NO HELP FOR THOSE WHO DIE ALONE IN THE NIGHT

First in a series about the impending cutbacks of services and lack of
treatment options for substance abusers.

Sometimes a story drops in your lap, even when you don't want it to. When
the reporter from Florida called me about a woman who died in jail
recently, I already knew I needed to work on the story.

Evidently the officers should have known when they picked the woman up that
she'd never make it in jail. But why should they go out of their way for
someone who refused to help herself? They'd been down this road with her
before and nothing ever changed. She was just a drunk.

Her apartment should have been their first clue. Anyone who has to wade
through an ocean of bags full of empty beer cans strewn amid dirty laundry,
cat feces and bird droppings probably has a problem. The smell should have
tipped them off, too. It was painfully obvious she'd lost control of her
bowels and bladder.

If that weren't enough, had they taken a moment to scan the kitchen, they
would have realized she hadn't had electricity for months - no
refrigeration, no lights, no heat, candles and burned-down matches strewn
everywhere, a camp cookstove only half put together because she was too
weak to finish the job herself. Half-eaten food, rotting where it was left.

When all else failed, they could have looked at the suspect herself. At 5
feet 6 inches, she should have weighed a lot more than 90 pounds.

And if they'd asked themselves why she'd written the bad checks in the
first place, they might have figured out her worn out body was so desperate
for alcohol that even the threat of jail was better than the nightmare of
shaking to death alone in her apartment.

They could have also done the obvious and looked at her arrest record. It
was all right there in black and white: bad checks, DUIs, leaving the scene
of an accident, failure to appear. Under Florida law, anyone so
alcohol-dependent they can no longer refrain from criminal actions to
obtain liquor should and must be helped.

Then again, they were only cops. True, they'd had a lot of experience with
drunks - any police officer will tell you that dealing with alcoholics is
part of the daily routine - but they weren't medics. How were they supposed
to know?

Of course the nurse in the jail dispensary was the real safety net anyway.
It was her job to determine how sick the inmates were, not the arresting
officers'. But assessments take time, and who wants to be bothered with
someone so obviously married to the bottle she'd stand on the street corner
and beg for change for a pint of wine rather than buy herself a decent meal?

No, old alcoholics aren't pretty, or fun, or nice to be around. They
deserve to go to jail when they drink and drive, when they leave the scene
of an accident they've caused, when they write bad checks.

But they don't deserve to die for it. Especially when alcohol is legal, and
all too easy to get. Any society that decides to play with fire owes it to
itself to invest in bandages. And treatment facilities.

It seems that in Florida, where our true story happened, there's not quite
enough money to go around these days. Sound familiar? Florida legislators
are scrambling to make ends meet. Like many other states, it appears
they've decided that some services can be cut, like adequate medical
attention for indigent drunks and substance abuse treatment programs for
down-and-outers who can't seem to make it through the day without a fix.

Since Sept. 11, we've been too busy scouring airports for swarthy strangers
and cattle stalls for anthrax to notice that narco terrorism is by far the
most lethal form of terrorism we have to fear. It's not a maybe, it's a
given, and it's here right now all around us. Afghanistan's most effective
weapon against the Great White Satan is the lowly poppy.

Legal, but no less dangerous, is alcohol.

You'd think George Bush, brother of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, would be the
first to realize that, in light of his own struggle with alcohol. After his
heartwarming confession of his battle with booze, one would think substance
abuse treatment facilities would be right near the top of his priority
list. Especially since his own daughters seem to have problems in the same
area.

But I digress. We were talking about a broken-down drunk who couldn't even
walk without a cane even though she was only two years older than me. And
to think I used to lie in bed next to her when we were little girls, and
pray that someday I could be as pretty as she was.

I've always wondered what else I could do to help my sister. I loved her as
hard as I could, but it didn't seem to matter. Nothing mattered except
alcohol, even though it was killing her.

That's why I've spent the last two years calling everyone I could think of
in the State of Florida trying to get them to take their own laws
seriously. You wouldn't believe what beautiful laws they've written to take
care of indigent alcoholics who need help. They're all right there under
Chapter 397 of the Florida statutes on MyFlorida.com.

But my sister didn't die in the medical ward of the jail. She was not
deemed sick enough to merit that kind of special care. Detox can be
expensive. They did give her her own cell though, all to herself.

But let's give credit where credit is due: At least she died in a clean bed.