
{"id":27743,"date":"2012-09-06T10:47:26","date_gmt":"2012-09-06T14:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=27743"},"modified":"2012-09-06T10:47:26","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T14:47:26","slug":"treatment-programs-must-survive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/09\/06\/treatment-programs-must-survive\/","title":{"rendered":"Treatment programs must survive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By John Sanders<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Once upon a time, four years and three months ago, a homeless and utterly hopeless alcoholic stepped through the doors of the Freedom House detox in Chapel Hill. In addition to being homeless, this alcoholic was mentally, physically and spiritually sick. He was underweight, malnourished and unemployable, and his friends and family had all but given up on him. During his five-day stay at this nonprofit, taxpayer-supported detox and crisis-stabilization facility, the alcoholic was given guidance and resources regarding things he could do to change his life for the better. Thankfully, he had enough motivation and desperation to ask for help, so he called First at Blue Ridge \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a long-term residential facility for substance abusers. <\/p>\n<p>This chain of events led to the alcoholic saving his own life by working a vigorous program of recovery, going back to school to earn a master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s degree and devoting his life to helping others \u00e2\u20ac\u201c helping others not only learn how to manage and overcome addiction and mental illness but also become happy, productive, taxpaying members of society. This alcoholic, of course, is me \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and I want to personally thank the taxpayers of North Carolina for having the wisdom and foresight to fund detoxification and treatment facilities, which are available when people need help. <\/p>\n<p>Many thousands of North Carolina lives are saved every year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c not to mention all the money North Carolina saves on the costs of law enforcement, courts, prisons, emergency room admissions and collateral damages such as automobile accidents, injuries, broken families, neglected children and lost work productivity.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, North Carolina currently has a legislature that is hostile to substance-abuse and mental health treatment. They have spent the last two years defunding programs that save lives and actually save taxpayers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 money. However, for these lawmakers, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not really about saving money \u00e2\u20ac\u201c because in the long run theses cuts will cost our state much more money than they save \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about priorities. <\/p>\n<p>Even conservative rock star and deficit hawk Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is increasing funds for these types of programs \u00e2\u20ac\u201c because he knows that it will actually save his state money in the long run (not to mention, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the right thing to do). According to Gov. Christie, at the signing ceremony of his initiative to increase funding for substance-abuse treatment, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No life is disposable and every life can be redeemed, but not if we ignore them. Once again by putting people before partisanship, we are providing optimism and hope to individuals and families torn apart by addiction. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 This program will provide mandatory drug treatment to appropriate offenders who are not a threat to society and who suffer from the disease of addiction \u00e2\u20ac\u201c redeeming lives and healing families.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Without commenting on national politics, and attempting to remain unblemished by partisanship, I would like to suggest that North Carolina is in need of a change in leadership in our state legislature \u00e2\u20ac\u201c House and Senate. They have repeatedly cut funds for addiction and mental health treatment, which will cost lives, and much more money in the long run. <\/p>\n<p>Even the Republican candidate for governor, Pat McCrory, has said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is a choice. We can ignore the underlying addiction \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 or we can send them to treatment facilities where they can reclaim their lives and become productive members of their communities. This is an easy choice.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>So, regardless of your party affiliation and regardless of how you intend to vote nationally, please consider voting for a change in leadership in the state legislature. This will require voting Democratic for House and Senate seats, and I know this is not easy for many, but the current leadership\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s priorities and values are damaging to our state and harmful to people like me. The current leadership\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s priorities are not even consistent with conservative values \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I quote Gov. Christie and Pat McCrory. <\/p>\n<p>Remember, there are thousands of North Carolinians out there with stories just like mine; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not special. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a product of a society that has invested in helping people change their lives. I have been assisted by taxpayer-supported detox, community health services, federal grants to treatment programs and federal student loans. I will spend the rest of my life paying back my debt to society \u00e2\u20ac\u201c literally \u00e2\u20ac\u201c by paying back my student loans with interest, paying taxes, giving to charity and assisting others in turning their lives around and becoming productive taxpaying citizens themselves. Indeed, if I assist individuals who are experiencing addiction and mental illness to find a path to recovery, and these individuals change their lives, get jobs and spend the rest of their lives being productive, responsible and paying taxes, does that in a roundabout way make me a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153job-creator\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? No; but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something to think about, and it illustrates the value of investing in substance-abuse treatment services for the people of North Carolina.<\/p>\n<p><em>John Sanders is a master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s candidate in the UNC School of Social Work and a resident of Carrboro.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once upon a time, four years and three months ago, a homeless and utterly hopeless alcoholic stepped through the doors of the Freedom House detox in Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27748,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27743\/revisions\/27748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}