoholics and addicts who are on disability may use government benefits, such as SSDI or SSI checks, food stamps or utility vouchers to buy alcohol and drugs. Taxpayers pay for that. Police officers, jailers and judges can tell you about the correlation between addiction and crime. Again, taxpayers pay.

The cost of the destruction of lives — both the addicts’ and their friends and families — cannot be measured.  Alcoholics, addicts, and their friends and families lose time from work dealing with crises. Alcoholics, addicts, and their friends and families deal with mental and physical health issues — some which contribute to the alcoholism and addiction, and some resulting from it. Families break up and relationships end because of alcoholism and addiction. Single-parent families are at a greater risk of poverty and are more likely to receive government assistance. All of this adds up to more taxpayers dollars.

There’s much stigma, misinformation and mythology attached to alcoholism and addiction. This probably contributes to the lack of advocacy for increasing treatment options. But if we were to really look at the bottom line, we’d see that “detox and done” isn’t really serving anyone.

It’s easy to appeal to compassion and make an emotional case for providing treatment for alcoholics and addicts who are ready to do the next thing. But the pragmatic case is just as compelling, if not more so. Currently, adequate treatment is not available because our community can’t afford to provide it. But the truth is that taxpayers are already paying (and likely paying more) for not providing adequate treatment services, which raises the obvious question: Can we really afford not to provide it?

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)

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…

…James Roscoe Davis: father and grandfather, brother and uncle, soldier and decorated war veteran. A man to remember.

» Read all of  Jeri Rowe: After war, a veteran kept on fighting (News-Record.com)