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.