Stuggles of real prejudice-

We struggle against real prejudice - and with our own anonymity. We are often mistrusted and misunderstood, or we simply seem invisible to those around us. But tens of thousands of people recover from addiction every year – and we are everywhere.

why is this important?

Because addicts and alcoholics face real prejudice every day. We believe the only way this will change is if the general public believes and accepts the truth — addicts and alcoholics are just like everyone else.

Here are just a few examples of the prejudice we face::

* People with a past drug conviction are inelligible for federal student loans. (They don't even place these kinds of restrictions on people with convictions for murder or rape.)
* Sober houses face community resistance. (Even in college towns! How much sense does it make to fight a house for recovering addicts and alcoholics when the alternative is a house full of college students?)
* Professional helpers (like social workers, psychologists, doctors and nurses) often don't like having to deal with addicts and alcoholics in their offices. We've heard local agency directors publicly say that alcoholics are irresponsible and that many addicts will never recover, so we should just put them in hospice.
* Life insurance companies discriminate against addicts and alcoholics. (Even against folks who have been sober for decades.)
* Health insurance companies refuse to cover addiction treatment or place severe limits on care. (Can you think of any other common illness that they won't cover or place such limits on? Did you know that addiction treatment success rates and compliance rates are similar to hypertension, diabetes and asthma? What would happen if insurance companies started limiting care to these other patients?)
o While overall insurance company spending on health care has increased dramatically, spending on addiction treatment has dropped by 73.6%.
o Inpatient length of stay dropped by 10 days from 1992 to 2001.
o Inpatient admissions dropped by 50% and outpatient admissions dropped by 18%.
o The average outpatient treatment episode is only 4 visits.
o In 2002, 1,200,000 people who wanted treatment did not receive it. 37.5% said cost was the issue.
* Incarceration for drug crimes has exploded by as much as 800%.

[historyteach]

Doug;
This is such an important issue!!!
Katie Kevlock was 16 years old when an insurance company was *deciding* whether to allow for inpatient treatment. Katie died of a herion overdose before they made their decision....
Here's a website her mom started to raise awareness of this issue and more.
www.beat-the-drum.org
I have spoken to Katie's mom. She now wants to start another web site called "the faces of addiction." She has asked if Trevor and I would be a part of it. I will ask Trevor when he wakes up.
I have been argueing for years that the facilities are inadequate for the numbers of people needing and wanting treatment. There has been many times Trevor has struggled to get into treatment, and called day in and day out - only to relapse again before there was an available bed. (Of course, he has walked out of rehabs also, not being ready.)
But the prisons keep growing...
Addicts and alcoholics are easy targets for politicians. It's easy for them to refer to an active addict as "less than," and then justify cutting needed resources in favor of something more "politically correct." And the general public wants to keep themselves safe from the thought that, "There, but for the grace of G*D, go I." So, they look down their noses and refer to addicts and alcoholics as "other than."
The "less than" and "other than" designations create the conditions that allow for this mistreatment of people with an illness.
Politicians respond to their constituients. They know for every 1 letter or phone call, there are another 10 who want the same, and don't bother to contact their representatives. Many don't know how. Here is some handy information for those who wish to change the way the USA is NOT working!

For who the politicians are: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicia...ort=S&Cong=108
For how to lobby them: http://www.fathers.bc.ca/howto.htm

I hope you will stop in at www.beat-the-drum.org
Perhaps some of us would be willing to join Katie's mom in her quest to bring this injustice to light.
Thanks for bringing these statistics to the open, Doug. Without information, nothing can change.
Shalom!

[splendra]

I guess this is a part of the stradgey on the "war on drugs"????? I guess we need to set up some kind of lobby to our senators and congresmen to try and get something done about it. We have to make our voices heard!!!!!! Surely people are in misery and are dying everyday because of the things of which you wrote about((((Doug))))

[Alera]

beat-the-drum.com reminds me of a piece done in the LA Times about 10 years ago. It followed a homeless man who wanted treatment with his heroin addiction. He would go back and forth between offices all the way across Los Angeles (sometimes over a two-hour public bus ride) only to end up at an office that had nothing to do with addiction treatment. To paraphrase what he said to the reporter: "I want in today, I don't know if I'll want to go in tomorrow. Please get me help today."

If I remember right, he finally gave up after about a week.

[BaBa OReiley]

it really sucks doesn't it

[historyteach]

Yea, Bill;
It does really suck!

Your post on acceptance helps me keep my sanity...not just through Trevor's chaos but through society's aversion too...
I don't have to like it;
And I can do my part in opposition to that aversion;
But, today, I know I have to accept what is....
For me. For now...

Shalom!

[Hopefloats]

Adding to this list...If someone is indigent and is applying for Section 8 housing, which would provide a home that they CAN afford, the rules are clear that if they have an alcohol or drug violation then they they lose their housing..
SO...YES, they even take their homes
Hope

[Hopefloats]

I meant to make a FROWN!
HOPE Never mind, all fixed!

[historyteach]

Housing taken away!
In the New England climate!!!
One cannot survive in the New England climate without shelter!!! They DIE!!! Every year they die.
Because they are sick...
Thomas Jefferson said how a society treats the weakest of its citizens is how it will be judged.
How do we treat our sick? Our infirm?

See, this is what really gets my ire up!!! How can we do this to our own?????????
I don't understand this mind thought....

Shalom!

[Dan]

Outcasts and rejects.
Any politician/lawmaker/legislator worth his/her fat pension and benefit plan would probably make the arguement that every decent and civilized society needs them.
For balance, you see. How else can the nobility justify its gated communities?
Here's what I really find disturbing...
What if the real plan is to keep scaling down addiction treatment resources in order to keep the drunks and junkies in the zone, so to speak. Just imagine if all of us suffering cleaned up and sobered up... What a voice that would be. I fear governments are afraid to allow that voice to rise.
Keep 'em on the couch, zoned out.
And for the ones that don't stay on the couch and go out and cause trouble, like theft, car accidents, murders, etc, well, that's why we pay the cops, don't we?

The very little I know about inpatient treatment in America boggles my mind. When it became clear to me that I had to go in, all I had to do was ask. The provincial government actually payed people to assess me properly, and to find me a bed in a treatment center. All I had to do was pack a suitcase and show up when they told me to.
O Canada. I'm grateful.

[historyteach]

And if we can do it to our own....
...what can and will we do to others...

Peter, Paul and Mary - a folk group of the 60s had a song...
Greenwood.
"If we do these things in the greenwood;
what will happen in the dry..."

I know it can be different....
Shalom!

[Hopefloats]

Yup Teach (and others)..the Section 8 Housing allowance is taken. Which means that the person must move out. Because they have little money. The government pays a good portion of the rent and the tenant on Section 8 pays 30 percent of their income. SO that means that they may get a rent that is (for example) 1,000 a month and only need to pay 230.00 of that 1,000. Losing the section 8 equals "SORRY, you must GO", and you lose your voucher for life. NO chance of getting recovery and getting the voucher back. Some poor person that is indigent cannot pay market prices. OH and say someone is disabled..it matters not.

In NH..there are few places to go for recovery period. UNLESS you have excellent insurance. Most will NOT take state medicaid cards. And we have long waiting lists. Also in NH and Maine, you can only stay so long, depending on the insurance.

If you are an addict in NH without insurance you are totally screwed..totally. We have ONE place in Portsmouth that only takes them in IF they are suicidal? I know this sounds unbelieveable..but it is very, very true and very, very sad.
Hope

[Hopefloats]

In NH right now (just for housing info) our minimum wage is 5.15 per hour. The AVERAGE 2 bedroom apartment...nothing fancy runs about 1,000 a month without utilities included.

The taxes on a small average home are around 3,600 a year.

SO where would our addicts live without assistance..
Hope

[Hopefloats]

OH and one more thing that really pisses me off...and I will double check the facts..BUT I do believe that if a person is an addict, they are not eligible for SS Disability benefits if the Social Security people know about it. Again I will check, but that piece of news came to me recently from a reliable source...IMAGINE THAT?
Hope

[BaBa OReiley]

alcoholism and addiction are not recognised as disabilities to SS..........

Social Security/SS

coincidence?