.6 BAC . . . should be an automatic ticket to rehab, but its harder than you would think. (For those who are not used to looking at Blood Alcohol Contents – .3 – .4 can mean death for many people, but not a practiced severe alcoholic.)
Some of you read the trials and tribulations of a homeless person I know and attempts to get them help. Well, the saga continues.
UPDATE
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, this person was at first willing to go to outpatient treatment. Then switched to saying they would do inpatient. HUGE VICTORY!!!!!! Yay! This person wants to go to treatment and seems serious about it!!!
Short lived. Their partner (also homeless) has been working the phones, got the hospital to keep the person until yesterday morning when this person was to go to the assessment at Detox. We thought that the next step would then be to go to Hope Haven for 3 weeks or so of inpatient treatment and then to a more flexible program.
Sadly, that is not going to happen. Why? Well, this person has Medicare or Medicaid and that program doesn’t accept it. If this person didn’t have that assistance, then they could get in. I know, it makes no sense. I know several other people with no income at all that the county paid for – but since this person has some assistance, they don’t qualify to go. The only other inpatient option is in Marshfield Wisconsin.
The current plan is for this person to stay at detox for a few days and then do intensive outpatient treatment and stay at a safe house.
I smell failure – this person needs inpatient treatment.
I also just don’t get it.
No inpatient treatment in town for people who have medicare or medicaid assistance?
Staying in detox even tho the person detoxed in the hospital since Thursday night? When others could be using that resource?
And, worst of all, the partner of this person spent a lot of time calling a lot of people and then would call me and I would explain what was needed (ex. the hospital can’t release the person at noon on Monday if they need to be at detox at 9:00). I know very little about they “system” but I know some basics – why don’t the people working in the system know that is how it works?
LECTURE FROM LYNN GREEN
I sent my blog post to a bunch of elected officials and city and county staff with this note “What can be done to prevent this from happening again? Nothing? Something? Anything? I’m shocked this person is not dead.”
I got this response.
Brenda –
Why must there be a failure or a “bad guy” here? Everyone cares and is working as hard at this as you are. Unless a person is willing to engage in meaningful treatment and desires to make changes, no matter how hard we all try, we can only offer services/resources and cannot forcibly intervene until it reaches the point of involuntary commitment.
It is unfair to indicate that the service providers and others you name and more have “failed” or not tried. There are legal and human limits to what can be done despite all our efforts. As a lawyer, you more than many of us know that.
Lynn
Lynn Green, Director
Dane County Dept. of Human Services
Oh yeah, blame the homeless person. Assume they don’t want help. But we offered services . . . we tried.
Bullshit.
RESPONSES TO LYNN GREEN
First me . . .
This person is a danger to themselves. They have a huge burn on their back from passing out on a heater to prove that. This person has been to the hospital twice and they have treated the burn. This person couldn’t use the restroom by themselves or control their bowel movements. This person is constantly falling down and hurting themselves (broken finger at one point as well) This person has been taken to jail and detox for behaviors that were out of control. This person seriously cannot take care of themselves. And they certainly can’t manage their serious medications on their own at this point. At some point, someone in authority has to step in.
This isn’t a failure of any one person – it is a failure of a system. Our community is failing this person. This is not an acceptable situation. I hope you agree with that, in the very least.
If we can’t treat the alcoholism, we need a shelter system that can take these homeless people instead of letting them stay outside at night when it is cold. Especially when they are drinking this heavily – unfortunately, too heavily to get in, even on cold weather exception nights.
On the good news side of things – hopefully this person will be entering New Start today . . .this is the 4th time they said they would, hopefully they don’t chicken out again as they sober up. I won’t hold my breath, but I will be hoping this time they really hit rock bottom.
Another response from an office mate who heard me being upset about this . . .
Hello everyone,
I’d like to contribute something here because I’m not seeing the disagreement others seem to be seeing. First an introduction for those of you who don’t know me yet: I became a housing counselor at TRC in 2009, and recently came on as Program Director. I have been an activist for many years around housing issues, among others, and all of my work is informed by harm reduction philosophy.
I really appreciated Brenda’s summary of her relationship with this person and the programs that she tried to connect this person with, specifically because it didn’t seem to me Brenda was blaming any individuals — neither service providers nor the alcoholic in question. I think Lynn’s comments are equally important — that alcoholism is a debilitating and confounding disease, and that this is part of the reason why services are so hard to provide. I’m very sure that all of us are committed to finding ever better solutions, especially in extreme situations where someone’s life is in danger — just as we find solutions for someone in a wheelchair who needs a different escape route from a burning building.
Brenda’s calling out something many of us, and certainly everyone in this conversation, is already aware of: That our systems for taking care of each other are broken. There are many cracks people can fall through, and their roots go so far back it’s impossible to trace them conclusively. This is as true for shelter policies as it is for having alcoholism in your family.
That said, obviously our jobs are to find conclusive ways to go forward. Part of our responsibility at TRC is to understand the systems that are in place, since we make hundreds of referrals every year to homeless services. We also know many of the other homeless activists and allies who are working to fill the cracks in the system. It sounds like a major breakdown in communication is happening around what the system even is, let alone how we all might improve it.
What would be most helpful on our end is an explanation of how, when, and whether someone can be committed for care, what that process looks like, who decides the level of danger to themselves or others, and what their care will look like. And, if the current system is unable to help people who are too sick with their alcoholism to help themselves, what safety nets are in place (or might be put in place, short-term or long-term) to begin instead by reducing the harm of deadly exposure to the elements, lack of food, etc.? Right now, we only know what Brenda knows, as stated in her recent blog post.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I do know Brenda and I are honestly asking that question, and we’re willing to be part of the answer. And we both agree with Lynn that these challenges get very personal and very demanding, for anyone involved. I think that’s as good a starting point as we can get and I sincerely look forward to a continued conversation.
Anders Zanichkowsky
No response from Ms. Green. A couple county board supervisors responded.
WTF?
This is why people give up and stop trying. Everything is so hard, even when you want to do the right thing. The partner of this person probably said it best. “I thought (x) was finally going to be safe and I didn’t need to worry all the time.” Instead, this homeless person is stuck trying to take care of a person that they love, and doesn’t work on their own issues and the two remain homeless because the partner has a 24/7 job of making sure this person doesn’t hurt themselves in some way.
Yeah, lots of issues there. I know. But . . . it seems that we can do better to give people a chance at success, instead of continuing to put up roadblocks that make everything so damn hard. We, the system, the community – no one in particular.
