Pubdate: Thu, 09 Dec 2004
Source: Ledger-Enquirer (GA)
Copyright: 2004 Ledger-Enquirer
Contact:  http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/enquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/237
Author: Kaffie Sledge

ONLY TAKES ONE BAD APPLE

We're still trying to understand why some Columbus Council members
voted to rezone Murray Hills so Teen Challenge could set up shop in in
the old St. Stephens United Methodist Church building.

Teen Challenge is a respected nonprofit Christian-based residential
rehabilitation program, but I doubt if the council members whose vote
gave the go-ahead for Teen Challenge were doing unto Murray Hills as
they would have done unto them in their own neighborhoods. They, in
fact, dissed the homeowners when they voted to allow a group of women
with alcohol and drug addictions to move in.

Are Gary Allen, Wayne Anthony and Nathan Suber the only councilors who
realize how risky the business of rehab is?

It seems more council members would have followed Anthony's lead. He
is a veteran in the counseling profession, and he has personal ties
with someone on the Teen Challenge board. Do the seven counselors who
did not vote with him, think they know better than he does?

When residents were still battling to keep their neighborhood Teen
Challenge-free, a caller to a local radio talk show said she couldn't
understand what all the ruckus was about.

Of course, she was not a Murray Hills resident, so I wonder if she
would want it in her own neighborhood. Her opinion, however, seemed to
be based largely on Teen Challenge's religious affiliation.

If addiction was simply a sin, then religion would be all that was
needed. But addiction requires physical, mental, emotional, as well as
spiritual interventions for recovery to be possible.

Addiction and denial spawn a number of myths, one of which is that
"God can remove the taste for it (alcohol and drugs) from me." That
may be, but God's purpose is not to do for us what we can do for
ourselves. So anyone who expects miracles without working through
rehab is on shaky ground.

"People want to deny that addiction is an illness, despite the fact
that it has been recognized by the American Medical Association as a
disease since the 1950s," said Suzi Kahler.

"Once one has the disease of addiction, one will always have it. It
doesn't go away -- but recovery can be attained through daily
implementation of personal recovery tools. Addiction is also a disease
characterized by the propensity for relapse. Much like diabetics,
addicts must practice daily recovery-based actions to prevent relapse
into drug use," said Kahler, director of Columbus' Bradford Health
Services, an outpatient and residential addiction recovery program for
adults and adolescents. Not everyone who enrolls in Teen Challenge or
any other recovery program is going to be successful. Sometimes it
takes an addict a number of times to get into the right zone to "get
clean and stay clean." Relapse is not to be taken lightly. Murray
Hills will definitely not be Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. People break
lots of laws and commit lots of crimes when they relapse. And it only
takes one bad apple.
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