THE COMPLEXITY OF ALCOHOL
ALCOHOLISM TREATMENT – THEN AND NOW
AUTHOR Karyn Hascal
F
ather John Morgan opened his doors
to homeless men in 1971 when he
recognized the need to shelter those
who came to the door at St. Patrick’s
Catholic Church in Louisville. With
the help and support of doctors from
the Jefferson County Medical Society
(now GLMS), eventually the shelter grew to
house more than 50 men, was named the John H. Morgan Center
and hired Jay Davidson as the Center Director. After working in
the shelter day and night for two weeks, Jay quickly realized that
the men coming to the shelter were most often under the influence
of alcohol. Jay also knew that applying the traditional methods of
social support was not going to be effective unless the men addressed
their problems with alcohol and other drugs. While assisting the
men in finding homes, employment and other social supports was
important, they would eventually return to the shelter having lost
all of those supports.
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LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
That early shelter, first located at 1619 West Main Street and
subsequently 1017 and 1019 West Market Street, has grown into
the current Healing Place for men, housing nearly 750 men nightly.
The program for women first served participants in 1995, growing
to its current population of 250 women nightly. Those 1,000 men
and women have come to The Healing Place seeking solutions to a
wide variety of substance use and substance use disorder problems.
What has remained constant over the years is the report of alcohol
as one of the primary substances of abuse.
The Healing Place detox units are often ground zero for the
knowledge of what drugs are available on the street. Despite the
various new drug surges over the past 30 years, the one drug that
has remained constant is alcohol. Alcohol is consistently listed as
the top drug of addiction of 10-20% of our clients entering detox.
Alcohol is often forgotten or ignored in our society because it’s
such a big part of our culture. Our society continues to send the
message that alcohol is a part of celebration, grief, sporting events,
a stressful day at work, etc. What doesn’t get messaged is that an