[MissoulaGov] driving under the influence

[Marylor]

Here is my contribution to the current discussion of drinking drivers:  

 

There is a certain group of people who habitually drink and drive under the
influence and whose actions will never be altered by fines or detention or
education or reason or even their own hope against hope that they can
somehow snap out of the behavior.  These are the people--men, women, boys,
girls, of no matter what age, race, education, belief or economic status-who
are alcoholic.  In them there is much more at play than willfulness or
wickedness or ignorance or bad parenting. Medical science recognizes that
alcoholism is a difficult metabolic disease, like diabetes, which can only
be put into remission by some form of medical treatment and life-changing
program in which a person who is alcoholic becomes absolutely convinced that
he or she cannot safely drink alcohol.  Even though this scientific
understanding is nearly a century old, it is not very well understood or
accepted by us ordinary taxpayers.

 

I don't believe that there is any wholly effective action that the City can
take to reduce the incidence of DUI without delving into the reality of
alcoholism.  Somehow we must find more realistic measures than currently
exist to press the impaired drivers who are alcoholic to recognize and
accept their symptoms.  Somehow they must be able to get the (affordable)
therapeutic attention they will require if they are to learn to live lives
that are safe for themselves and for the rest of us.

 

Although confronting DUI is an urgent problem on the Missoula City Council's
agenda and on this listserv, there is no in-patient alcohol treatment
resource available in Missoula to play its part in the solution.

 

DUI is a big and difficult problem that reaches beyond city government.  I'm
glad the contributors to this list are taking the problem to heart.  -Maryl
Wilson

 

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