This seems like a logical extension of methadone programs for heroine addicts.  If the person is too addicted to act in his/her best interest, this kind of babysitting approach may be a last resort.  High functioning alcoholics could continue to contribute to society in this way.  As long as they aren’t driving or operating heavy machinery, it seems to be a reasonable alternative to the streets.

I have some issues with this kind of approach. What about distributing syringes for drug addicts? Would this also be a good thing? I don’t think so. Since I cannot see the line which separates one harm-reduction approach from the other, I think it is wrong.

For me, “Go and sin no more!” is lost at some point in the harm-reduction mentality. Even though I can be very wrong, and it would not be the first time, I’d rather keep considering these harm-reduction policies wrong. After all, why should I believe that any of those drug addicts are weaker than I am? My hope in their recovery is the same as my hope in overcoming my own sins. Hope in God’s grace.

Isn’t it the condom approach to “they’re going to have sex anyway”? 

I have an in law who is mentally ill and this is their approach in essence, until he got violent.  Now he’s in a 24 hour facility with a constant companion to keep him safe.  They don’t let him drink, smoke or overdose on coffee - and he’s required to take his medicine.  It actually took him being violent for them to be legally able to get him into this kind of a facility. He less volatile now, but I don’t think that he thinks he’s any “happier”.

When in doubt though, I would follow the lead of the Missionaries of Charity.  They have several residences for alcoholics.  Once the residents start drinking again, they are kicked out for good.  However, there was one case in which the man left in order to return to his childhood home that didn’t have a roof (and this is in Ireland!), and was a hovel.  He didn’t want to live anywhere else.  The sisters brought him food and clothing even in his hovel.  It seems a slightly different approach to institutionalizing the drinking to oblivion - but is still compassionate and personal.

I guess at the end of the day, it seems like a bureaucratic answer to alcoholism, rather than one that takes each person’s situation into account.  We always want to put people in categories and subcategories… oh, your a hopeless alcoholic, so you go here… you’re a recovering alcoholic, so you go here… you might have a chance so we’ll try this for a while…

I think calling this “hopeless” is incorrect. Perhaps by providing shelter, food, and a safe place, basic needs are being met in a way that allows for, one day, the person to accept the graces necessary to begin recovery or make that next step. Loving the person ‘where they are’ is not a sign of hopelessness unless the caregiver accepts hopelessness. Providing this kind of care is not excluding God from all He can do. Should these people only be loved if they ‘deserve’ it?  Its imperfect, but we live in an imperfect world. Is it possible these souls are here to save us more than we are to save them?

This sounds like a terrible idea, both in the sense of promoting (at LEAST indirectly) “hopelessness” and in formally cooperating with grave sin.

What is obvious to human eyes is not obvious to the eyes of faith. What is impossible with men will be possible with God, and His ways are not our ways. There is hope for every man who is willing to turn from the evil that he has done.

I fail to see how this is a good idea at all.  Yes, we are called to show compassion and to carry out corporal and spiritual works of mercy.  Providing shelter certainly does that, but providing an opportunity to continue to wallow in addiction helps neither the body nor the soul.  It should be noted that nearly all people with an addiction problem (alcohol, drugs, and other) are simply “self-medicating” for underlying problems, most often mental illness. The truly compassionate approach would be to care for these individuals as they try to turn away from addiction while addressing their true problems and attempting to restore them to some level of health.

Does the facility provide the drinks?  If so, wouldn’t that be direct cooperation in the sin of drunkenness?

I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Of course, you don’t want to encourage someone to keep killing themselves with alcohol, but they are people too, and they deserve the comfort of a place that accepts them as they are. I doubt it really encourages their alcoholism - I’m guessing/hoping there’s a certain shame associated with being labeled a hopeless alcoholic, and maybe the realization that they need something like this will encourage a change. Keep in mind too that when people are drunk they may be violent and likely to commit crimes - giving them a safe place to drink might alleviate some of those problems.

Does the facility provide any sort of counseling?  In the few cases I’ve known about involving alcoholism, the alcoholism had a root cause, like the death of a loved one or an injury, etc.  If that need isn’t being addressed, just giving them alcohol with no strings attached seems kind of cold.

The facility doesn’t provide alcohol, and it doesn’t provide counseling.  It’s for people who have been to rehab dozens and dozens of times already—people who can’t or won’t take advantage of the more helpful resources out there.  I think the analogy to hospice is helpful to understanding the attitude:  it serves people who will not be helped by forceful intervention.  Forcing these guys into rehab would be like forcing someone who is indisputably dying to accept invasive surgery.  They’ve reached the point where the compassionate thing to do is to keep them as comfortable as possible.
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I think it’s also useful to remember that, while alcoholics are certainly culpable for allowing themselves to become addicted in the first place, they are less culpable when they are fully addicted:  their bodies have taken over, and they may not actually be sinning by continuing to drink.  Is that right?  Not that they shouldn’t be asked to try to overcome the addiction, but I believe the Church recognizes that there are different levels of culpability once an addiction is established.  Maybe someone can draw out that idea a bit more.

Simcha:

The hospica analogy is a terrible analogy.  Hospice is for people who are within 6 months of dying.  The point is to help them comfortably through death.  They provide help for the family members both before and after death, and there is no hope for recovery.  Death is something that we all must face, addiction is a choice at one point or another.

There are different levels of culpability at different points of an addiction - but I don’t think that expands to those around the addiction, but to the addict themselves.  If my grandfather wants to drink himself to oblivion, then I don’t think I should provide the alcohol.  How is that different than Kevorkian making a do-it-youself-suicide machine? The people committing suicide are mentally ill, and perhaps don’t have their faculties and aren’t necessarily culpable - but Kevorkian isn’t supposed to be facilitating the suicide.  How is this different?

I was once approached by a man at a bus stop asking for fifty cents.  He said “I won’t lie to you, I’m going to use it to buy beer because I need it.”  Against my better judgment, I gave him some change.  Later I passed that same bus stop and saw him there passed out and covered in blood.  I promised never to make that mistake again to assist someone in their own destruction.  The St Anthony Residence seeems to avoid cooperating in their self-destruction so I suppose it serves a purpose but it must be painful for the employees to try to help those who no longer care whether they are helped or not.  Very sad…

Anon, I understand what you’re saying, but this wet house does not encourage or condone alcoholism.  It simply makes a safe alternative to being on the street for people who refuse rehab. If they took away the men’s liquor, they would not stay, so they would have accomplished nothing.  They wouldn’t say, “Oh, I’ve seen the error of my ways - I’ll try rehab again.”  They’d go back to their subway tunnel or alcove or whatever, and end up, like James K’s alcoholic, covered with blood.  The purpose of this residence is to avoid a situation like that.  No one can make you stop drinking; but these folks can keep you safe.  I thought about it a lot, and I really don’t see how the wet house administrators are doing anything wrong at all. 
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I have to duck out of this conversation now, sorry!  Just too much else going on.

As if their sins are not deep enough ,We now help them to get drunk and walk in stupors and mocking sentences…How insane
Feed them food take them to Church… Let God change them

Addicts don’t choose rehab because they have some sort of epiphany.  They choose it because they don’t want to be homeless, jobless, friendless anymore.  They choose rehab because of the consequences of their addiction and they realize that they can’t find it themselves.  It’s barely a rational decision.  By taking away those consequences, why would any addict choose rehab?  I could drink at this nice house where they make sure that I’m not going to get robbed or hurt, or I could go through the pain of rehab… hmmm… I think I’ll choose the nice house. 

I think your definition of “safe” is shaky here - safe from being robbed? safe from exposure? safe from what? It’s not safe from liver failure, or safe from drinking oneself to death. It’s not a safe place to develop relationships with friends or family members.  It’s not a safe place to live responsibly. 

There’s really little “freedom” here for the person - with the understanding that freedom is the space which allows one to choose the good.  They are choosing the bad, and having all the consequences that tell you that its bad taken away. 

Every high-functioning (as in, coworkers) alcoholic that I’ve known lives by one rule - don’t drive drunk.  It’s a very safe way to live and to drink “responsibly”.  But really, it just gives them some semblance of control over their drinking - which is excessive and harmful to them and to others with whom they have relationships.

Isn’t this the same argument that pro-choice persons use to argue for abortion clinics: abortions are going to happen anyway, so it might as well be provided in a sterile environment instead of a back alleyway? But, an evil act is an evil act, and formally cooperating with an evil is an evil act. Abortion is an intrinsically evil action, and drunkenness (if freely and knowledgeably done) can be sinful, and an addiction to a disordered act can be of a deeper sinfulness that has clouded one’s conscience. To encourage, promote, or settle for such inhuman and undignified behavior neither promotes the well-being or holiness of those who have been made in the image of God. That’s what our alcoholic brothers and sisters need, a merciful and compassionate Samaritan to carry them to the inn of the Church where the Physician of Life is waiting to poor oil and wine into their spiritual and physical wounds so that they can be healed and brought to the new life that they seek and so desperately long for. May we “set our hopes completely on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 1:13).

Eddie D. ended up in the morgue in Worcester with a tag around his toe. When the pathologist noticed he was actually alive he sent Eddie to A.A. where he spent the remaining 35 years of his life helping other alcoholics get sober. Good thing he wasn’t sent to St. Anthony wet house.

I am an alcoholic who has recovered from a seemingly hopeless condition through the grace of God. It is to grace, and to grace alone, that I owe my recovery. That grace was made evident through the efforts of wonderful people. I have spent some 20 years trying to make God’s caring love evident to those who suffer. Many have recovered; some have not. Both types are precious to me.
  Sitting in judgment does no one good; there are times when the alcoholic needs a drink as surely , at least in his mind, as he needs air, and he simply cannot hear you when you tell him to stop.
  I make no judgment on the “wet house,” but I beg you all to pray for those whom they serve. “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

As a recovering alcoholic, who has been sober many years, I can share my experience. When I was drinking, there was nothing on God’s green earth that was going to stop me from drinking. When God decided I was to be sober, there then became nothing that could induce me to drink. From my experience, I would say there is nothing wrong with giving someone a little comfort and security as they travel through their personal life experience.

We don’t bar a sinner from the Church lest they be unable to choose the door to the confessional.  We recognize the sinner has barred themselves from Holy Communion without the Reconciliation. Are the doors of a Church opened to those out of communion? Of course, its the only way to get into the confessional for any of us isn’t it? A grave sin commited does not exclude one from the prayer of the liturgy, but in fact is reason for them to perhaps accept God’s grace offered so they might be able to return next sunday restored to communion.  Anyone think shelter for prayer where there is a tabernacle and confessional isn’t a parallel in a far more universal way than the compassion and beginnings of peace available at St Anthony’s?  While I hesitate in conclusion for not knowing the guidelines for entrance to and rules of activity in the wet house, I do not know that how the Church admonishes all sinners generally and with open arms should they be willing to seek healing is all that different from this St Anthony model.

I understand the worries that this is enabling, but I can’t see the bad in it.  It’s not like Planned Parenthood where information is withheld and young girls and women are coerced to promote a social agenda, and that social agenda involves actual murder.  Most of these people have been in and out of rehab countless times and no information has been withheld.

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But I don’t think it is enabling.  If one of the alcoholics asked to go to rehab, I don’t think St. Anthony’s would tell him to shut up and drink his Wild Turkey.  I think it simply acknowledges that rehab will only do good if it is chosen and until it is, can we love these people just enough to see that they come to no harm?

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Also, I think it relieves tremendous burdens on the families of the alcoholics - the anxiety that their loved one is lying covered in blood somewhere and the guilt of barring them from their own homes.  I do think it’s a kindness - maybe undeserved - but also maybe very needed.

I understand the worries that this is enabling, but I can’t see the bad in it.  It’s not like Planned Parenthood where information is withheld and young girls and women are coerced to promote a social agenda, and that social agenda involves actual murder.  Most of these people have been in and out of rehab countless times and no information has been withheld.
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But I don’t think it is enabling.  If one of the alcoholics asked to go to rehab, I don’t think St. Anthony’s would tell him to shut up and drink his Wild Turkey.  I think it simply acknowledges that rehab will only do good if it is chosen and until it is, can we love these people just enough to see that they come to no harm?
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Also, I think it relieves tremendous burdens on the families of the alcoholics - the anxiety that their loved one is lying covered in blood somewhere and the guilt of barring them from their own homes.  I do think it’s a kindness - maybe undeserved - but also maybe very needed.

This makes me think of the scene in Brideshead Revisited between Charles Ryder and the monk who is nursing Sebastian:  “Your friend is so much happier today, it is like one transfigured.”  “Poor simple monk,” I thought, “poor booby”; but then he added, “You know why?  He has a bottle of cognac in bed with him.  It is the second I have found.  No sooner do I take one away than he gets another.  It is the Arab boys who fetch it for him.  But it is good to see him happy when he has been so sad.”  The monk’s approach seems about right to me - being humane enough not to insist that it’s only worth helping people if they can be fixed, but not actually giving the alcoholic the drink or openly condoning it.  But I don’t know that the St. Anthony’s approach is wrong, either.  A lot hangs on the point Simcha brings up: is it actually a sin for the extreme alcoholic to keep drinking?  Perhaps the underlying question is whether the drinking is better considered as a sin or a sickness.

Helping people recover from alcoholism is one charism, but it’s not the only charism. When you help someone in dire straits, you’re taking the risk of “enabling” him, yes (even if he’s repentent!). But when you refuse to help someone in dire straits for fear of “enabling” him, you’re also taking a risk: the risk of neglecting someone who needs your help. There’s no risk-free way. This House is sort of risky—I see that. But the opposite risk is real, too, and no one ever talks about it.

Abby

Abby, there is a real risk of neglecting a brother in need, but I think the question is whether or not the kind of help St. Anthony house offers is good for the body and the soul - for the whole person. Even beyond avoiding any kind of enabling, we have a call as Catholics to care for the person’s well-being and not solely for their physical “safety” (which is obviously a part of their well-being, but only a part).

Yet another misinterpretation of the Gospel as “be nice.”

Would Jesus have said to the alcoholic, “It’s okay. You don’t have to stop drinking, just find a safe place to do it”? This is an unspeakably bad idea. Who’s buying the booze? Where are these addicts getting it? How are they paying for it? Are they paying for their food and shelter? If not, then they’re not being treated with hope OR respect. They’re allowed to medicate over what should be treated, and that is not compassion. That is enabling. That’s a textbook picture of it, as a matter of fact. As one poster said, if you take away consequences, you take away any reason to turn from sin. This place takes away consequences.

Only problem is…GOD doesn’t take away consequences. So meeting these people where they are may cost them their eternal souls. That’s somehow okay? HOW?

The comparison to barring the church door to sinners, rather than letting them some in and “self-excuse” from Communion until they’ve been to Reconciliation? Unfortunately, that kind of thing is exactly what goes on in church every day: enablement of sinners. No one “bars themselves from Communion,” but in fact, because we don’t preach on sin in our churches anymore, they participate with smiles and encouragment from the people who are supposed to be teaching them better, even when every participation in it is sacrilege. They can’t reform from what the Church won’t tell them is sin. The same goes here.

Recovery is difficult. No one’s disputing that. And there but for the grace of God go all of us. But the grace of God isn’t pabulum and butterflies, either. Sometimes the grace of God is tough love that says, “If you continue to do this, you will die.” Now, where have we heard that before? Yeah. This “compassion” is nothing more than stepping in front of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and saying to Adam and Eve, “There, there. You’ll still have this lovely earth to live on. You don’t really need Eden, perfect relationship with God, or all that stuff. You’ve disobeyed, but we’ll met you where you are, and things will be all right.”

Yeah…it’ll only cost the human life of the Son of God.

Somehow, I don’t think this falls under the category of “Well done, good and faithful servant.” It sounds more like the millstone tied to someone’s neck before they’re tossed into the “drink”...no pun intended.

JB

To Hugo:  needle exchange has been proven to lower the AIDS rate in Washington DC, its really not a bad idea unless you think it is more moral to tell IV drug users you prefer them to hold onto and share needles than exchange them.  The people in “wet houses” can’t see another way for themselves but to drink to the end.  Its a disease of the imagination and vision.  I have had exceptionally “good luck” with getting the Friars of the Atonement in Graymoor N.Y. to pray for acquaintances with an alcohol or drug habit (it’s one of their charisms).  Maybe try enrolling some of the wet house residents in the perpetual Mass offerings in Graymoor and see what happens.  The prayer union is an amazing thing.  Peace of Christ to all, and hope the rest of you Lent and Paschaltide are blessed.

“Simple, but not easy. A price had to be paid. It (recovery) meant the destruction of self-centeredness.” First one tries to make clear the fatal nature of the condition, sharing examples from his own life, and then explains how a merciful God wants to help the alcoholic fulfill the role for which he was created.
  And when he doesn’t respond adequately, show him the door? Give him tough love? Let him die in the gutter? In terms of simple salvation, do I reject him or let him know that even in his sinfulness he retains his human dignity? That his God still loves him? Maybe I take him in and give him a place to shower, a hot meal, and a bed, and let him know that, with God’s help, others have recovered.

This is a really tough issue. I’m most taken by Anon at 1:45’s argument, honestly. Having been through intense addiction, I will say that the fear of certain places and certain people was strong enough to keep me from using at times. Self-preservation (in the immediate sense) can often be stronger than the addiction.

That being said, had my family kicked me out and barred their doors to me, which many would argue that they should have done, I would have been wholly lost to the underworld of drugs. I needed the shelter of my parent’s house, just as I needed the love they continued to show me. I have no idea if the desperation of being completely cut off would have driven me to get sober, or would have pushed me over the edge.

I think the real problem with the wet house is that they allow drinking on the premises. I would feel more comfortable with the idea if the house did not allow alcohol use on the premises, but was a safe haven for these people to go to regardless of the state they were in. This would be different from a rehab, since rehabs kick you out if you use drugs or alcohol during the program at all.

As far as culpability goes, I think that alcoholics and drug addicts are sinning each time they choose to drink or use drugs. Their culpability may be far less when the addiction is severe, but they are still choosing to continue to separate themselves from God. I also really take issue with the current fashionable way of referring to alcoholism and drug use as “diseases.” I think this is a way of tacitly excusing the actions of the addict, by saying “you can’t help yourself.” Of course they can help themselves. It will be horrible, and painful, and will seem at times well nigh impossible, but they can do it. We owe them enough to acknowledge that they still have free will.

And then, as I’m writing this, I think about lifelong alcoholics and wonder if I’m wrong. My addiction was severe but relatively short-lived. I have no experience as a life-long addict. I don’t know.

I guess my completely helpful and clear comment can be summed up as: the house is a good idea in theory, but I think it’d be more morally responsible to ban drinking on the premises.

Anyway, thanks for the link, Simcha! And I find this topic absolutely fascinating, so thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Being an alcoholic is not a sin. Let’s just get this straight. In some lives, choosing to drink might be a sin - selfishness, sloth, gluttony, etc -  but the disease of alcoholism where a person is compelled by a number of mental and physical confluences to drink himself to death is clearly an illness. Let’s just get that straight. Secondly, there is nothing that you have to do in order to deserve a roof over your head and food on your plate. It is a condition of being human that you deserve these things. We give them to our most offending prisoners, and the Catholic Church supports that position. I don’t agree that anyone should tell these people that they are “hopeless” or use that phrase - who on earth is qualified to say for sure that there is no grace waiting around the corner? Only God knows these things. I do believe that the message of sobriety as a possibility should be extensively used in such places, so that people there can know that even if they don’t choose sobriety today, tomorrow is another possibility. But to not make requirements for sobriety in exchange for the necessities of life, that seems to me to be the only thing to do.

Being an alcoholic might not be in se a sin, but there is always sin involved. This is why AA suggests a moral inventory. “Selfishness, self-centeredness, that we think, was at the root of our problem.” Scripture condemns it for a reason.
There is most certainly something that one must do for a roof over one’s head and food on one’s plate - one must work for it. 2Thess. 3:10 “Who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

I haven’t read the other comments yet, but I was very intrigued by that segment of This American Life as well.  I have conflicting feelings, but as long as treatment and help is always available if the residents feel the time has come to try to get sober, I’m in favor of the wet house approach. I’d rather they do their drinking in safety and privacy—and that doesn’t require an abandonment of hope that they will get better.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!

I would like to add that I agree completely with Annie above that serious, lifelong alcoholism is most definitely a disease and not a moral failing.  I’m sure most of us have known a person or two who, for reasons they were unable to control for their entire lives, simply had to drink.  Most of the people like that I knew didn’t really get drunk—they just sat in their easy chairs and drank beer after beer, every night.  It was as necessary to them as breathing.  That doesn’t mean that living that way is desirable or right, or that persons with such an affliction can’t or shouldn’t be helped, but rather that that compulsion is a different animal than sins that may be a tough habit to break but not a physical addiction which one’s brain is rewired to support.

To Josephus: You made me see the full picture. So, in the same way needle exchange is not wrong because it can lower the AIDS rate, maybe the Church should start distributing condoms in Africa to try to reduce AIDS rate over there as well… No!, this is nonsense! Reducing the risks involving an activity only helps spreading the risky activity.

Now I’m sure that St. Anthony wet house is really a bad idea.

If you believe drinking a few beers every night is not a ‘Moral Failure “
then hurry to confession. It’s sinful, a waste of time and money ! It dulls the conscience and obligations !
I watched my parents drink daily and they forgot the neeeds of their children ,six of us!!!

Rene, you have hit upon a necessary element in understanding Alcoholism. AA certainly opines that it is a disease, but a self-inflicted disease, one which has at its root self-centeredness. I drank for 26 years, knowing, (but never admitting) that I had a problem. Until a merciful God showed me that I had put alcohol before everyone and everything I had ever loved, including my God, I was unable to see the fatal nature, spiritually and physically, of the life I had embraced. Yes, I still prayed, yes I still went to Mass (most of the time), yes to much good. But the fear of being without my friend alcohol was monumental. Big time moral failing as I see it. It was only when I learned to replace that fear with trust in God that my difficulty was removed.
But, again, I do not stand in judgment of the wet house, and again I beg prayers for those whom they serve

As an alcoholic, with two years sobriety and a lifetime of drinking preceding that, I am cautiously optimistic about this approach.  It is difficult to know what will bring someone to their personal bottom, and a commitment to sobriety, but I think that for the very hardcore homeless guys, something like this may help them see the possibility of a better, booze free life.

sometimes i think politicians and officials who are supporting this country are absolutely
OUT OF THEIR MIND
how could they call a situation like this hopeless. by that are they tryin to make it more hopeless

Putting aside for the moment judging the alcoholic and trying to figure out to what degree they are sinning, leaving that in God’s hands; it does seem to me that this center has an opportunity to show love and compassion to someone desperately in need of it.  These alcoholics are people who have probably already lost their marriages, families, jobs, and homes or why would they be there.  I doubt they look in the mirror and feel okay with themselves.  More likely they feel extreme guilt, self-loathing and disgust.  For this place to offer them shelter and food and compassion might be the only reminder that they have any worth at all in God’s eyes.

I don’t think anyone has mentioned the physiological symptoms of alcohol withdrawal that can occur in long-time drunks. Delirum tremens isn’t a joke, and can kill if it’s not kept in check. Hospice might not be such a crazy comparison.

Coming from a family of excellent drunks, I think addiction can be a genetic tendency. My mom, a pill popper until she got locked in a looney bin on her 50th birthday (we laugh about it now), told me that she remembers getting hit with nerve gas by the dentist at age 13 and thinking “I want to feel like this forever”. She is now clean and sober, and only takes ibufrofen. She even had eye surgery without any anesthesia (!!!). She does it because she knows she has a disease, and she has the choice whether to feed her demons or not. The disease has both physical and spiritual components. You can’t separate the two.

I just want to tease out a few of the comments above -

1.  Drunkenness is extreme self-centerdness
2.  If we show people love and absolute acceptance, they’ll respond in kind and decide to start living a better life.

I really don’t think that these two outlooks jive.  I also don’t think that an addict is necessarily filled with self-loathing, shame and self-hatred - not consciously anyway.

If someone is self-centered, and people give into their whims, it feeds their self-centeredness.  A child is naturally self-centered, and if a parent doesn’t teach them empathy, self-sacrifice and kindness towards others, they will never learn it - or only with great difficulty. 

I ask again about “safety” - is this really keeping them safe?

And I ask about “shame” and “guilt” - are we really keeping the alcoholic from these things or are we keeping ourselves? 

I saw a drunk man under a park bench once.  There was a woman trying to rouse him and three children standing by laughing at him.  I’m pretty sure that the horror and the pity and the shame that I felt for the man was more than he felt at that moment - he probably doesn’t remember any of it.  I think that the St. Anthony house relieves the guilt and shame of those of us who don’t want to see drunks on the street.

As a lifelong donor to Catholic Charities, I was able to take a tour of the residence with Program Manager, Bill Hockenberger, What I saw and experienced was eye opening. I expected to see men lying on the floor in the hallways too drunk to walk. Instead I saw many men, sober, in the lounges palying cards, at the coffe area drinking coffee, socialising with staff at the front desk and coming and going from the residnce just like any other apartment complex. The building was clean and well cared for, as well as the outer grounds which were clean and neatly landscaped. I told Program Manager Hockenberger, that this is not what I had expected. Hockenberger said that the men here do not drink all of the time, and that many of the men only drink some of the time. I saw St Anthony for what it was, housing for the homeless. If alcohol were taken out of the picture, I am sure that nobody would be making such a fuss out of the program. The MPR interview, in my opinion, was poorly done, since it only focused on alcohol. It did not present any facts or figures on how this program has saved taxpayer dollars and the lives of people who may have otherwise frozen to death under a bridge, lost a limb from frostbite, or kept someone from cracking their head open when they fell dowm. The simple fact is that this program works, and for some, it may be permanent place to live, for others it may be a final stepping stone before they wake up and decide to quit drinking.As for me, I will continue to donate to Catholic Charities, so that programs like these can continue to save the lives of the lost

What I can suggest , is fir the kay -faithful in our society , to evangelize on the subject of character building ( self - denial)
The denial of obe’s self ; self -abnegation ; forbearing to gratify one’s own desire. The practice of alf - denial requires great strength of will. It is an act of necessity ; or , of an unselfish soul. To give first consideration to others brings it’s own rich reward of splendid inward satisfaction - the greatest of compensation .to deny yourself is to grow in heart and soul quality , and in the power of character.
The greatest hero is the man who is master of himself. The greatest battle is the battle which is fought within, fought to victor. The greatest character is the character which is built on will power. The highest form of education is an educated will, a will to be right , to do right. Test yourself at the point where you have the Kesey suspicion of weakness. Be master of yourself.
Shakespeare: Brave conquerors! For so you are, that war against your own affections and the huge of the world’s desires”

I’m not sure how I feel about this. My uncle died from killing his liver with alcohol. My brother is a functioning alcoholic. What the one needed and I think the other needs badly is mental help. I think a lot of alcoholics are people who are hurting and they drink to try and escape the pain because they don’t have the techniques needed to deal with the pain. My uncle saw atrocities fighting in the Pacific campaign of WW2 that he never was able to get over. My brother has a lot of pain that he wants to deny. Maybe if this place provided counseling while still letting them choose to drink or not drink I’d feel like it was really helping them.

We lived in San Francisco (the homeless population capital of California) for a number of years, and I must say that the “wet house” plan makes a lot of sense for a certain demographic of the homeless alcoholic population.  Almost all of the current housing for the homeless requires that they cannot use drugs or alcohol while being housed.  This means that a certain percentage of the homeless choose to remain homeless, rather than quit drinking in order to obtain housing.  This is not a choice that affects only them!  The homeless are a huge burden on the city infrastructure and on public health care.  They are more likely to commit crimes, be victims of crimes, need hospitalization for acute medical problems, etc. than someone with the exact same drug/alcohol use who is *not* homeless.  The mere fact that there is no roof over their head (controlling for all other variables) means that their life expectancy is drastically decreased.

Plus, the extreme stress placed on one by the condition of being homeless leads one to drink/use drugs more frequently, so it is a vicious cycle. 

Anything getting these men (and women, sadly!) off the street gives them a longer life expectancy, right off the bat, decreases the burden to taxpayers, and gives them a better shot at sobriety than our current system.  Saying “get sober, it is the rational thing to do!” just…doesn’t seem to be working, if all the guys sleeping on our porch/pooping behind our car/cussing out tourists in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco are representative of the homeless population as a whole.

I have been workng with alcoholics since 1994. I am the founder of a set of 12-step houses for alcoholics and drug addicts. I have worked in prison ministry since 1990 and seen the men who are in and out of prison because they cannot overcome their addictions. I am proud of the work our rehab centers do, but they cannot help everybody. An addicted young man I knew twenty years ago, whom I have watched deteriorate until now I see no hope for him, has been repeatedly beaten, the broken teeth rottng in his head. Countless cases of people who have to live, somehow, a life they find painful. Here in Mexico, even a forty-year-old man in good health only finds a job with difficulty. Here in Coahuila, when these addicted people cannot function anymore, they are kept in a special section of our prison until they die. The wet house seems to me to be a loving approach which accepts the fact that sin in this world affects certain people, who suffer a delicacy of spirit, I think, in such a way that they fall into a hopelessness you and I cannot imagine. True evangelization is realizing that human dignity goes beyond the damage a person can do to his/her self. It comes from God. And any kindness, any respect, is evangelization. This decision to open a wet house could only be made by someone who has seen the hell of addiction. Those who live in the world of theories and lofty concepts could never sanction it, as we see by their comments. Nonetheless, those of us who work in this area will never stop trying to help these people to live a better life. The wet house does not exist in a vacuum, but in conjunction with many efforts of rehabilitation, which sadly have not helped these people.

I also have mixed feelings about this.  I’ve been dating/married to an alcoholic for the past 21 years and have spent at least the past 5 very angry and bitter about it.  My attitude has been “what a selfish jerk”.  In the past few months I’ve come to realize that this attitude was the result of my pride.  I was filled with self-righteous anger that said I would never do this to my family and how dare you.  I had zero compassion.  I didn’t consciously think I was better than him but I see now that deep down I did. 

We are all sinners.  Of course we should all be trying to live up to the standards God has set for us but to say that another sinner should be living under a bridge because of their sin takes it too far, in my opinion.  We can’t take credit for having our act together and look down on those who don’t.  Jesus himself said “without me you can do nothing”.  If they have sunk that low they need help from someone.

To Anon who said: “1.  Drunkenness is extreme self-centerdness
2.  If we show people love and absolute acceptance, they’ll respond in kind and decide to start living a better life.
I really don’t think that these two outlooks jive. “

I agree that it doesn’t jive to my human understanding, but isn’t it the Christian message?  Love one another, love your enemies, do good to those that hurt you,  mercy is greater than sacrifice, etc.?  We are not called to love our enemies because they deserve it.  Not to mention the corporal works of mercy: shelter the homeless, feed the hungry.  Should we stop and ask the hungry and homeless if it’s their fault they are hungry and homeless before we help them?  I’m truly curious what Mother Theresa would do?  Hmmm.

It’s complicated but they are at least erring on the side of love rather than judgement in these extreme cases.

Anita - if you see my first post - I posed the same question when I asked what the Missionaries of Charity would do. The Missionaries of Charity in Ireland run a home for alcoholics.  If the men drink, even once, they are kicked out.  However, in the case of one hopeless drunk that I happened to know about - they brought him food and clothes in the hovel he insisted on living in.  I think there is your answer.  They don’t facilitate the drinking, they give him some basic needs, respect his choices, etc. but they don’t give him a place to stay, they don’t give him a warm bed, and they don’t keep his booze safe so that other people don’t steal them and he can have them when he wants. Of the homeless shelter run by the MC’s that I worked in, anyone caught with drugs, alcohol, matches, was belligerent or unruly was kicked out immediately - onto the streets in the middle of the night if necessary.  And this was an emergency shelter in which they could only go if they had no where else (meaning, already kicked out of other shelters, had stayed too long in other shelters, weren’t making improvements in other shelters, etc.).

I’m really surpised at lots of the comments here. Loving people regardless of their choices and sins is what we are called to do. It doesn’t have to be a hopeless message, nor does it have to condone their behaviour. The message can be sent ‘We believe you can change. We will get you access to support (rehab, counselling, medication) if and when you are ready. But in the meantime, we will give what we have, we will respect your dignity and help with your basic needs and not turn you out to be homeless’. I see homeless people at a Friday night meeting point. It is not a pretty affliction.

“This is about meeting people where they are and loving them.”

We are not called to judge from our high horse. We are called to serve and love.

When we are judged ourselves, I would rather say “I loved, I knew of their continued sin, but I carried on loving anyhow” (because that is what Jesus does for me) than say “I saw their sin and that made them undeserving of my support and respect”.

Again: We are called to serve and love. Their sins may be more obvious, but I know mine are just as great.

My fifty-seven-year-old brother is this kind of alcoholic. Despite several stays at treatment centers, dozens of trips to emergency rooms for detox, despite having lost his wife and his home and his job, despite having alienated his family and friends, despite having spent several months in county jail on DUIs, he continues to drink. He will not go to AA. He is currently living on the street in a medium-large city. I have no way to reach him, no way to know if he’s still alive.

I would give anything for him to be in a place like the Saint Anthony Residence, where I would at least know he was safe and had a bed and meals and someone to make sure he was getting his heart medication. I think that society allowing people like my brother to fend for themselves is far crueler than providing a wet house for them to live in.

What you must understand is that all of us are going to die. None of us chose to be born.  Escaping this life is just a matter of time.  These people do not want to feel bad.  And the alcohol helps with the unbearable pain of living.  If there were a quicker out, they would take it.  I understand, I get it.  The pain of quitting is very terrible.  Being sick is really excruciating.  Stopping drinking makes you very very ill.

This is a humane way to treat those who have not been able to overcome this desease. Society and the church need to get behind this movement. Every human deserves to have some dignity in their lives…this is their chance for some hope while they continue to struggle with the inevitable.

“A” wrote: “The message can be sent ‘We believe you can change. We will get you access to support (rehab, counselling, medication) if and when you are ready. But in the meantime, we will give what we have, we will respect your dignity and help with your basic needs and not turn you out to be homeless’. Wow! Have you ever actually dealt with an alcoholic on a daily basis? You can offer everything you suggest, and they will lie to you and steal from you just to get the next drink. Alcoholics have no respect for you, me or themselves. The ONLY thing they love is alcohol. Loving an alcoholic often means telling them, “You are no longer part of my life. You have chosen alcohol over family. Goodbye.” Sad, but true.

One’s view on this is probably shaped by whether they view this as an individual choice or as sucumbing to a disease.  I liken it to a person who smokes.  Eventually, heart disease, lung disease, and likely a painful death awaits them - yet many continue to smoke.  My father did exactly that and when it came to the end of his life he suffered all of those.  In the last few weeks of his life I would vist him in the nursing home and roll him out for him to enjoy a smoke (I do not smoke and detest it) thinking each time that it might be the last time he was alive to ejoy it.  In my view - the damage was done.  For whatever reason, he got comfort in sucking on the cancer stick.  His body was succumbing to his addiction and I saw fit to let him die with compassion and without my individual judgment.  There was far too much good in that man for me to do that.  I suspect that if one looks past the alcohol, the will find that in many of the men at St. Anthony.

From what I have learned, these are poor souls who are FAR past treatment and likely will only find peace in a bottle and hopefully in death.  I like the post that suggested offering them prayer and compassion - somehow I imagine that is what the “harm reduction” model is all about.

I have a homeless brother-in-law who is an alcoholic that lives in North Carolina.  Is there a place in North Carolina that provides the same services?  Does Minnesota take in out of state individules?

I am a real estate broker here in Wilmington,NC and I find this approach very interesting. A former client of mine has a building that used to house minimal security female inmates , about twenty rooms, shower room a kitchen and a rec room. Unfortunately the State pulled its funding for these types of facilities and he is finding it difficult to find a tenant. After reading articles on these Wet Houses I felt it would be a good fit and needed as the homeless population seems to growing here, especially alcohol related. I was hoping you can point me in the right direction as to getting this started here.

The part in your article that refers to these men as hopeless, I believe is wrong.  A year and 1/2 ago I reconnected with a friend from my childhood who was living at the St. Anthony house, I was so shocked to learn he has been living there for 3 1/2 years.  I starting out by driving him to different recover meeting, helped him find a job and was doing very well , he ended up relapsing at that time I found a program called Metro hope ministries where he went and has done fabulous!  He now was a wonderful job at Hope for the City, Is living in a home with 3 other sober men, he is in the process of getting his license back,  he is living a miracle of restoration and Gods Grace

In my neighborhood, there is a homeless alcoholic gentleman living on the streets.  He has been homeless for years! He sleeps at the bus stop sitting on the bench or laying passed out on the ground, & also sleeps laying behind the old Aldis building.  People stop & give him money, which keeps his addiction going. His days revolve around his next drink!  He doesn’t want to go to treatment, & without treatment he has no hope of turning his drinking problem around.  & To detox on the streets without medical help would probably kill him. I live in Chicago & it is freezing out!  And I have no idea how this homeless man makes it through one day living on the streets in the freezing cold!! Last year he had frostbite on his toes, & I think a few had to be amputated. His health is deteriorating!  He has really hit rock bottom! & After hearing about Wet houses, & witnessing this guys plight…I think Wet houses are the most humane way to get homeless alcoholics who don’t want treatment off the streets & into a shelter with a bed, food, & medical care.  Atleast he could live with some dignity, sleeping in a bed, & getting food and medical care…instead of sleeping in the cold on the street!  The alternative is to spend your life sleeping on the streets freezing your butt off, getting frostbite, with shop owners & police hasseling you telling you that you have to leave!  He is homeless, where is he suppose to go? I don’t know how much time this older gentleman has left, but it’s inhumane to let a human being die in the streets! Are there any Wet houses in Chicago?  I would like to help this gentlemen get off the streets, like Doctor Phil did for that other homeless guy.  But I don’t have the resources that Doctor Phil has. This whole situation is so sad to see, & it makes it difficult for me to sleep…knowing that this gentleman (a child of God) is out there freezing in the streets.  I don’t know how to solve his problem, but I would like to bring this guy some hope!  I think a wet house in Chicago would be the solution.  Any advice on how I can help this guy out?

My son is 31 and has been drinking and drugging for about 14 years.  He says he will never quit. I pray that he will somehow find the strength to quit but I know that some for whatever reason - just can’t.

When I first heard about wet houses I felt hope. My worst fears were always that my son would wind up on the streets where he could be hurt by others or worse yet be the one to hurt someone else.  Knowing that there might be a wet house where he could live has given me hope that no matter how dark his future might be that there might still be a place that will take care of him.

I can understand people being upset with this idea but the alternative is living on the streets.  I can’t imagine anyone thinking that living on the streets is better than having a roof overhead and an actual bed to sleep in.