I wrote a story for today's paper that I hope people will read. It's about an 18-year-old girl named Barbara Wells that apparently drank herself to death a couple of months after the state shutdown a drug treatment program she was in. This is essentially what people who'd been through this program said would happen if the program shut down and was replaced by more out-patient type services.
Barbara was old enough to know better. Maybe her family should have taken better care of her. Maybe taxpayers shouldn't be forced to treat anyone with an addiction. Maybe that can be handled in the private sector and with charity.
It is so hard to keep people from hurting each other in this world, and it's even harder to stop them from hurting themselves.
But I look at the picture Barbara's mother sent us for the story I just think: "That girl needed help."
I hope that people, and particularly our elected decision makers, see people when they look at numbers. Every budget cut affects a real person. Every increase takes money from a real person's pocket. Government doesn't need to be abstract. It needs to be understood as a very real and very pervasive force in everyone's life, and the consequences of political decisions have to be acknowledged.
6 comments:
As someone who worked at a community mental health center about 3 years ago, I can say it is shameful that our government continues to cut funding for mental health services. So much good can be done for those that need it desperately but cannot afford private treatment. Placing people back in society and expecting them to function is not the answer.
During my time in the field, I saw the quality of treatment decline so much because of budget cuts that I could not continue to work there and see people denied access to treatment.
It's a horrible thing that is happening to our mental health system and I can only hope someone will take notice soon.
Good article Travis. You accurately assess that while it is not the Governments fault this girl died, more should have been done. The quote that you have from the State Senator is telling. He states that he was given assurances. Well assurances don't translate to taking addicts out of impatient treatment centers before they are ready. The Legislature has some blame in this. These facilities are being de-funded all over the state and they continue to act stunned when tragedies such as Barbara's happen. Something needs to be done or more tragedies like this will happen.
6/22/07
Travis,
Another decade and how deeply your story moved me adds to the urgency to share these kind of things. This was addressed to one of our local alternative publication "writer/editors" after yet another one of his "self absorbed drinking" is soooo cool blogs... Guess this destroys my 10 year sober vow to run for Govuhner :-) but so be it, the story needs to be shared... I had like the best parents ever but my family tree is filled with more addiction stories than carter has pills...
Vic
Okay Mr "writer/editor," i know Sunday Sermon and Fathers Day are over but one of my circa 1980ish twelve step group Mentors died of a massive heart attack on Thursday. i still can‘t find anything out about his funeral arrangements. The AJC has him listed as LifeStory&PersonID=8&&&&&& He deserves better than that, so here goes…
Circa late 70's early 80s, 8&&&&&& took over as my "Second" twelve step group sponsor-mentor after my "First" sponsor relapsed when his wife relapsed & left him. To win her back, sponsor-mentor number "One" shot himself through the cheek with a 22 caliber rifle when his wife returned to say she was leaving for good cause the liquor was running out.
As Karma would have it, i happened to be in the house, trying to take him to detox in Milledgeville and called an ambulance. When he & his wife got back together, they called me over to what i thought was going to be a thank you dinner. Well, not quite, they were both still drunk and presented me with the ambulance bill and said, “This is your responsibility, you called 911.”
A few years ago, i heard sponsor-mentor number "One" died of a heart attack, after his wife got mad at their neighbor and tried to set the neighbor’s house on fire with gasoline. In the process, she caught herself on fire and sponsor number One keeled over with a mha at the site of her on fire. This was after she tried to make her car fly over the old Hazel St Bridge, which is now a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks.
So circa late 70s/early 80s, being the only socially retarded, sick and tired of being sick and tired 19-20ish year old in a small group of on and off again 40 to 70 year old twelve steppers that met in a hole in the wall on Vineville Avenue, i had to find another recovery sponsor-mentor.
8&&&&&&, being an gregarious, personable, wise,40ish, itinerately successful Black businessman from Baltimore takes me under his wing as a protege. He was Chairperson for the “International Conference of Young People in Recovery Meeting” which was held in Atlanta that year.
Due to my advanced late teen drinking, almost every friend i ever had disappeared claiming they couldn’t watch me destroy myself. The fellow young alkies that drank with me til the bitter end disappeared when i joined the TS Group. The transition was a massively lonely period.
My first drink, around 11 years of age, was all i needed to overcome all the social fears that an ordinary 11 year old has. It worked on and off as a social lubricant for 8 more years until i had a moment of clarity coming back from a keg party at Mercer.
When i sobered up, i was certain that i was one of the most socially retarded people on the planet. And it was partly true because teen drinking makes one miss the emotional development that a non anesthetized adolescence has to go through.
So, 8&&&&&&, having been there, done that, spots my stunted development and decides to teach me to socially swim. He makes me co-chair of the Social Committee for the “International Young People in Recovery Conference.” Young people in recovery from 42 countries showed up. After having to greet and shake hands with what seemed like 5,000 people, something shifted inside of me and my self centered fears subsided.
Up til then i was so shy and self conscious that without a drink, I couldn’t endorse a check in public, i’d literally start trembling. Believe it or not, i was the proverbial “quiet one.”
With the guidance of 8&&&&&&, over a period of a couple of years, i learned self consciousness is a form of self centeredness. Learning to focus on people, places & things beyond myself helped me grow though the social phobias and a little foxhole praying greased the wheels.
As Karma would have it, in social situations, luckily a drink doesn’t even cross my mind today. i’ve attended wine dinners, musical events, nightclubs etc and am still so oblivious to what is being served or what people are drinking that it doesn’t even enter into my psyche.
I’m sad knowing that I won’t hear 8&&&&&&'s booming laugh again, but then again maybe I still can and do. Thank you 8&&&&&&
RUN "Mr Alternative Writer/Editor" RUN…
-?The End or The Beginning?-
Travis, you know nothing of this young eighteen year old girl and you should not be so arrogant that it couldnt happen to you as a parent. You call people in the middle of the night and threaten to write an article or comment whether one is given to you or not, you take things out of context for your own story, and you bring tears to a mother's eyes who has suffered so much. Did you think she is suffering from her loss? Here's some food for thought. In Georgia you can run away from home at seventeen and your parents are still responsible or liable but cannot get help bringing your child home. Georgia allows this before a child has a chance to graduate. Something wrong with this picture? There are people that feel it's all in the parents hands. There are lots of single parents out there that may not easily do it as well as a two parent family, there are two parent families that are struggling and then there are arrogant parents out there saying not my child, wake up!!!! There are many of us that don't really know what our kids are doing no matter how much you try to follow up And by the way, did you include that perhaps there was some awful tragedy that sent Barbara down this path? Did you think for one minute that it's not some spoiled over -indulgent child, but someone who's had to face adult issues before her time? You write like your writing for a high school newspaper, get your facts, think carefully about what you write and don't forget your compassion!!!! It seems to me you have none.
Travis, I applaud what you are trying to do for these girls, although I believe you are only doing it for you own twisted self promotion. I don't see how one phone call which you probably call "research" can possibly give you any authority to write an article, let alone a thinly veiled memorial for anyone. Barbi was a beautiful girl who brought joy to everyone around her and deserves to be remembered in that way, not as someone who "drank herself to death", as you so lovingly put it. To even post a blog titled "Barbara Wells, rest in peace" and then for all intents and purposes drag her name and memory through the mud in the name of politics, especially without even knowing a thing about her is sick. I don't know who you are or what kind of agenda you have, but being a part of the media, no matter how small it is, you do have the power to influence as well as affect many people. Next time you decide to write a "story" about someone, especially someone you claim you are trying to "help", maybe you should take a little extra time to get it right.
Love you Barbi
ummm it is the governments fault all the girls still in and ones that had already graduated begged for sonny perdue to atleast just listen. They talked to every member that looked at them,when do you ever see young people some court ordered to be in the place, actually beg to keep it open.Most young people,speaking from experience,would love for it to close cause that meant they wouldn't be stuck in a facility anymore.They were ignorant to the fact.This makes me so andry and dissappointed.All the girls were progressing and all of them loved eachother.It was a place you could say things you'd never have the guts to say anywhere else.Most of the time is because the other people don't care and won't be listening to you anyway,for example the people with sonny perdue.The sad part about it is whats happening to the others that didn't and won't ever get the chance to go to katharos or any other inpatieny facility like those.Barbara was one theres already been more, and there will be more.And what is Sonny doing about that,i guess whats said is done,every man for himself huh? I pray Sonny will one day open his eyes to this matter cause it does effect people a lot more than he can even imagine.And its just going to get worst if he doesn't do th right thing.So everybody quit writing about it and make something happen.
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