Commentary: Sober-living homes are a symptom of a bigger drug problem

On Nov. 28, more than 150 people attended a town hall meeting at Costa Mesa’s Neighborhood Community Center to discuss the future of sober-living homes in the city.

The town hall was sponsored by the Assn. of California Cities-Orange County and the Orange County Assn. of Realtors and was attended by U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa), state Assemblyman Matthew Harper (R-Huntington Beach) and state Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa), among others.

But instead of trying to solve a problem, they discussed the symptoms. According to the U. S. Dept. of Health and Human Services statistics from 2014, on an average day in the U.S.:

•More than 650,000 opioid prescriptions are dispensed;

•13,900 people initiate non-medical use of prescription opioids;

•2,580 people initiate heroin use;

•278 people die from an opioid-related overdoses.

Those are just the drug numbers. According to the 2014 numbers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism:

•Nearly 88,000 people die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the fourth-leading preventable cause of death in the United States;

•In 2010, alcohol misuse problems cost the United States $249 billion;

•More than 10 percent of U.S. children live with a parent with alcohol problems, according to a 2012 study;

•Drinking alcohol increases the risk of cancers of the mouth, esophagus, pharynx, larynx, liver and breast.

Drinking alcohol also increases the chances that you will require the services of a sober-living home.

Sober-living homes are not the problem, they are a symptom. The problems are many, but the root problem is the constant flow of drug- and alcohol-abusing people who need sober-living services, which is supported by:

•A society that promotes drug use and abuse and supports excessive alcohol consumption. On the one-mile stretch of 17th Street in Costa Mesa, between Newport Boulevard and Irvine Avenue, there are multiple places in which one can purchase alcohol;

•Politicians who cannot tell the difference between a symptom and a problem, and who kowtow to constituent audiences with the tough regulation talk that they came to hear;

•The same politicians who fail to propose any meaningful laws regulating the substances that cause the need for sober living in the first place and powerful drug and alcohol industries that claim to want to get abuse under control but are as complacent as the politicians: Inserting the phrase “drink responsibly” on every alcohol ad is a weak response to a tragic epidemic.

If we are to resolve the need for so many sober-living homes, we need these politicians to move upstream and start addressing the problem of addiction instead of attending meaningless town halls that result in little more than grandstanding opportunities and media sound bites.

Costa Mesa resident STEVE SMITH publishes the Better CM/Newport Schools blog.