TREAT THE DISEASE

I find it frustrating in all of the concern and coverage that Jon [Beckel]
has received, that nobody has mentioned that Jon was a late-stage alcoholic
and suffered greatly from the disease ["What Happened to Jon Beckel?," WW,
July 12, 2000]. When first hearing about Jon's hospitalization, I assumed
that Jon had suffered from a seizure in alcohol withdrawal. Seizures from
alcoholic withdrawal can be fatal, and it is as much an unforgivable lapse
for the police to fail to assure medical attention to an alcoholic in
withdrawal as it is for the police to club an inmate to death.

Yet Jon's alcoholism is ignored. Why? Because the general public has no
clue that it is not a behavioral choice but a disease that will prove fatal
if unchecked.

Whether Jon died from complications of an alcoholic seizure, a head wound
suffered during a seizure, or a head wound resulting from a personal
assault, it is certain that he would be alive today if he had not been
drinking.

Jon is the second person I have known personally who has died from
alcoholism, in Portland, in less than three months. Still, as a society we
do little more than blame the alcoholic.

Willamette Week covers the tragedy of heroin addiction, but alcoholism is a
different story. Why?

Kathryn D. Wright, Southwest Pine Street