TIME TO FACE DRUG ADDICTION HEAD ON

I've been thinking about a drunken driving case since early January
and I haven't been able to get it off of my mind because the
Manchester defendant, if found guilty, is a perfect candidate for the
two-year, lock-up addiction facility I'd love to see built.

On Jan. 12, a Times headline read: "Driver had long history of
arrests: Manchester man's addiction to alcohol at center of case."

The man in question admitted to having a long-term problem with
alcohol. Now in his 60s, he's had nine or 10 drunken driving charges,
yet he was picked up one more time driving drunk, driving without a
license and driving an uninsured car.

Based on information gleaned from the article, the odds are good that
he is not a "bad" man, i.e., the stereotypical wino sitting on the
curb, guzzling his drug of choice from a brown paper bag or the
stereotypical heroin addict shooting dope into his veins in a shooting
gallery located in New York City, assuming that's how we define bad.

I imagine he is a typical area addict who has, as does many a
respectable citizen, a family and a job and is just so incredibly sick
he has not been able to help himself, nor has the law been able to
stop him from being a risk to himself and/or the society that
surrounds him. In fact, at the time of his current bust, he was on
probation for a drunken driving conviction in a Cambridge court.

When we speak of addicts and who they are, it's always helped me to
keep Judy Garland in my mind as an example of a non-stereotypical
addict. Judy was a real person, a daughter, a wife, a mom and a woman
with a gift from God in her talent. She helps me put my perspective of
who an addict might be in its proper place.

She also helps me keep in mind that, more often than not, an addict's
history has to be taken into consideration when society and/or the law
are making judgments.

In Judy's case, she was addicted to pills -- uppers to work and
downers to sleep -- as a child by her own mother. She was a full-blown
addict at the age of 15.

By all accounts, Judy wasn't a bad person, yet toward the end of her
47 years on this earth, she was a penniless addict who would have been
a homeless woman on the streets if it weren't for her wealthy friends
who gave her a roof over her head.

It's impossible to conceive of Judy Garland being locked up in a
prison with murderers, child molesters and rapists, is it not?

Of our current and more local defendant, the Beverly prosecutor said,
"He is someone who simply won't stop driving drunk ... we believe him
to be a danger to the lives and safety of people on the road."

The defendant is being held on $10,000 bail, and if he's convicted he
will receive a mandatory one-year sentence in jail. He could receive
five years in jail.

His lawyer said his client acknowledges he's an alcoholic and he urged
the judge to allow him to seek treatment, instead of high bail.

He also said his client had been trying to arrange a stay in a
rehabilitation center, but had been unsuccessful so far.

It's a point that wasn't explored in the article, but anyone who has
dealt with someone who needs to be hospitalized for addiction knows
there are not enough beds to handle the problem.

And even if there were, those same people also know that a three-to
five-to 10- to 30-day detoxification and/or rehabilitation process is
not typically successful in stopping an addict from using.

At this point in the discussion, the philosophical question, "Is
addiction an illness or a crime?" tends to rear its ugly head.

After a lifetime of observing addiction, I've come to the conclusion
it's both. It's an illness that, more often than not, leads to the
addict committing criminal behavior; whether that criminal behavior is
driving drunk or stealing for dope is neither here nor there.

After a good 25 years of jailing hundreds of addicts, with probably
about an 80 percent recidivism rate and probably about a 1-percent
recovery rate, it seems I'd be on the safe side if I said it doesn't
work.

So, what to do with the Judy Garlands of our world, for they are
indeed a danger, first and foremost to themselves but also to the rest
of us?

In all fairness, it does need to be said that in Judy's time, the
mother who addicted her and the studio that supported her habit and
even added to it when she needed to lose weight knew nothing about
addiction.

That's not the case today, though.

Today we understand that if you use certain chemicals, the odds are
good that you will become an addict. We also understand that who will
and who will not become an addict is totally unpredictable -- it's the
luck of the draw, so to speak.

It's not a recipe for mandatory jail.

It is a case for coming to terms with the fact that addiction is an
illness and a crime and should be treated as such.

How much longer will it take this society to build its first lock-up
rehabilitation center, for that is where our Manchester neighbor
belongs, for his sake and ours?