Huntsbury offers hope

Press, 30 March 1983, Page 12

Huntsbury offers hope

The treatment of alcoholics can be as unrewarding an affair for the patients as for those who attempt to help them. In a sense, the illness is never cured in those who suffer from it. A high proportion of those who seek treatment revert, sooner or later, to their former habits of drinking. Few other illnesses require such a high degree of co-operation from patients if treatments are to succeed. Yet each alcoholic is a little different from his or her fellows. Each may require a slightly different mix of coercion and encouragement if any lasting restraint from drinking is to be achieved. The results from coercion of patients are often short-lived; when patients receive encouragement and trust, these turn out frequently to be misplaced. Against this pessimistic background, Huntsbury Home in Christchurch has opened as a rehabilitation centre for the long-term treatment of chronic alcoholics. Huntsbury held its official opening this week, even though the number of residents has been building up — from 15 to more than 30 — for six months. The unusual timing of the “opening” reflects the uncertainty of any new treatment programme concerned with alcoholics.

The home is run by the Nova Trust Board with assistance from the North Canterbury Hospital Board, which owns the building, and organisations such as the Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council which has helped to provide funds for improvements. By delaying the opening until the experiment had been tested, the organisers and the residents have been able

to say this week: “It seems to work.” Huntsbury Home is novel in the extent to which it attempts to be self-sufficient, and in its readiness to take residents for an indefinite time during which it trusts them to control their own abstinence from alcohol. Most residents have had their careers and family life destroyed by their excessive drinking; most have “done the rounds” of a variety of shortterm treatments. The experience at Huntsbury Home so far suggests that such people, apparently destined for permanent brain damage or a life on “skid row,” can respond to an opportunity to help themselves in a situation where they have a minimum of restraint. Huntsbury’s residents grow their own vegetables and keep hens to provide eggs. They maintain the building and have restored the grounds. They pay for most of the running costs of the home from a portion of their sickness benefits, leaving themselves enough for personal items such as cigarettes. Staff are on hand during the day. At night the residents run the home with almost no outside help. So far, Huntsbury has been a success, but all alcoholics know that only time can demonstrate their commitment to abstinence. Huntsbury must expect to have its failures. It still seems to offer a better prospect for a return to something like a normal life for chronic alcoholics than any other programme tried in New Zealand. The results should be an encouragement to more alcoholics to seek such treatment, and to more communities to provide the means to make such treatment possible.