COURT-ENFORCED TREATMENT URGED

The courts should be able to force alcoholics to get treatment. Dr. R. Gordon Bell, (since deceased), a Canadian pioneer in treating addiction suggested sometime ago.

As it is, employers are in the best position to coerce addicts into treatment, said Dr. Bell. "We don't have enlightened, humane legislation that will permit courts to do what an employer can." Accepting the fact we may be improving in our ability to identify this unhealthy dependence, for example in impaired driving, now we should insist the person be examined thoroughly."

This examination would include determining what resources the person has, the effect his addiction is having on his family, etc. "Then a recommendation would go back to the judge that rather than jail, the person could be given two years probation, providing certain treatment conditions."

Taking disulfiram could be one of those conditions, he suggested. Dr. Bell some years ago said, evidence about an alcoholic's situation could be presented before a county court judge in an effort to force tereatment on him, but this procedure has been altered and is now not effective.

Dr. Bell was president of the Donwood Institute in Toronto, a specialized hospital for rehabilitation from addictions. He spoke at the 15th annual Institute on Addiction Studies, held at McMaster University by Alcohol and Drug Concerns. Inc. He stressed that part of the alcoholic's problem is his inability to recognize his need for help or to seek it. "If you leave it to him to decide he wants help, he can kill himself.

Addiction can control the behavior of the strongest person in the world, and if you wait for him to act on his own, he may die first, or wind up with even more problems."

An addict must, and will, manipulate everyone in his world to ensure his supply, and the employer is in the best position of anyone in that world to withstand this manipulation, Dr. Bell said.

"If you ever have a chance to work with industry trying for an enlightened approach, back them to the hilt. No one is in a better position to bring about a shift from late to early recognition, he told an audience of union representatives, nurses, social workers, clergymen and others in helping fields."

"It is stupid to keep jailing or fining someone repeatedly for manifestations of his problem (like impaired driving), or taking him into a general hospital and treating him for cirrhosis of the liver while doing nothing about the other factors... we waste untold millions sobering people up and dumping them back." THE JOURNAL

DON says: A very brilliant and warm Doctor who was a giant in the field of Alcoholic rehabilitation. He will be missed.