Wow. Lots of homeless addicts/abusers in Portland Maine. Whats up with that? I was just walking around the downtown and noticed a lot of street folks sharing bottles and worse. I pray for all of them. Why such a concentration in Portland?
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"You're in the right place. That's the door right there. Turn around."
I heard that Maine and Alaska have record high numbers of alcoholism due to the long winters, short days, depression. The joke was "5 bars on every corner" lol
"Figures compiled in 1997 by Maine's Office of Substance Abuse show that young Mainers binge-drink - consume at least five drinks in a row - more than kids throughout the Northeast, and often, the rest of the country. When asked, 27 percent of Maine 10th-graders said they had binged in the past two weeks, compared to 22 percent of other 10th-graders in New England. In the 12th grade, 35 percent of Maine kids had binged in the past two weeks, compared to 31 percent in the Northeast, and 30 percent elsewhere in the country. Another study, prepared in 1995-96 for the Office of Substance Abuse by Dr. Robert Dana and the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy, asked more than 6,000 Maine middle school and high school students about their alcohol use. The study found that almost 90 percent of high school students, and more than half of seventh-grade students, had at least tried alcohol. Of the high schoolers, almost a third had binged within the past two weeks."
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Sunday 9th of August 2009 11:34:46 PM
It could be one of those "nothing else to do but drink" phenomena. Where I went to college in Maryland, it was 2 hours south of DC and in a rural area. The drug use per capita went down but alcohol shot up. There truly was a liquor store on every corner and when I started working in Mental Health there, one of the chief causes of MI was alcoholism and people repeatedly wrecking their cars drunk until they had brain damage....or drinking until they had brain damage. Not to knock Maine, but the more rural things seem to be, the more Alcohol seems to be the drug of choice. By the way, the homeless population now is staggering (figuratively and literally everywhere). In Florida they are more in your face and asking for money on every major highway corner and highway on/off ramp. I guess if I were homeless, I would rather be here cuz the odds of freezing to death are nonexistant. They often scoop them up and put them to work selling a newspaper called the Homeless Voice. It gives them a job more or less rather than just straight up begging. My heart goes out to the homeless, but I just don't have a dollar for every single one. Plus, now there is even more of a dilemma within me about funding someone elses possible drug or alcohol habit (and no, I don't have time to take them for food, as I know that would be the best thing to ensure anything I gave was used for the right purpose). Additionally, I also work a low-paid government funded job helping underpriveleged people already so that's another issue. Shrug.
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My area, Akron Ohio, the "Birthplace of AA", has a devastating alcohol and drug problem. This used to be the center of industry, as is referenced in the Big Book, with it being the world capitol of the Rubber Industry in the 50's and 60's, serving all the auto manufacturers in nearby Detroit. There is virtually NO industry here now, as rubber has gone overseas for the most part. Goodyear is mostly aerospace aroudn here now, although corporate headquarters for Goodyear and BF Goodrich are still here, but even the headquarter buildings are so run-down. A friend in AA works for Goodrich, and says all they are building are racing tires here now, Formula One and so forth, which is not a very big industry.
The streets and neighborhoods of inner-city Akron are frought with unemployment, welfare areas and crack cocaine and heroine, and there are indeed mass dive bars lining the streets. I think it is a national epidemic. When I lived in Seattle in the early 90's, it was heroine everywhere. Sad to see. In the winter people freeze half to death, and in the summer it is blistering hot in the 90's, and the humidity is high. And to think, I had put myself in that position, by CHOICE, in the worst of my drinking and using. I too am truly humbled and grateful for the INCREDIBLE gift of recovery. It is something I am holding onto like life itself.
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
I live close to Portland (in NH) and visit there a few times a year. Ironically, my father lived on those streets for many years. He used to take me around when I was older and show me where he spent nights & days. Pretty sad. He's sober today, but has no program. You know the results that gets. Thanks for the remainder of where my next drink may take me. Grateful for AA and sobriety today!
Wow - powerful stuff-- I like to remember "There but for the Grace of God go I" -- I too had a family member on the streets and struggle everytime I encounter a person on the streets --- do I or don't I? Saw a man this evening carrying a sign in central WV- while traveling for work --- he had a bag from the store I had just left so while I hoped it was water and sandwich in there he seemed set.
Sad to hear about Portland ME. Fond memories there -- mostly shopping at the LL Bean outlet--- Akron! I have driven through once a month in the last year or so to see my "practicing mother" who has chosen to give up(different story - different day) I am shocked! at the whole manufacturing corridor through NE Ohio -- I can only imagine how much worse it is in Detroit.....
But back to the topic at hand -- There but for the Grace of God go I. - Thank goodness AA is free.
Well for me, all I can say is the Contrast I have observed, dont have any data on my observations, but I moved here from the San Francisco Bay area, and Homeless people were in droves in that city, and across the Bay, a huge homeless population. and felt that they choose to be there for in Marin County, there were very helpful to the Homeless, shelters all over the county and a Hall where they could go to everyday of of the week, for a very large healthy meal.
And the contrast has been so extreme, I now live on the Coast in California, about 30 North of San Diego, and never see any homeless people, maybe only in two spots that come to mind, when I am getting off the freeway, in both places, there are always one or two people with signs up, asking for donations.
I feel a sense of so much pain in my heart, for the populations I was used to seeing, were so tragic, may Vets, that could not cope, and so much mental illness, this subject touches many, it touched my own life, with my younger Son, in his second year of college, without any warning, Schizophenia began, and because he did not understand what had happened, felt that his choice to leave school, and start using every drug known to mankind was going to serve his new illness. As some of you know mentally ill people do not know they are mentally ill, they feel they have developed these new voices, so to speak, as sort of a Calling, if you will. And so from my sight he just disappeared into to maze of homeless people in Sausalito down by the water. His father and I finally tracked him down, but my Son wanted NO Help whatsoever, well he would come and see me about once a month for money, and go to his father office for more money. He could have lived with either of us, he knew that we love him very much, but just no longer understood him.
Some of my friends here know the tragic result of those days, but not something I have ever been inclined to put on the World wide Internet. I will always protect him in that way, always. I have put some stuff on this Board, thought about it, and went back and edited it out immediately.
Wow I really got "off topic" here. But it hit a nerve.
Tragic and Powerful Subject.
Thank you all for reading. dont think i will go back and edit out this one, but who knows.... Hope you all have a good Tuesday. Baloneycakes
-- Edited by toni baloney on Tuesday 11th of August 2009 03:13:51 PM
