No Treatment For Many Drunken Drivers
Some avoid court-ordered assessment, others receive inadequate treatment, experts say.
‘Making them aware’
Miller, medical director of the Herrington Recovery Center said historically, addiction has not been approached as a medical problem in the United States. He said treatment has tended to be “very intensive and acute,” like spending 28 days in rehab with no professional follow-up.
Pamela Bean leads the Biomarker Project, which aims to provide more accurate information about the drinking habits of drunken driving offenders. The project currently operates in seven Wisconsin counties. Photo by Amy Schereck Beyer.
The trend is now toward treatment programs that follow the patient for longer periods, he added. A new program, known as the Biomarker Project, aims to accomplish that. The pilots are occurring in Taylor, Oneida, Forest, Vilas, Dane, Waukesha and Kenosha counties.
“We’re trying to provide better treatment and closer monitoring for repeat offenders enrolled in these pilots,” said Pamela Bean, project leader, adding that previous approaches focus more on increasing fees or penalties. The goal is to make high-risk offenders more aware and accountable.
The pilots involve alcohol biological markers, or alcohol biomarkers. Subjects are required to provide a blood sample, which can detect heavy alcohol consumption for three prior weeks, or fingernail clipping, which can detect it for three prior months.
Counties in the project test biomarkers several times at critical junctures. Bean said the tests, which cost $300 per driver per year, allow assessors to recommend further treatment for certain drivers.
MacGillis wrote Bean while in prison, seeking information about her program. He has also found an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, and, once leaving prison, hopes to be a recovery speaker. He asks forgiveness for his offenses, something he said he will never live down.
“I am truly, truly sorry for being an alcoholic. Please, please forgive me,” MacGillis wrote in a letter from prison. “Please, please give me one more chance at a sober life, a good life, a peaceful life.”
Andrew MacGillis, 42, currently in prison for his seventh drunken driving offense has taped a meditation in which Jesus forgives a sinner on his legal folder. MacGillis said he has not been offered treatment at Fox Lake Correctional Institute. He was sent there before receiving an alcohol and drug assessment. Others choose not to get an assessment and many continue to drive for months after an arrest without facing penalties or receiving treatment. Photo by Kate Golden / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.
The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. This report was prepared in collaboration with Gannett Wisconsin Media for its “Under the Influence” series. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.
Under the Influence
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Once a drunk, always a drunk. Once a heroin addict always a heroin addict. There is no cure only abstinence. Go off wagon and you ned up like Phillip Seymour Hoffman. We either get them into AA ,and keep them in rehab, or we need to build a drunk farm somewhere where we can store the drunks for long periods. too many families have been lost.
I’ll bite….WCD- how would the state enforce mandatory AA involvment or fund a drunk farm/colony?
Judges order it.
And funding for the drunk farm?
Fines, Fees, their cars to be sold.
This is an interesting level of personal property confiscation and state authority coming from you, Bob. Should we confiscate and sell off anything related to any arrest, or is this one somehow special? And I’m particularly interested in your concentration camps for anyone not agreeing to the Christian foundation of AA. I guess that’s not a state sponsored religion so much as locking people up until they find the right god.
Confiscation of things used in crime is standard. it has been shown that it is not the first time drunk drivers that have been the big problem, it is the consistent loser that goes to jail, sometimes, if they kill someone. Work farms for repeat drunks is better and cheaper than prison. Fines, Fees, are standard in criminal traffic violations. Do your research.
People can get help through the 12 Step Clubs, a Wisconsin wide association of clubs that sponsor AA, Al-anon, and other recovery programs. http://www.12stepclubswi.com/ There’s often not enough support for programs like these.
Thanx Dan, until you spend time in nursing home rehabs and watch the people die horrible deaths from alcoholism, heroin, meth, cigs etc. you do not realize what a trip that these addicts have to take, it is hour by hour. Remember Philip Seymour Hoffman. support for these programs i needed but in the ned it always comes back to prevention. Once down that road you never get off.