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Sonoma County, a diverse county of over one million acres, is famed for its agriculture industry and recreation boasting a booming economy and a unique lifestyle for its citizens described by the same Luther Burbank as the chosen spot of all the earth. Sonoma County is the place

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to live, work and play as we move into the 21st century. Led by the forward looking philosophy of its governing bodies. Sonoma County's 340,000 residents are a harmonious, successful blend of ethnic and economic backgrounds. We invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in

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the nineties with your host, Rich McGlinchey, How you doing everybody? I'm Rich McGlinchey. And the program is, as you know, Sonoma County in the nineties on this edition of our program, we're gonna be talking about the subject of alcoholism. It's very much with us and it's

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a very serious subject. We're gonna be talking with Howie Van, who is the alcoholism services supervisor for Dorinda Center And incidentally in case you're not familiar with the understand. It's in its 20th year. This year started 1971. Now it's 1991. So we're in the 20th year

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of service to the public and has done an amazing job. And the gentleman who is my guest today has also done another splendid job. He is going to tell us a little bit about our understanding, its overall programs and then he's going to discuss his program,

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which is called family and friends. Now, my wife and I haven't turned to that because we've had members of our family who had alcoholism, problems related problems. And we went there to determine what we could learn uh in order to better deal with our loved ones

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when they had this problem. And I want to tell you one thing Howie Van and his Family and Friends program is in my opinion, one of the best programs in existence to help people do just what I'm talking about. First of all, let's let's welcome you

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back. How? It's really nice to have you here talking to an old friend and the person that I admire. And I think there's a splendid job out there. But just you don't do it all. It's a it's an important center out there. Gino gino bola is

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your head out there. Uh The program has been in existence for 20 years. Why don't you maybe tell us what services in general or office it offered rather at Orinda center? Oh okay. Rich. The Horrendous center is Sonoma County's alcohol services program. It's a county run,

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We have a detox unit, a 30 bed detox unit. And that detox unit is for people under the influence of alcohol needing to detoxify. And it ranges from anywhere from four hours to four hours to uh 34 days whatever requires a person and detoxified. That's a

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30 bed facility. We have uh 20 bad Residential treatment aspect of a rental center. And that's where a person can come in and live in for approximately. It works out to be approximately 25 days of residential treatment services. Uh Then we have what's called a non

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residential services or sometimes referred to by others as an outpatient program. That's where the person is living at home, coming in for services during the day or during the evening. Now the out patient or non residential services are not only for the alcoholic or persons who

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may be experiencing alcohol problems, but it could be for the family members, someone that's living with the alcoholic or it could be for the adult child. So we have all different services provided on a non residential services. What you mentioned a moment ago, the detox center

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and then you also another center where 25 day stay. That a detoxification center is where you kind of drive people out? Is that the idea exactly. People come in under the influence of al alcohol and and we provide a safe place for that individual to detox

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Now. Uh the uniqueness about our detox unit is this what's called a social model program meaning it's non medical model. We have no medical people on staff. We don't administer any medications to detoxify. We provide a safe place uh warm fuzzies uh for the person to

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Detoxified. We monitor the detoxification process exactly. Now the other 25 day unit, how do they get put into there? And what does that accomplish? Okay that's uh the way a person gets into the residential treatment program. Uh We have screenings. and those screenings are monday and

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thursday person comes into person be interviewed and what we're looking for is one to see if the problem that this person is experiencing with alcohol. It's to the point where they can't stop drinking in their environment, they need to be removed from their environment and placed

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in a somewhat a supportive environment. So the person is screen. We're looking for motivation and uh the extent of the problem, then the person is given a date to come in for residential treatment. Well, alcoholism is certainly a major problem and information about it out to

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the public in general helps a great deal I know that, but what type of public service educational classes are offered presently at Orinda center, we have quite a few uh public information or public service classes offered to the public, free of charge, no commitment. All the

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individuals come in and sit down and right now we have a number of those and I'll go through some of them on monday. And all of these, all of these classes are a series of six. It takes six weeks to complete the series on Mondays. We

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have women in alcohol and that deals primarily with uh women alcohol problems that women experience within the family. The actual uh drinking the actual uh society's attitudes. Uh that's on monday evening, Tuesday evening, we have what's a series of six free to the public adult Children

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of alcoholics series and that's dealing with Children who have been brought up in an alcoholic family what they look like as a child and what they look like as adults now, what they're experienced as a result of that early experience. And then Wednesday is a class

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that I teach is called Family and Friends and that deal with the effects of alcohol or alcohol abuse or alcoholism on the family, how the family copes with that or how the family doesn't cope with it. Um Then on thursday there's alcohol awareness and that deals

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primarily with the effects of alcohol on the individual. We also have a spanish speaking, educational uh family class and that's also on Wednesday evenings. So these open to the public free of charge alcohol. Ums is such a destructive illness. It it takes quality people and just

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lowers them to people that have lost their self respect, they've lost their direction, they've lost their ability to say no. Um it's marvelous that are in the center has all of these programs because as I understand it, alcoholism is still growing throughout the country. As far

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as numbers is concerned. Is that right? It is that is correct. I don't know what those figures are exactly, but I have read recently, there is an increase and younger people have, in many cases gotten off of the so called hard drugs, at least around many

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of the college areas and onto the drinking, which was the family, the parents and the grandparents way of imbibing a very sad situation. I work uh with the educational class with the family. And that's a great interest of mine, the effects of alcoholism on the entire

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family and a lot of people may believe that since I don't drink it didn't have any effect on me. Uh we have a videotape and I think that the title of it is quite accurate. I am my father's son and so many times I've heard people

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say I'll never do what mom do. I've never do what dad uh dead and years come to pass and boy, I'm doing exactly the same thing well as I said earlier, my wife and I attended your series, Family and Friends. In fact, we made to two

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surgeons sojourns through the program and and found it very fascinating and found and I command you to do a marvelous job. The thing that we're talking to there our families and friends, not basically the alcoholics, there may be some of course, but basically these are people

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that are affected by their alcoholic loved ones if you will. And I think we should really get into your class now a little bit on family and friends which I found in my life and I found so fascinating and so instructive and so helpful in dealing

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with friends and relatives of ours who had an alcoholic related problem. Um what is the class you teach now? The name is it's called Family and Friends. And that's held when Wednesday evenings from 6 to 7:30 p.m. At the Orinda center in room number five room

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number five. All right now in regard to family and friends class, does a person's drinking affect the rest of the family? Oh yes. Oh yes. What I try to do in this class is um well let me, let me backtrack and say there's a chinese saying

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and that saying is the man takes a drink. The drink takes a drink, the drink takes the man. And what I try to do is try to clearly point out when those stages take place. Our society condones drinking. Uh So the man takes a drink long

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generally speaking long before the legal age the man takes a drink uh and then the drink takes the drink. And at that point is when I was saying we we run into this critter called denial. And um and uh so I I try to look at

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each one of those segments and how does the individual uh slowly drift into those different stages and then how does the family adjust to the alcoholic going into each stage? What what one will hear me say throughout that Family and Friends series is that it is

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impossible to adjust to the disease in a healthy manner. It is impossible to adjust to an alcoholic in a healthy manner. The alcoholic is addicted to alcohol and very often the significant other is addicted to the alcoholic. Howie does a person have to leave a relationship

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in order to deal or to sell to cope with his or her partner's drinking? No, not at all. Not. It doesn't have to know. But what I've seen happen is that initially in the beginning of the relationship, the individuals may have quote, fallen in love, but

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through months or years of alcohol misuse or abuse, uh the significant other may end up falling in hate and out of that resentment. That anger will leave the relationship, but uh that is not necessarily a step that I would encourage a person to take is to

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leave the relationship. What I found out is that individuals that generally leave the relationship will get into another, just like the one they left. Uh, to me, I've, I've seen families that have adjusted to the disease of alcoholism uh, somehow leave the alcoholic and say, I'll

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never get into another relationship with another alcoholic again and they go right out and get into a relationship with a psychotic. You know how another thing comes to mind, the idea of smoking of nicotine consumption has, has been proven to be deadly not only to the

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individuals and insist on continuing to do so, but even secondarily to people that are surrounding them. And yet also if you go back a couple of generations, you find that alcohol and alcohol was accepted everywhere. It was part of the lifestyle. And this is the worst

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thing that could ever happen to our country really, that we adopted that philosophy 50 years or 75 years ago, because it's taken a long, long time to say that might have been ok then, but I'm telling you it's killing you all right now, and uh this

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makes your job all the harder because you're talking older people like myself. And I grew up drinking was supposed to be the macho man thing to do. A very sad misnomer, we found out later. But you must be dealing with that with the older people still,

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aren't you? Actually, that's not uh only the attitude in in what I would call the older population richard, I see that attitude still with high school uh kids, it's I still see that attitude of the more you can drink, the more of a man you are,

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the more machismo I'll drink you under the table. And uh and and and and all the research that I've read about uh those persons who says how much I can drink without having a hangover. Those are the persons that are in a greater risk category, becoming

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alcoholic. Uh for the simple reason they can keep more alcohol in their systems. Um I I prefer to hear the person says I take one drink. And boy, that's all, and I get sick as a dog, if I the likelihood of them become an alcoholic is

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slim because they can't keep enough alcohol in their system. But but we still connect alcohol with uh uh masculinity. Um and I think that says something about our society in regards to, you know, uh alcohol is socially acceptable. And thank goodness. I think primarily thank goodness

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too mad that our society used to accept drunkenness as being okay, especially in men. Thanks to mad. I think that's turning around and we're not tolerating drunkenness. We have a whole lot more. We want to ask you about alcoholism and about family and friends. But first

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this pause after which we will come back and talk with taliban more about alcoholism, alcoholism services and how you can attend family and friends and learn how to deal with alcoholics if you happen to have them in your family or among your friends. First it's poison

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honey. What's wrong? Please let me in. I'm worried, learn to see the signs of mental illness. Two out of three people who get help get better for a free booklet called the american Mental health Fund professor from the call box institute. You'll be seeing more of

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these along the highways. Now use them when your car breaks down. Think safety first pull off the highway well off the highway, then simply pick up the receiver, it automatically dials the CHP dispatch center. So don't try to call for a pizza or something. Next be

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very patient patient patient complicated switching system and it might take a few minutes to get through and finally stay with your vehicle until help arrives. Remember this stuff, you could be quizzed call boxes. Welcome back to this edition of Sonoma County in the 90s. And I

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hope you're finding this an interesting edition because it's a very interesting subject at a very problematic one. It's alcoholism and how we're dealing with it. We have Howie Van, who's the alcoholism services coordinator or supervisor is the correct title for the rent. A center has been

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talking a little bit about what the center does in general and also about his specific program called Family and Friends, which is provided at a rent. A center room five from 6 to 7 30 every Wednesday. Now going on into your program. One of the things

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I know you mentioned and I think people ought to know what is a co alcoholic. Okay. We have services just for in a sense to coe and the coe is or co alcoholic is a person who is a primary relationship with uh an alcoholic who uh

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has adjusted and then and now may be participating in the denial which enables that individual to continue to self destruct. And one of the, one of the reasons which I really designed his family and friend class was actually targeted for the co because the attitude of

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the code is the one I don't have a problem. He he has a problem. She has the problem. She's doing a drink and he does the drinking. If they stop the drink and everything will be okay. And that's not really true. I kiddingly say that, that,

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that, that earlier on the coast would come in as if we were quick fix station and drop them off, says, uh, fix him. Uh, I'm leaving him, I'm going to work, you fix him and uh, give me a call around two o'clock and give me the

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estimate. And if it's over $500 put him to sleep, I'll go get another one. Uh, but but the person living with the practice, an alcoholic perceived of it as being strictly the alcoholics problem. I was not involved in any way. If you fixed him, I would

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be okay. This class is really designed for the entire family. They enabled the alcoholic to keep right on going. Exactly. And with their justification. Exactly. They participate in denial system just as strongly as an alcoholic. You often talk about a C. A what is an a

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C A and a C A is referred to as adult child of an alcoholic. Um, now it, depending on where you put the pause, I don't know what the meaning of it is. Is an adult who is still a child of an alcoholic or is it

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a an adult child of an alcoholic, wherever you put the pause, it still remains the same that this individual was affected as a result of alcoholism and his family. And we do get into that in family and friends and see what affects it uh has on

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a child and uh literally those in our society to Oh yes, and there are different degrees uh severe. Uh and and again, this is we also look at this in the in the Family and Friends series, uh an A. C. A. Is not an A. C.

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A. They all do not look the same. There's so many little things that like to comment about as we go along, what our time is limited. I was just thinking in terms of so many entertainment figures have come from families where the parents were alcoholic, and

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and these people are are the adult Children of of a person who was an alcoholic, and they have definitely been affected by it if they don't realize that, and don't come to groups such as yours. Um they live a confused life in many respects, I want

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to go onto this. So, what do people mean? You know, what are they talking about when they talk about denial and alcohol abuse? That I think is a very confusing term to a lot of people, and I don't think people clearly understand what denial is. Uh

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I get into uh depth of this in the series, but simply put denial is when the behavior deviates from the value system and that deviation is based on the consumption of alcohol when the behavior deviates from the value system. so then the person justifies that deviation

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through rationalization and justification when a person has basic believes that the concept they've lived by and then they contradict that behavior contradicts that correct, and and that not only takes place with the alcoholic, but it also takes place with the significant other, the co alcoholic and

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other family members. Well, there's something that ties into those last two questions. Can a co alcoholic or an adult child of an alcoholic be in denial? Yes, they can, yes, their behavior also deviates from their value system, which causes inner turmoil in er stress, and the

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denial is not acknowledging that deviation. So actually, when we look at recovery, uh basically what we're talking about is clarification of the value systems and then moving that behavior in line with that value system in the case of the adult child of an alcoholic, What are

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the factors which would determine the effect on the child? Okay. Um Oh boy, what a complicated question. Okay, no, we've time, unfortunately we're gonna have you back again in the near future, but try to touch on that. Okay, there are basically three components that will determine

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the severity uh of the drinking on this child. Uh one factor would be the, let's see how to put this in a concept, the drinking, what what type of drinking was it in a sense of how did it disturb the family rituals? Uh Did did the

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individuals drinking only disturb the family rituals on holidays? Uh, if so then we would see the family really starting to get twitchy during holidays. Did the drink and increase and affected family rituals not only on holidays with special family occasions such as anniversaries, birthdays, but mitzvahs,

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graduations, weddings or did they drinking extend and affect the family rituals every day? If, if the rituals of the family were disturbed every day, the family is in stress every day of the week. Now, this is where a child will be seemingly functioning well at school.

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When the school bell rings for that child to go home, the child gets scared, Their stomach does a flip flop that feels like they have to throw up because they have no idea what what to expect when they get home. Will mom be waiting with milk

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and cookies? Will mom be passed out in the bedroom? And the robe again, because she's drinking? Will mom be standing on the back of a chair with a rope tied to the chandelier saying she can't take it any longer? Uh, So the worst possible is drinking

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is affecting the family on a daily level. And, and, and that's that, that family is in stress every day of the week and we have so little time, a couple of minutes left. This is a hideous insidious disease, alcoholism. It affects, I don't know what percentage,

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but it's a large percentage of our country? Uh, the sad thing about is the folks out there that are listening with us this evening are not aware of the severity of this or not aware of when somebody in their family or as close to them starts

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having or has a problem with alcoholism with a little bit of time. I have left to us here today. I would think that we maybe ought to discuss a little bit more about your class when it takes place. Um, the days and so forth and let

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the public know in general that this is available now. It's called family and Friends. The dates that you hold, the class are Wednesday's. Everyone's every Wednesdays from six p.m. To 7:30 p.m. In room number five at the Orinda center. And we also have childcare available by

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the way. Have they ever heated up your cup of coffee? How we would come into the coffee and he said it's cold rich rich. This is county facility. We're not supposed to have beverages. Oh, that's right. Well it was okay. I know you can't cover all

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of, we should be talking about what you do cover all of these things in the family and friends classes. That right, correct. I would like to emphasize for those persons who have Children, we do have childcare available for family and friends. Yes, room five Wednesday from

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six o'clock, seven o'clock program is called family and Friends. It's held at the rent. A center, which is come on Bennett Road and some other street there. I'm not sure what I think you'd find it pretty easy. Let me say this on behalf of how who

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I have great admiration for what he's been trying to do and doing. He's done a tremendous job in telling people who have relatives, friends, loved ones who are alcoholic or have alcohol related problems, how to deal with this, how to deal with it successfully I believe

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and I, on behalf of everyone who's attended these courses commend you for it and thank you. Thank you And I would like to have you plan to visit with this in a few months again. Would take more. We'll go into this a little bit more because

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we didn't get a chance to talk about the dysfunctional family or some of the other things that are extremely, very important. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, I guess has been Howie Van who has become a good friend and also

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a gentleman. I admire very much for his efforts to help everybody who is surrounded or with people that are alcoholic. My name is Rich McGlinchey. The program Sonoma County in the nineties. We'll be back with you next week with another member of the county government family

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till then. Goodnight, good luck and good health to each and every one of you