RIVER EDGE SAYS SO LONG TO 14-DAY DRUG PROGRAM

For recovering cocaine addict Orlando Hinton, two weeks in the
substance-abuse residential unit on Fulton Mill Road was a lifesaver.

"Without it, I would still be out there on the street," said Hinton, 42,
now in his fourth month of sobriety and living at the Macon Rescue Mission.

Robert Akin, who heads the state parole office in Macon, also sees the
14-day center as essential, but for a different reason.

"I view it as a crime-control issue," he said. At least half of his
clientele has a drug or alcohol problem. "If there's not a place for us to
put them, it could lead to future criminal activity," he said. "That's a
scope from burglaries to violence to other people ... that spreads all the
way to impacting our local county jail."

Clients Can't Afford to Pay

The 14-day unit serves about 400 people a year. It is the only treatment
center in the Macon area where alcoholics and drug addicts can come and
live for a couple of weeks after going through detox and get some intensive
counseling without having to pay.

So Hinton and Akin were dismayed when they learned recently that the unit,
run by River Edge Behavioral Health Center, is about to shut its doors. The
last client is expected to leave Wednesday afternoon.

River Edge director Frank Fields was dismayed, too, but he said he has no
choice. With his agency facing another budget deficit after years of
tightening restrictions on Medicaid, he said he must find places to make cuts.

And this won't be the only one.

"The way we're going about doing that is looking at the programs that, one,
are not revenue-producing and, two, wouldn't be life-threatening (to
lose)," Fields said. "We are working our way down that list." He said the
center has begun to charge for some services that once were free.

River Edge operates as a nonprofit, independent agency but is part of the
state's system of public services for mental health, developmental
disabilities and substance-abuse treatment. It served about 7,600 clients
last year. Many clients can't afford to pay. About half of River Edge's $22
million budget comes through Medicaid.

Fields said last year he was forced to use $300,000 of his contingency fund
to make up a deficit.

This year, he said, he's facing a deficit of $850,000 to $1 million.
Cutting the 14-day program will save about $250,000 a year.

Fields said the 14-day unit has a waiting list and is generally limited to
addicts and alcoholics who, in the staff's opinion, seem strongly motivated
to get clean and sober.

It generates no Medicaid funds because Medicaid does not cover
substance-abuse services.

Essential Middle Step

The news about the 14-day closure sparked rumors that River Edge itself is
shutting down, which Fields hastened to dispel.

"River Edge is not closing," Fields said. He said his agency will continue
to offer its short-term substance-abuse detox and counseling services at
the Recovery Center on Fulton Mill Road, and its day-services for substance
abuse at the Emery Highway office.

But Fields said losing the residential program is a hard blow. It was, he
said, an essential middle step between drying out and getting back to some
kind of normal life. "Too often when you detox somebody four or five days,
and you put them out, you've just got them to the point where they go out
and get drunk again and it starts all over again."

Many clients, like Hinton, say the two-week program literally meant the
difference between life and death.

"Without a doubt, it saved my life," said Debbie, a 41-year-old Macon-area
woman who asked to be identified only by her first name.

She said that after years of trying to quit drinking, she was at the point
of suicide when she went through detox at the Recovery Center. The staff
there recommended her for the residential unit. It's a long hallway lined
by small bedrooms with simple furnishings. The clients undergo an intense
daily regime of counseling and education. At night, there are recovery
meetings with groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. There is no TV.

Debbie said that while there, she was forced to confront issues that were
tied up in her drinking: the memory of abuse from her childhood and guilt
from her own experience as a mother.

"It was real tough. I got mad, the counselor got mad, we got mad together.
We worked through it," she said.

Fourteen months later she is still clean, sober and now working for River
Edge with clients who have a dual diagnosis of mental illness and substance
abuse.

She said losing the 14-day program will be a blow to other people with
needs like hers.

"I had tears in my eyes when I heard about it," she said. "A lot of
people's lives are going to be impacted by it. A lot of lives."

Not Getting Better

About two dozen agencies like River Edge make up a statewide network of
public services for mental health, developmental disabilities and substance
abuse. Technically, they are called "community service boards."

Brad Borum is executive director of the Georgia Association of Community
Service Boards. He said many of them face difficult budget choices like the
one that led to the 14-day unit's closure at River Edge.

"For the past several years the CSBs have been cut to the bone," he said.
"Because the state budget situation is worsening by the year, a lot of them
have been making those kinds of decisions."

He said, "They're all at a point now where they're looking at that kind of
thing. We're fearful of the next legislative session and the next budget
process, because it doesn't seem like things are getting better."

The Georgia Department of Community Health administers Medicaid, a
federal-state program that serves low-income and disabled people.
Spokeswoman Julie Kerwin said Georgia's total Medicaid budget for fiscal
2005 comes to $5.9 billion. Of that total, $1.9 billion comes from the state.

Kerwin said that as Georgia has gone through several years of tight
revenue, her department has had to make cuts, reducing eligibility, the
scope of services, the amount of reimbursement and the extent of
utilization. She said the department has tried to keep the cuts from
falling disproportionately on any one area. But she acknowledged that it
hasn't been easy for many of the agencies and people that depend on Medicaid.

"Everybody is feeling the brunt of the economic situation that we've been
faced with in the last few years," she said.

Hinton, the recovering addict at the Macon Rescue Mission, said when he
heard the 14-day program was closing, "I wanted to go out and picket."

He said he thinks of other people like him who need the service.

"They're still out there, and I know it ain't getting no easier," he said.
"I think once this program is no longer there, you're going to have a lot
of people psychologically sick. They're probably going to end up in
institutions, and they're going to cost the state even more money. If they
would keep this program, it will make a world of difference."