SEEDS OF HOPE SEWN ON 'DRUNK FARM'

WHEN BORIS ROSOLAK arrived at work yesterday he found bottles of Lysol and
Aqua Velva on his desk. No one was cleaning, nobody getting dolled up. They
had been some clients' beverages of choice the night before. And they
rather made Rosolak's point that there ought to be a better way.

Rosolak manages Seaton House, the downtown men's hostel. On Wednesday, city
council is to consider his plan to set up a farm outside town for homeless
alcoholics. It would let up to 20 men live, work, learn a routine, while
still being allowed to drink. It would produce cash crops and apparently be
cost-effective.

And, of course, it's already been dubbed a ``drunk farm'' and made fodder
for 1,000 jokes.

The sneering disappointed Rosolak. Maybe if others sat where he does, there
would be less of it.

Seaton House is where the casualties of life's harsher vicissitudes end up.
Most days, success means keeping a lid on the place; to make progress is to
make things less bad. Ergo, the hostel's philosophy of harm-reduction and
Rosolak's hopes for the farm.

For two years, a Seaton House annex has allowed some homeless alcoholics to
bring bottles in at night.

The theory is it does less damage to the client to drink alcohol than
solvents, does less harm to the community when they are less drunk or less
ill.

Alcoholism is a complex disease, about which even the medical establishment
is woefully ignorant. That heredity, neurochemical function, social custom,
life trauma all contribute is a debate for others. To Rosolak, the question
is simple:

``Are we going to watch him die in public for the next 20 years of his
life? Or are we going to try to take more determined stances to try to get
this guy help?''

To insist on absolute abstinence, he says, is to lose the chance for
improvement.

``Our experience would say that once you're drinking Lysol and rubbing
alcohol and Aqua Velva, you're beyond conventional goals. Very few guys
make it from drinking Lysol back to Bay Street. So who are we fooling?''

If the client gets healthier, if less damage is done, less cost incurred,
so be it. And if modern times are short on compassion, Rosolak hopes
economics will win support for the farm.

What he knows is that ``some of our poster boys for this campaign'' are
responsible, when on the streets, for dozens of 911 calls a year, which can
easily eat up $100,000 in costs.

And what his staff has found is that, once inside the so-called ``wet''
hostel, weaned off things like Lysol, improvement can occur.

``They put together a community of 30 guys who individually are very
difficult to get along with and manage. They put them in a communal
setting, they created a sense of partnership, they created a sense of
interdependence, friendship. I don't want to sound too hokey, but they
created an atmosphere of concern and compassion and love.''

It's really not very hokey at all.

Most recovering addicts will tell you that the journey back began with a
tiny glimmer of hope, maybe something heard and recognized in another's
story, the peace seen in a stranger's eyes.

And if hope is the seed of recovery, some structure and renewed human
relationships form the trellis on which it grows.

``Without a pathway out of homelessness, you're beyond hope,'' Rosolak says.

``And being beyond hope is a very desperate place to be.''

One often hears politicians say of their pet programs that if it saves a
single life it's worth it. On Wednesday, when council considers the Seaton
House plan, we'll know whether that applies to all lives.

Or just the neat and tidy ones.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski