Sobriety schools have been a long time coming in Massachusetts. Teenage substance abuse is not a problem that will easily go away.
According to mass.gov, although there was a drop in the number of people under the age of 18 who were admitted into substance abuse programs in 2003 from 3,038 to 2,116 in 2004, the website suggests that “the decline in the number of admissions reflects a reduction in program capacity, rather than a decrease in the need for services.”
We commend Lt. Governor Kerry Healey’s plan to open another sobriety high schools in Boston to compliment those already open in Beverly and Springfield.
Creating a place where students can come together to cope with substance abuse is step in the right direction toward quelling this serious statewide problem.
Sobriety high schools are specifically chartered to prevent students from relapsing after they have undergone substance abuse treatment. The idea is that students in an environment with others in their same situation will be less likely to fall into the same bad habits. Sobriety schools also provide extra support in terms of after-school programs and out-of-school activities.
But, the idea of a sobriety high school in not a new one. In fact, 20 of these types of schools have already opened in the U.S. since the first opened in 1989 in Edina, Minn.
Boston should have jumped on board sooner with developing schools for children with substance abuse problems
Having schools such as these will immerse troubled students in a clean environment and hopefully keep them from becoming part of a lifelong addiction-relapse cycle.
We think that as long as these schools offer programs especially catered to the needs of Boston students and ground them with real-world coping techniques, student can succeed at sobriety high.