Posted on 01/29/2008 11:51:50 AM PST by SmithL
Petaluma, Calif. (AP) -- A month after spending his nights on San Francisco's streets, penniless and addicted to speed, James Jennison tenderly petted a calf that he'd helped deliver about an hour earlier.
The calf wobbled as it nuzzled Jennison, who was grinning from his morning's work at this drug rehabilitation dairy farm in the rolling hills about 40 miles north of San Francisco.
"It was, I'd have to say, one of the most amazing things I've ever seen," said Jennison, 29, a former AOL computer technician.
Jennison, like some 22 million Americans, has struggled to lead a life while addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Now, after several years living on the streets, he is one of 40 men living at St. Anthony's Farm, an unusual program that offers some of California's poorest addicts a way to get clean.
Birthing calves is one of the many chores the men do as part of an intensive 12-step therapy program that weaves the daily tasks of farm life into recovery.
Although the homeless account for just a fraction of the country's addicts, they are the least able to afford treatment and the ones often in need of the most medical help.
So unlike many treatment centers, the 315-acre dairy farm run by the San Francisco-based St. Anthony's Foundation has provided its services for free since 1954. In fact, only residents who have no income qualify for the program.
None of the men have medical insurance, most don't have a home and nearly all of their families have severed ties with them.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Having spent my teens and early 20s working on a dairy farm I can say the druggies aren’t taking the easy way out. Do they pick rocks out of fields out there?
Who Knew: Cow Poo Helps Reduce Chances of Developing Lung Cancer
Fox News | Tuesday, January 29, 2008 | Daily Telegraph
Posted on 01/29/2008 5:51:17 PM EST by Ancient Drive
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