Treatment, not jail, needed for alcoholics

I am concerned about alcoholism. So many people I know are affected by this disease. There seems to be limited resources for those who know they need help, and there are those who don’t ask for help because they are embarrassed to have a problem.

As the victim of a drunken driver who I am sure has been a lifelong alcoholic, it’s scary to me to think that people I know and love are capable of doing the same thing he did. It ruins lives forever.

I wish that we, as a society, could take drunken driving offenders and put them in a mandatory 90-day in-patient treatment center instead of putting them in jail. Jail offers no solutions for the disease. Punishing someone does not cure the ailment. It’s a vicious circle of repeat offending and releasing back on the streets to do it again.

We, as a society, need to see that some offenders can truly benefit from treatment, and stop punishing the person who is diseased. It might be cheaper to offer treatment once and cure the person than jail them multiple times and add on legal costs to an already taxed system.

No one wants to be a drunk; not all alcoholics have resources for help. I also think if you have one DUI you should have a mandatory breathalizer installed in all vehicles registered to your address. forever.

I know from a lifetime of being surrounded by it, and suffering the consequences, how real a problem it is.

CRYSTAL BERTOLUCCI

Sandpoint