Hi William. There is some Great Information Here that You Provided. Thank You. I can Relate with Many of the Things you mention. I come from an Alcoholic Abusive Family. Actually My Dad was the Alcoholic and Abuser. I have a Younger Brother and Our Sister is the Youngest of the Three of us. My Mom was the Abused, Mentally and Phsically and ofcourse all of us Kids were Mentally and sometimes Physically abused. Although My Brother and I Turned out Ok even though we Might still Have Our emotional Scars, My Sister did Not. She has been a Drug Addict for Many Years Off and On. Now she has added on Alcoholism as well. I have Known for Many Years that she Has Mental Issues. She Lived with My Dad in Texas for many Years when she was a Teen and My Brother and I stayed here in Ohio with Our Mom. She has Managed to Block alot of Abuse, from Dad toward Mom, Out. She is in Major Denial Just Like she is with her Actions. She also Started Dating The wrong Men. The Kind of Men with Police Records and The Kind of Men that You Pick up in the Trashy Bars. Those type of Men. To this Day, She still is Only attracted to those type of Men. I know it Has to do some with an insecurity Issue, But no matter what we have said to her, She does not Listen. Ofcourse Now that she is an addict, there is Hardly no getting through to her. She has done Many Things that has Left Emotional Scars on her and the Rest of the Family. The Court System and the Mental Health Agencies Suck Here in Greene County(excuse My choice of the word), But they do. The Jails are Overcrowded and the Drug Addicts Make too much Money for the City, so they just turn them Loose the Same Day they get Arrested. They will not enforce any Drug Rehabilitation for them. They just sit back and slowly let them Kill themselves and Destroy The Families that are involved. I know I have alot of Anger Toward My Sister and the (so called) System But I sure aint gonna get Help for that Around Here! LOL. I know this is not a Laughing Matter, But the System is a Joke here. There is No Help for Drug Addicts around here. An Addict sometimes has to wait for Months Before a Bed Opens up. This is Not a Big City Like New York or Dallas or Chicago! This is Xenia. A Small Town in Ohio. In My Opinion, The System needs a Major Overhaul. New Judges, Certified Mental Health Professionals and Stricter Guidelines, especially for Repeat Drug Offenders! Just Thought I would share this with you. Thank You William for Your Valuable Information. Your Friend, Shelly Hargis

Hi Shelly. I keep thinking about what you and your family must be going through with your sister. It can tear the heart from a family trying to deal with someone who has a dual diagnosis. The following is an article that I found to be very informative and I hope it is the same for you. Maybe you could even share it with your sister some time. It might make her rethink her position on booze and drugs. Sometimes this will lead someone into recovery. I hope It haelps you and your family. Article Launched: 10/25/2005 05:05:00 PM Recovery works for substance abuse and mental illness Bruce A. Fountain For the Daily Facts Most people have heard of the concept of recovery as it applies to alcohol or substance abuse. Emphasis is on self-help, abstinence from substance use, lifestyle changes and an acceptance of a higher power. Sex addicts, gamblers, shoppers, and co-dependents can find help in recovery groups. What may not be well known is the more recent emphasis on the recovery model in the mental health field. In this type of treatment model, the patient is the final decision maker not the treating physician. The recovery model borrows from the very successful 12-step recovery movement which relies on individuals within the group to help each other. In recovery, the patient decides which types of treatment he or she receives, which means better control and more choices. It also means healing with dignity. Recovery starts with accepting the mental illness. It means coming to terms with being different as well as the same. Different can mean that he or she is now able to feel emotions in a deeper way or be more empathetic than before the illness. It may mean accepting that certain habits must be relinquished, like staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning, or drinking alcohol or caffeine. Recovery can restore a life of purpose and joy. These aspects can be wiped out by mental illness. Depression, unipolar and bipolar disorders can leave an individual feeling so dark and hopeless that just getting through the day can take all the strength a person can muster. The person may lose touch with meaning of life. Recovery can help reveal the purpose in each day and lessen worry about the future. Anxiety can color a person's world with fear and confine a person to his or her home. The person becomes so over-focused on the frightening details of a task that the big picture gets lost. For years, people with mental illness have lived with a stigma. That can be traumatic if it means they are rejected by spouses, friends, children and employers. Recovery is an attitude of acceptance. If a patient and his or her family can accept that the person has a mental illness, the person can feel more free to seek out a variety of resources that will help recover a high quality of life. Ideally, society could play a huge role in remaking the image of mental illness by accepting that an individual with mental illness can still be a productive human being and that he or she is capable of contributing greatly to society. Many times, society discounts a person's worth by reducing a human being to a label. "He is bipolar," or "She is obsessive-compulsive." People aren't mental illnesses they suffer from them. Recovery implies hope. Many people do recover from mental illness or manage it in a dignified way. They can lead highly functional lives. Even those with severe mental illness can recover high-quality lives. There are recovery communities where individuals with severe mental illness can live together for support and accountability. Through the process, they will learn what treatments they need and a daily routine that enables them to be productive. They will then be able to take those skills with them when they transfer home. Recovery can also apply to issues that may not be as devastating as mental illness, but are still emotional injuries. A couple who is recovering from an affair can also benefit from the attitude of recovery. In 12-step recovery, the concept of a higher power is used. A higher power can be God, but can also be any higher source. The decision is left up to the individual. If the recovering couple can accept that a higher power can bring healing into their lives which they have been unable to, greater trust and intimacy can be injected into a relationship which was once on life support. Recovery is an attitude of humility and strength. It lies within the alcoholic, the addict and the mentally ill. Hopefully, the future will bring more attention to the recovery model. The Internet has many useful web sites. Just enter recovery model. Bruce A. Fountain is a licensed marriage and family therapist. He can be reached at (909) 792-9797 or via e-mail at halfhook34@verizon.net

Hello Shelly and Friends If you want to hear about someone with a vision and the willpower to see it through About a man with the ability to get an entire community to recognize a serious problem and rally together to do something about it. If you really need to hear that finally someone is doing something about homeless veteransm, the mentally ill, the sick, the stray and the lonely people of this world, then you came to the right place. Now my friends, here is your chance to do a little something special. Read this article. Copy it. Sent it to your legislators, your mayors, your councilmen. Send it to anyone that you think has enough sense to read this and understand that if you ignore a problem, it never, ever goes away. Campus aims to help homeless in Valley William Hermann The Arizona Republic Nov. 6, 2005 12:00 AM A new, innovative, brimming-with-hope "campus" to serve the Valley's homeless opens Monday in downtown Phoenix, and Mark Holleran said he'll have to keep a strong grip on his emotions at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Holleran is the director of the Central Arizona Shelter Services emergency homeless shelter, which is relocating to the campus. He is also a key figure in creating the new facility. "People said this was impossible, but here it is," an exhausted-from-12-hour-days Holleran said as he stood in the mall of the $24 million campus. Chinese Pear and Acacia trees line the pleasant walkways between the three large and gleaming buildings, which total about 150,000 square feet. advertisement "The hopes and ideas of so many people who have worked so long to help the homeless are coming together in this place," Holleran said. The 14-acre campus at 11th Avenue and Jackson Street brings together five agencies that help the homeless, as well as therapists, counselors and advisers from state, county, city and private agencies. "We've learned you need to offer a sort of 'one-stop shopping' approach," Holleran said. "You provide a comfortable place to get off the streets, provide food, medical care, substance-abuse and mental-health counseling, job counseling, housing advisers . . . everything and everybody in one place." That one place on the new campus is the Day Resource Center, the "key to the whole concept of moving people from streets to a home," Holleran said. The resource center will offer a pleasant and large, comfortable lobby where homeless people can come in off the streets and get out of the heat or cold, use a restroom, take a shower, or just rest in an easy chair. But the resource center is more than a haven: it is a magnet, where director Terry Boyer will make available substance-abuse counselors, mental-health therapists, job counselors, veterans' benefits advisers, housing advisers, "a complete collection of people who can help a person get off the streets and into a life," Boyer said. "We welcome them in and we leave them alone if that's what they want, but we're right here to help when they're ready to be helped," he said. There are about 12,000 homeless people in the Valley, with about 6,000 chronically homeless who live for months or years at a time on the streets. Until now, the chronically homeless, many suffering from mental illness, have had to go to many different agencies to find help. They could get a meal at the St. Vincent de Paul dining facility, or get medical care at Health Care for the Homeless, or find a place to sleep at CASS. Those agencies now all are on the new campus. St. Vincent de Paul is the building east of the resource center, and CASS and the clinic are next door to the west. "As near as we know there is no place in the country to offer as comprehensive a group of services to the homeless in one place," Holleran said. Corinne Velasquez, program administrator for Healthcare for the Homeless, said that almost as important as providing proximity to sister service agencies is that the new campus "offers us the room to do our job right, and offers dignity to our clients." "We're going from 6,000 square feet to 14,000 square feet, four examination rooms to eight," Velasquez said. "And we're going from a, frankly, very rundown, old building to one that will make our clients feel they are in a modern, proper clinic. That is more important than many people may realize." Dentist Kris Volcheck understands the importance of offering a modern, decent setting to homeless people who need dental care. He is "ecstatic" about the new dental clinic in a wing of the new CASS shelter. Volcheck said it has, "the most modern dental equipment available; no place in the Valley is as modern as this." Volcheck, who five years ago started a one-station dental clinic at CASS with himself as the sole dentist, helped find donations for the present clinic and has lined up 130 Valley dentists and 170 nurses and assistants to staff the eight-station facility. "I had my doubts we'd ever get the clinic going a few years ago; now this," Volcheck said, waving his arm at the perfectly appointed dental stations. "Nobody doing what we do has anything like this." The old CASS shelter stands just in front of the new campus site, and homeless people, like Bart Granger who sleeps at CASS, or who use other services in the area, have watched construction with considerable interest. Granger, 52, dressed in torn, dirty denim pants and a sweatshirt, said he wound up on the streets about 10 years ago, "when my family fell apart and I started drinking and had head problems; which was first I'm not sure." He said at first he didn't believe the new campus truly was for the homeless. "I thought it was some rich-guy trick, like it would be a fancy hotel and all of us would get the bum's rush when it was done," he said. "I've had about enough hanging on the streets and am going to be their first customer." Reach the reporter at william.hermann@arizonarepublic.com.

Wow, Bill, this is awesome! What a wonderful project! I have always contemplated being a part of something such as this...even on a small scale. I have been homeless with no resourses...sleeping in the back seat of my Ford Falcon with my two small boys. That was back when Fort Ord, in Montery, CA stood cold and empty. I wrote letters about it that received no answers. Homelessness has always been an issue with me, as I don't believe in a country such as this that it should even exist! My home is always open...some people thing I'm nuts, takin' in strangers in this day and age! It is something I have always done...it started back when I was living in a California/Mexico border town...my husband would bring home illegals crossing the fields he was plowing...he spoke fluent Spanish so they felt very welcome. They would eat and shower and then he would drive them up the road aways. It was a life-enriching experience for me. To this day, a couple of the locals will stop in from time to time, just because they know around here, they will always receive a hot meal, a hot shower, and a hug. I thought of all the empty military bases that are either empty or waiting for the wrecking ball...what is wrong with this government? I can think of many ways these bases could be put to use, eliminating the huge expense of building from scratch. Renovation would be so sensible! But what do the "fat cats" say and do? They either stand there scratching their heads and wondering what they are going to do with these facilities while they sit there going to waste or proceed to eliminate them all together. It completely astounds me! This Arizona group needs to be commended for this giant step in the right direction! Julia

Hi Julia I knew this would really get you going. I have spent a night or two in cars or in the woods or a tent somewhere too. At first you try to make yourself think that you are better off this way but soon you realize that this is no way to live. You start missing everybody and everything that used to be part of your life. Well, you know the the story. Anyhow, you are right, Mr. Bush has been closing military bases all around the country to save money so there could be a chance there for some housing for the homeless. I don't think that Gw Bush or Cheney are interested in doing anything that doesn't line the pockets of Haliburton. They could use the closed bases at least to house homeless veterans. We need to take back our democratic way of life somehow at the polls. We have to get a fair election and vote in someone that is not a member of the skull and bones. I don't know, maybe there there really isn't any way to win. I know I am at a loss for Ideas Take care Julia