Pubdate: Sat, 24 Dec 2005
Source: Journal News, The (NY)
Copyright: 2005 The Gannett Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.nyjournalnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1205
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

REAL NEED, REAL HELP

Unfortunately, entire generations of Rocklanders can relate to drugs, 
with more than enough families, work places and schools affected in 
some fashion by this scourge of the last half of the 20th century and 
beyond. So, whatever can be done to limit its tentacles should be applauded.

The Open Arms program is part of the treatment. As Dana, a 
25-year-old, recently told staff writer Ron X. Gumucio: "This place 
saved my life." This place being a Garnerville apartment overseen by 
Open Arms, an agency that provides residential treatment services for 
newly recovering alcohol and drug addicts.

Dana has been clean for more than a year and credits Open Arms for 
giving her a second chance. She had been battling an almost 
decade-long drug addiction, recently became homeless and figured this 
would be her life, for better or worse: "Cocaine, pills, alcohol, in 
the end, it was whatever. I didn't care as long as it got me high."

The treatment facility opened in Haverstraw (village) in 1980 and has 
steadily expanded its outreach programs for men and women. With a 
budget of $650,000 annually, Open Arms operates a halfway house and a 
three-quarter house for men in the village, and a network of 
"clean-and-sober" community apartments as well as supportive-living 
facilities for men and women in nearby Garnerville.

Open Arms recently expanded its Women and Children's Center, clearing 
space to give mothers a chance to have supervised and unsupervised 
visits with their children, a parenting workshop and a play area for 
the children. Most of the women come from Rockland, Westchester and 
Orange counties and range in age from 18 to 65. They must have 
completed a 30-day rehabilitation program and usually are referred by 
Nyack Hospital, Child Protective Services, the Department of Social 
Services or a family or drug court.

There are rules and regulations, which is the absolute must in any 
recovering substance abuser's life. While free will takes a detour in 
addiction, in recovery it returns, and you must continually climb the 
ladder of success. Every day. Even the most conservative among us 
must support the humanitarian effort to refocus the individual, and, 
besides, rescuing the addicted saves society money in reduced crime, 
incarceration expense and medical expenses. A good investment, therefore.

As Dana says: "I'm not leaving Open Arms to sleep on somebody's 
couch. I'm not leaving early to go backward." Between 60 percent and 
65 percent of the people who go through the intensive program are 
able to maintain long-term sobriety, reports founder Dick Voigt.

Once in Rockland, few even knew the word marijuana, but the end of 
both the Great Depression and World War II brought an international 
drug market financed and supported by both organized crime and 
willing governments catering to the addicted.

The men and women affected cannot be ignored if any of us are to hold 
our heads high as human beings.

Applause is due the Open Arms program and other similar efforts.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman