It is not uncommon for an alcoholic or addict admitted to a treatment facility to be totally defeated, devoid of hope, denial washed away, resigned to finishing out their remaining time in a chemically soaked haze. We know this as the bottom, not the end, but a starting point, a place where most addicted people need to get before a life of sobriety is possible. We are accustomed to seeing loss of hope and resignation in individual people and know what to do to help.

Recently, though, I read a newspaper article that was evidence to me of a loss of hope on a grandeur scale. In Seattle, Washington there is an apartment building at 1811 Eastlake. In order to be given a government financed apartment at 1811 Eastlake a person needs to be identified as one of the most ill of the alcoholics in Seattle, a revolving door drunk. Once in an apartment a resident is free to drink without restriction, without organized attempts to provide help or treatment for their addiction. Public policy makers have determined that tax payers in Seattle had been spending roughly $50,000 per year on each of the most ill of the homeless alcoholics identified as eligible for an apartment at 1811 Eastlake. The annual cost for a homeless alcoholic at the apartment building is projected to be about $13,000. Quite a bargain.

Now in order to qualify for a government financed apartment and shuttle service to a grocery store where alcohol can be purchased, prospective residents need to be homeless and to have failed at least six times at trying to become sober. Six times? As I write, I am thinking specifically about a distinguished, professional man for whom I have immense respect and affection. After being discharged from what was his sixteenth treatment attempt he walked into an alley and saw a bottle of whiskey still half full. Not yet ready to stop drinking he accepted this good fortune, picked up the bottle and took a healthy swig. The bottle contained urine, not whiskey. Bottom! This wonderful gentleman has not taken a drink since and has helped many addicted people find their way to sobriety.

I wonder what might have been if after that sixteenth treatment attempt he had been given an apartment and allowed to drink freely. This social policy experiment in Seattle seems to me like enabling at its highest level. Darker yet, this experiment seems to me to move us a step closer to a society where in order to save money we make the chronically ill as comfortable as possible before they die rather than expend the resources necessary to treat them. It is interesting that we begin with the disease of alcoholism. I wonder which chronic disease will be the next one considered too expensive to treat.

This much I know. Alcoholism and drug addiction are highly treatable illnesses. The most ill of the afflicted are not beyond hope. We must never become complacent, and we must never give up on any alcoholic or addict.

Learn more about us at www.valleyhope.org/drug-rehab-alcohol-rehab-aboutus.aspx or
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Learn more about us at http://www.valleyhope.org/drug-rehab-alcohol-rehab-aboutus.aspx or
http://www.valleyhope.org.

Author Bio: Learn more about us at www.valleyhope.org/drug-rehab-alcohol-rehab-aboutus.aspx or
www.valleyhope.org.

Category: Wellness, Fitness and Diet
Keywords: alcohol rehab, drug rehab, drug rehab centers, drug rehab center, alcoholism treatment, alcoholism