A Place for Me I spoke the other night. Shared my experience, strength and hope with a small group of nursing home residents. Because it was a nursing home, I assumed that they would all be elderly. I assumed wrong.

I assumed wrong because, there was a number of young and middle age people. Most of these younger people were at the nursing home, at least in part due to their addictions. As a veteran of numerous institutions, had I not gotten sober, I could have easily ended up in a nursing home. Today, there are not readily accessible treatment centers and halfway houses like there was when I was getting sober. I understand from a couple of nurse friends of mine that a lot of people with addictions and mental illness end up in nursing homes now because there is no other place for them. I am grateful that, at the time their was another place for me.  ¶ 10/09/2005 06:35:00 AM