Pubdate: Thu, 24 Jul 2003
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
Copyright: 2003 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.stltoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/418
Author: Hannah Bergman, Post-Dispatch

ANTI-DRUG PROGRAM WINS KUDOS

When Cheryl came to the Queen of Peace Center in January, she said,
she had little faith in God and many doubts about how she would learn
to live without drugs and alcohol.

But the faith-based recovery program is helping the woman turn her own
life and that of her 8-year-old daughter around through its
residential treatment and transitional living programs.

Those are programs that Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., and Andrea Barthwell,
deputy director at the National Drug Control Policy office, singled
out Tuesday as the kind that could receive clients and funding through
a voucher-based drug recovery plan.

Talent and Barthwell were at the Catholic Charities-supported
treatment center in the Central West End to promote the "Access to
Recovery Initiative" announced by President George W. Bush during his
State of the Union address.

The program calls for $1.6 billion in funding over five years and is
designed to help at least 100,000 people get drug and alcohol abuse
treatment each year. Funding for the program is still in the
appropriations stage, but Talent and Barthwell were optimistic that
the money would come through.

"We've long recognized that individuals are responsive to treatment
that meets their needs," Barthwell said. This voucher program, Talent
added, is one that acknowledges, for some people, those treatment
programs that recognize a higher power can be the most successful.

For Cheryl, that higher power has been part of her recovery
process.

"When I came here I was spiritually bankrupt, and today I'm not," she
said. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake