SOME ADDICTS SEEKING HELP ARE TURNED AWAY

Eddie Young felt like he didn't fit in. He felt like "an alien." He was
lonely and afraid.

Crack cocaine took all that away.

"It takes away all the pain, all the fear," he said. "It became my best
friend."

It took away more than that, though, the 38-year-old heavy machinery
operator said during an interview at the Phoenix Center, a drug and alcohol
rehabilitation center in Greenville. He blew his life's savings, $24,000,
in a one-month binge before hitting bottom last month - again.

His story isn't uncommon. Residents across the Upstate want and need help
for addictions, but once they've decided to take the step toward getting
it, they're meeting with discouragement.

"There are people who never get into treatment because there's no bed
space," said Eric Harris, executive director of The Turning Point, a
halfway house for recovering addicts. "It's just not there."

The Phoenix Center, which contracts with the state to handle drug and
alcohol treatment in Greenville County, has a waiting list a month long for
outpatient services. The Turning Point, which has 120 beds, has to pull out
cots sometimes to give a man a place to sleep. The Salvation Army's 30-bed
facility stays full.

Meanwhile, government funding for such services is shrinking.

The state Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services saw its
budget cut 55 percent between 2001 and 2004.

It gets none of the money collected through fines and fees charged to
criminal drug offenders, according to the state Treasurer's Office.

Out of more than $9.5 million collected from January through May this year
in court fines and assessments, $151,202 went to the state Department of
Mental Health, the Treasurer's Office said.

Under state law, a variety of fees levied against drug offenders are
divided among the court system, law enforcement and various state agencies,
the Treasurer's Office said.

Cash and property owned by convicted drug dealers are divvied up between
prosecutors, law enforcement agencies and the state treasury, said Robert
Stewart, chief of the State Law Enforcement Division.

So far this year, SLED has taken in $89,133 from state drug busts and
$157,970 through operations involving federal agencies, he said.

Still, enforcement of drug laws takes a lower priority to such crimes as
murder, he said. "Cold hard facts are you can only do as much narcotic
enforcement as you can afford to do," he said.

The Department of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services absorbed most of its
budget cuts by eliminating administrative jobs, said Lee Dutton, executive
assistant to the director. Overall, hospital beds for drug and alcohol
treatment in public agencies are less than 90 percent full, but even before
the cuts, there weren't many beds for men, he said.

"The two biggest gaps in service we have in the community are residential
services for men and adolescents," said Kat Rice, executive director of the
Phoenix Center, a quasi-governmental agency formerly called the Greenville
County Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse. "We have a good bit of
treatment for women, but there's just nothing hardly for men at all."

The center is seeking $6 million in grants to build a facility for an
intensive outpatient program for adolescents.

Rice bemoans the fact that when the state Legislature decided this year to
give equal coverage to mental health patients as those with other types of
illnesses - parity - it didn't include patients with substance abuse problems.

"To me, that's unconscionable," she said.

But for those who don't have insurance, options are becoming even more limited.

Patrick B. Harris Psychiatric Hospital, a state-run facility in Anderson,
once had 24 beds for substance abuse patients. They have been eliminated.

Morris Village in Columbia, the state's only treatment center for addicts
without insurance, always has a waiting list, and the number of beds has
fallen from 174 to 120 over the past five years.

Its budget has been cut $1.2 million over that time. One-third of the 29
clinical staff members at the center, operated by the state Department of
Mental Health, are losing their jobs this year.

That means turning away more of those who need help the most, said Bonnie
Pate, executive director of South Carolina SHARE (Self-Help Association
Regarding Emotions), a nonprofit that advocates for people with mental
illness and substance abuse problems.

"They're just going to end up back in the ER eating up more resources," she
said.

The shortage of treatment programs isn't limited to the Upstate or to South
Carolina, said Curtis Pitts, director of the Overcomers program at the
Greenville Rescue Mission.

He gets calls from across the country from people wanting into his 27-week
Christian-based residential program for 60 men. The program, which includes
group counseling, Bible study and chapel services, normally has a waiting
list of a couple of weeks, he said.

The Turning Point, which offers no counseling services but provides a place
for recovering addicts to live while they try to straighten out their
lives, is hoping to expand its operations. Its success rate of residents
staying clean for 90 days is 45 percent, which experts say is above average.

Its program is self-supporting - the men who live there and have jobs pay a
weekly fee based on their income - and they also do most of the work of
renovating the former motel.

But the tax man cometh.

Although the program is operated by a nonprofit organization, the property
is owned by a for-profit holding company, and the company owes back taxes -
"enough to sink us," Eric Harris said.

"We're just trying to get the county to say, 'Hey, we'll work with you
because you guys are helping us, you're helping the citizens of
Greenville,' " Harris said.

County Councilwoman Lottie Gibson said she is concerned that the company
could use the facility for profit. "They're accountable only to
themselves," she said.

She sees substance abuse treatment as primarily a state responsibility and
said Greenville needs a hospital such as Morris Village, considering that
80 percent of the people in jail in the county face charges related to drugs.

"Maybe I'm blind, but to me that's an indication that this is a serious
challenge," Gibson said.

You don't have to sell the residents of the Turning Point on that notion.

Charles Cannup, a 56-year-old drywall mechanic, said he was so desperate
after his recent relapse that he climbed the fence at 3 a.m. to get into
the place.

Johnny Goodwin, 52, said if he hadn't gone to the Turning Point, "either
I'd be out there doing dope or I'd be dead."

Goodwin, now an employee there, is taking classes at Greenville Technical
College in substance abuse counseling.

Michael Curry, 35, is learning at the Turning Point to deal with his
disability - his right foot was amputated around Christmas last year after
years of crack, amphetamines and diabetes.

"It gives me a good perspective on life now," he said, sitting in his
wheelchair overlooking a grassy area where the residents have cookouts. "I
can stay clean and serene."