RSS Feed
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Myers knows hardships and heartaches of addiction Frank Myers knows how alcohol can devastate a person's life. He is a recovering alcoholic who has been able to stay sober for eight years. "I drank alcohol for 35 years," he said. "I got to the point where I almost died." The vote on the referendum on alcohol sales in Thomasville will be held Aug. 14. Myers has been working with the "Citizens Against Alcohol Sales in Thomasville" group. "It's horrible what alcohol does to people. It destroys homes and lives." A native of the Barlow Bend community in southeast Clarke County, he has lived in Thomasville since 1970. While he struggled to end his alcohol abuse, he became disabled and lost his job in a cutback at the Alabama River Pulp Mill. "I knew that God caused all of this to happen," he said, "and I knew that I could not stay sober unless I got involved (in helping other people afflicted with alcohol). Myers is the director of The Haven in Thomasville, a nonprofit half-way house for recovering alcoholics and addicts. The facility in a threebedroom house opened five years ago and currently is the home for 10 men. "I get people from under bridges and out of cars beside the road and out of wrecked homes," he said. "Most of them don't have anything left. They don't have a wife, anymore - don't have a home, anymore…just nothing." There is no particular time limit for staying at The Haven. Most will stay 90 days. One man has stayed there for four years. "He's got nowhere else on earth to go. His family has thrown him away….He can't afford to go anywhere." There are four beds to a room. Myers said someone asked how you live like that in the shelter. "That's luxury," he said for a man who has lost everything to alcohol abuse. They are looking for someone who cares. "It is just a mission that God gave me," he said of The Haven. Myers went through four houses before he found a neighborhood that would accept the facility. "Nobody wants people like us living next to them." Now, he said the neighbors have accepted them. The Haven receives donations from private citizens, and local churches, businesses and foundations. The city residents can already buy alcohol in Dixons Mills, Pine Hill or Jackson. Myers is afraid of what will happen with the men he counsels if citizens of Thomasville vote yes Aug. 14 to alcohol sales. "It's going to hurt my place. I can control these guys pretty much from going (out of town, but with a 'yes' vote) they can walk down the street to the grocery store." The temptation will be overwhelming, he said. As they say in the local recovery program Myers attends, "You go in the barber shop enough, you're going to get a haircut. If you go in a store with beer enough, you're going to pick up a can." Young people are overwhelmed by the marketing by beer and wine companies. "With the pretty signs and the colorful posters (combined with peer pressure)…they are eventually going to try it." Myers counsels a lot of families already about love ones who are afflicted. "The kids call - "why is mom or dad doing this?' It just breaks your heart.
"…It's sad the first time a person gets killed," he said. "You can't put a price on a life. Since I've been sober, in this county, 44 people (in the recovery program Myers attends) have been killed. That's people that I know" - alcoholics and addicts killed through automobile accidents, domestic violence and suicides. Alcohol sales in Thomasville will just open the door for more heartache."
|
for larger version       |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
