Drug and alcohol rehab may not be cheap, but is it really that expensive?  Sometimes it is just hard to figure some things out. I had the pleasure of attending St. Patricks Day in Ireland recently.  Ireland is a beautiful country and Dublin is an incredible city.  The food was delicious and the parade and entertainment were all very top notch.  The parties and celebrations in the hundreds of pubs and bar was quite beyond description.  Wall to wall crowds and absolutely packed body to body, standing room only.  Large lines formed outside every establishment, and any occupancy rules were totally thrown out the window.

Alcohol was served at an absolutely dizzying pace.  At approximately 8 to 10 dollars a drink teams of very skilled bartenders could not keep up the pace to serve the thirsty crowds.  I make no comment about the people drinking.  They have every right to enjoy their celebrations to the maximum.  I only comment on the massive amount of money available for the purchase of alcohol.  The price seemed to have no effect on the rate of consumption.  My only question is why cannot a resonable percentage of this cash flow be diverted into programs to assist those with addictions to alcohol. 

How can so much profit be made from a product and yet so little be made available to those for whom it becomes a problem in their life.  I truly doubt anyone would have drank significantly less at 11 dollars a drink, and yet that extra dollar made available consistenly to those programs with the greatest effectiveness would have a huge impact.  There is always money for the party, why don't we insure there is enough money to clean up the mess afterwards.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Drug Rehab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.