Based on state statistics, between 1,000 and 1,400 people in the Homer area have a problem with alcohol dependence and alcohol abuse. And for every person with a problem, there are several more whose lives are impacted, from employers to friends and relatives to police and emergency personnel. On the other hand, many people in this community hold jobs that are dependent on the sale of alcohol -- especially during tourist season. The following is a compilation of interviews with community members about the solutions already in place to handle alcohol use in our community and the areas where there is room for improvement.
The role of those who serve
When does personal responsibility end and restaurant or bar establishment responsibility begin?
For bar owners, that line often is the front entrance of their establishment.
For this reason, said Dale Fox, the executive director of the Alaska Cabaret, Hotel, Restaurant & Retailers Association (CHARR), the industry takes many steps to curb abuse, and get help to those who need it.
"It's a nonstop effort to do the right thing, to serve responsibly," he said.
For starters CHARR provides Techniques for Alcohol Management, or TAMS classes, weekly and certifies 5,000 servers and bartenders each year.
The TAMS program is the biggest of its kind and a state regulatory necessity for anyone looking to work in the business of alcohol sales.
Students learn when to stop or slow down a patron's drinking, when to give patrons food to neutralize the affects of alcohol and how to spot signs of inebriation.
The industry gave more than $100,000 in recent years to the Wellness Court in Anchorage, an organization that supports people who have a drinking problem.
The Wellness Court provides alcohol treatment and counseling, as well as the prescription medication Naltrexone, which reduces or stops cravings for alcohol allowing the defendant to concentrate on treatment.
The court also holds 12-step meetings, cognitive behavioral training and monitors for continued sobriety.
From there, said Fox, CHARR members are often leaders in their respective communities when it comes to charitable giving.
"The industry gives so much money away," said Fox. "These people are part of the community."
Last year, CHARR members gave more than $400,000 to charities in their communities, Fox said.
CHARR Vice President Chip Duggan, who owns Duggan's Waterfront Pub, said this giving is often underreported.
When the village of Nanwalek wanted to raise money for a church, Duggan said, they held a fund-raiser at Duggan's and raised more than $10,000 in one night.
The revenue from pull tabs at area bars go to many nonprofits such as the Homer Hockey Foundation and Share the Spirit.
Every year Duggan's runs a St. Patrick's Day scavenger hunt, with the proceeds going to the winner's nonprofit of choice.
"The pull tabs that we sell in town raise thousands and thousands of dollars," said Duggan. "If we didn't sell them these organizations wouldn't exist."
On the state level, Fox said, the industry pays more than its fair share of taxes on alcohol.
Alaska is home to the highest alcohol excise taxes of any state in the country.
For instance, the average tax on liquor, beer and wine in the country is $3.73, $0.19 and $0.64 per gallon. In Alaska these taxes are $12.80 per gallon for liquor, $1.07 for beer and $2.50 for wine.
According to a study by the Alaska Department of Health and Human Services, health care costs resulting from alcohol and drug abuse were $123 million in 1999.
As reported in this series, the state received $25.3 million from the sale of alcohol last year.
According to the Alaska Department of Revenue, half of the money raised by excise taxes "shall" go to alcohol abuse prevention.
Duggan said it often does not.
"Any tax goes into the general fund, and has to be re-appropriated," said Duggan. "The money just doesn't get there. (It goes to) the roads to Juneau or the middle of nowhere. None of these taxes are getting to where they should be."
Those who work in bars, restaurants and liquor stores say they often inappropriately shoulder the blame for community members' problems with alcohol.
Bar owners, bartenders and servers are taught during TAMS classes to spot those people who are not drinking responsibly, Duggan said.
"What we do, like during band nights, we have a door man who checks ID's (and monitors) people that have been here for a while," he said.
Doormen and servers talk to the customers to size up their ability to drive, Duggan said. If they shouldn't be driving they will call a cab for them or get their car keys.
"I am willing to buy cab rides home for anyone that needs one," he said.
When that doesn't work, or when someone continues to cause problems, most bar owners will banish certain patrons from their bars.
In two weeks, experienced and inexperienced drinkers will be making the rounds for New Year's Eve.
Local bars will once again take this occasion to keep drunk-drivers off the street by offering free cab rides.
Kostas Cab Company will handle transportation while area bars will foot the bill.
During the past two years this program has resulted in zero DUI arrests on one of the busiest party nights of the year.
Still Duggan said, it is often the local bars and liquor stores that gets a black eye anytime the topic of alcohol abuse comes up.
"I know there are people with problems," Duggan said. "But a lot drink responsibly. That is what our business is based on."
Teens, society getting wrong message about alcohol
Historically, alcohol use is glamorized to the point where it is an accepted part of society, said Henry Novak, Executive Director at the Cook Inlet Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse. Use, even overuse, by young people is often encouraged, particularly among peers, or by television and magazine advertisements, he said.
As a result, people feel that as long as they only drink and don't use other drugs, they are staying relatively safe.
But young people are not hearing enough about the negative effects of alcohol and other drugs, and society often sends mixed messages about alcohol -- or poor ones, Novak said. He remembers walking into a store once last year and caught sight of a beer advertisement on the wall -- an ad he said was blatantly aimed at young men between middle school and college age.
"It was a fancy little sports car up on top of a snow-covered mountain," Novak said. "The back seat was just full of ice with bottled beer. I forget what brand it was. Young guys standing by the car, looking to the sky. And above them the Swedish Bikini Team -- in their bikinis -- were parachuting in to party with them. And I said, 'this is the perfect ad.'"
Alaska State Trooper Sgt. Jim Hibpshman, head of the Homer Post, E Detachment, also noted the effects of such ads on young people.
"I worry about that when I sit down and watch Monday Night Football with my son, and I'm bombarded by beer commercials," he said.
Responsible society needs to counter that message with an education on the true effects of alcohol abuse, Novak said.
One local effort is seen annually at Homer High School. Three of the past four years, the school has organized an annual symposium on the effects of alcohol and substance abuse.
The school has invited members of the local community -- including health care professionals, police officers and counselors -- who directly deal with alcohol and substance abuse among students and families.
The symposium offers students a chance to hear from local specialists about the physical and legal effects of using and abusing alcohol and drugs, said Homer High Principal Ron Keffer.
Keffer is accepting of the fact that students won't walk out with a revelation of the effects of alcohol abuse from the symposium, but does hear from conversations with students that they are becoming more educated.
Dr. Charles Burgess, the medical director at the Community Mental Health Center and former head of the department of Psychiatry at Providence Hospital in Anchorage, participated in the school symposium three years ago. He applauds the school's effort but said he hopes to see similar efforts aimed at the whole community, not just students. Parents need to be more informed, he said.
Keffer, however, said he sees a recent increase in the number of students who understand the effects of alcohol and other drugs as largely the result of parents' attitudes.
Over the past five years, Keffer has seen a large number of parents of incoming students that have been interested in the topic, he said.
"The efforts that parents have made are starting to pay off," he said.
Community education is a key component of fighting alcohol abuse, Keffer said.
"Above all we want them to be highly informed and educated and if they are and we teach them how to make safe choices, then I think they stand a better chance of being safe," Keffer said.
Program closure leaves void
Some solutions look ahead to the next generation, the young people who may be thinking about using alcohol or who have begun experimenting with it, but haven't yet developed problems. Up until early this year, Choices for Teens ran several alcohol prevention and awareness programs for teenagers including the Youth of the Nation Teen Center, which provided a safe place for youth to hang out but closed in the fall of 2003. Choices for Teens also ran education programs like "Buy Booze You Lose," "Sticker Shock" poster and publicity campaigns and the Alcohol and Drug Information School.
Last February, with major funding in question, the Choices for Teens board of directors laid off its staff and closed its office. The board has met monthly since then as it considers how to reorganize and continue its programs, said board president Marjanne Schneider.
Choices for Teens received a three-year education grant through the federally funded Alaska Highway Safety Office of the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. Funding to continue similar AHSO programs has been stalled in the U.S. Congress and will be taken up in January when Congress reconvenes.
Schneider said she felt Choices for Teens did help educate teenagers about making good choices and not drinking alcohol or using drugs.
"We were at least able to influence some young people's thinking," she said. "Choices helped, or at least brought (the problem or alcohol abuse) to light. ... We had groups. We had discussions. All we felt that we were doing was putting it out there -- the awareness, the perception. We felt that we met a need in the community."
As part of its daily programs, other groups like the Boys & Girls Club do provide teenagers and younger children with information on making positive life choices. The national Boys & Girls Club offers alcohol education programs for youth, said Loretta Erickson, director of the Homer Boys & Girls Club. Next spring, she said the club hopes to offer a comprehensive health curriculum that includes education about alcohol and substance abuse.
Other programs sometimes address these issues, she said, such as Torch Club Eagles, a leadership and character building group for 10- to 13-year-old children that emphasizes community service, fund raising and social activities.
"Every day we informally emphasize positive alternatives to substance abuse by offering so many sports, music lessons, arts, technology projects, digital arts, and support for academic success," Erickson said.
Peninsula programs offer help, but is it enough?
In Homer, one agency that provides help for those suffering solely from problems with alcohol is the Cook Inlet Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, which offers outpatient counseling and group sessions for teens, women and men. People who suffer from significant mental challenges in addition to having problems with alcohol use can receive help at Community Mental Health. In addition, Alcoholics Anonymous, which holds group sessions, meets twice a day in Homer as well as regularly in Anchor Point.
But those involved in counseling the people for whom alcohol has taken control of their lives say the resources they have are not enough to serve the need.
The only facility on the Kenai Peninsula that provides inpatient care is a six-bed co-ed facility in Kenai -- Serenity House -- that often has a waiting list of several weeks, according to Novak of CICADA. If that facility is full, Anchorage's facilities typically require a six or seven-month wait. That doesn't work well for people whose lives are falling apart from alcohol abuse, he said. Those who need the kind of program an inpatient facility offers -- typically around 20 percent of those who come to CICADA for help -- are not in a position to wait for weeks or months to get the help they need. They often relapse, skip out on their scheduled slot in the program and then must start all over again, he said.
State statistics show that in Alaska, around 56 percent of those in outpatient programs abstained from alcohol for one year after treatment, compared with 42 percent of residential patients.
But Novak said that figure is skewed by the fact that those whose problem is severe enough to need a residential program typically face a greater challenge once they get out and go back to their regular lives.
"These are the people who can't make it in an outpatient setting because they have to go home past the liquor store and they're still in a living situation that is not the healthiest," Novak said. "Sometimes it's really hard."
Novak said people who do use a residential facility typically benefit from extensive outpatient care after they get out.
Novak said state funding for his and other substance abuse programs has been cut "pretty severely" in recent years, a factor that makes it difficult since CICADA is mandated not to refuse anyone service due to inability to pay. Federal grants for programs to women and children have helped. But funds that used to be available for travel, for example, are not there, making facilities like the residential program in Kodiak, off limits.
"We're serving people as best we can given the constraints we have," he said.
For-profit facilities, such as Charter North in Anchorage, are available, but unless a patient has medical insurance, they are typically too expensive, Novak said.
In a perfect world, the state would fund more staff for programs like CICADA and more residential facility beds, Novak said. In addition, there is a real need for a more comprehensive women's program, he said, one that offers transitional long-term living options and job training for women with children.
"The days of somebody stocking shelves and raising a family on that are long gone," he said. "Flipping burgers is not going to make it."
In addition, the peninsula needs more prevention programs and intervention for families coping with members who have substance abuse problems.
One bright spot in the future could be a potential increase in funding to fight fetal alcohol syndrome, Novak said, that might help break the cycle of alcohol abuse since many people suffering from FAS go on to develop their own alcohol abuse problems.
Novak said Alaska, along with the rest of the country, is slowly changing its attitudes about acceptable drinking levels. It is no longer generally socially acceptable, for example, that people allow others to leave a party drunk and drive home, Novak pointed out. But Alaskans still have the work hard, play hard attitude.
"I think that it's probably something that is hardwired into our society," he said. "But it's shifting. There is a move away from that."
Looking ahead
From the alcohol industry to police to treatment and education, Homer has taken alcohol abuse more seriously. Bars, restaurants and liquor stores have monitored alcohol abuse more closely -- and worked with police to keep minors from buying booze. Driving under the influence laws have been tightened up, such as lowering the legal limit of intoxication to a blood-alcohol level of .08. Police and troopers have stepped up enforcement, and figures show declines in drunk driving arrests, said Homer Police Chief Mark Robl.
Even though education programs like Choices for Teens are no longer active, other programs have picked up the goal of educating teenagers -- the next generation of drinkers -- about alcohol abuse.
Treatment programs like CICADA or AA give hope to alcoholics ready to deal with their addictions. No one group has the answer, Sgt. Jim Hibpshman said.
"What's the magic wand? I don't know," he said, "It takes enforcement, it takes education, it takes AA and other substance abuse programs. It takes a mind set in the community that alcohol is not OK."
Schneider said she thinks the community has to take more of a stand. Although liquor stores make it almost impossible for teenagers to buy alcohol, they still get it.
"There are people that provide alcohol to minors," she said. "Parents should be outraged. ... It takes a big effort, a whole community effort to get a grip on it. A lot of the parents need to be involved."
Hibpshman said he respects personal freedom and the right of adults to get drunk if they choose -- as long as they don't go out and drive, or cause other problems. With rights come responsibilities, he said.
He recognizes that prohibition doesn't work, that even in dry villages where people have taken a firm stand against alcohol, people still manage to smuggle in booze. People who use alcohol -- responsibly or not -- have to recognize its cost.
"To say that alcohol doesn't have a dark side -- I'll argue with that," Hibpshman said. "I deal with the dark side every day."
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