Pubdate: Wed, 23 Aug 2000
Source: Willamette Week (OR)
Contact:  822 SW 10th Ave., Portland, OR 97205
Fax: (503) 243-1115
Website: http://www.wweek.com/
Author: Kathryn D. Wright

TREAT THE DISEASE

I find it frustrating in all of the concern and coverage that Jon [Beckel] 
has received, that nobody has mentioned that Jon was a late-stage alcoholic 
and suffered greatly from the disease ["What Happened to Jon Beckel?," WW, 
July 12, 2000]. When first hearing about Jon's hospitalization, I assumed 
that Jon had suffered from a seizure in alcohol withdrawal. Seizures from 
alcoholic withdrawal can be fatal, and it is as much an unforgivable lapse 
for the police to fail to assure medical attention to an alcoholic in 
withdrawal as it is for the police to club an inmate to death.

Yet Jon's alcoholism is ignored. Why? Because the general public has no 
clue that it is not a behavioral choice but a disease that will prove fatal 
if unchecked.

Whether Jon died from complications of an alcoholic seizure, a head wound 
suffered during a seizure, or a head wound resulting from a personal 
assault, it is certain that he would be alive today if he had not been 
drinking.

Jon is the second person I have known personally who has died from 
alcoholism, in Portland, in less than three months. Still, as a society we 
do little more than blame the alcoholic.

Willamette Week covers the tragedy of heroin addiction, but alcoholism is a 
different story. Why?

Kathryn D. Wright, Southwest Pine Street
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