Those in recovery come in all stripes

Having read the article about Catholic Community Services and the proposed counseling facility near “Rodeo Drive,” I was once again saddened as well as angered by the small-minded bigotry of my fellow human beings. (Sept. 4 article, “Drug clinic doesn’t fit an upscale Everett, some say.”)

I wonder if the members of this elitist group of proprietors have considered how many of their customers are recovering addicts and alcoholics. They are hard to distinguish from the “normal” customer. They are the doctors, lawyers, prosecutors, business owners, students, laborers, homemakers, grandmothers, teachers and drug counselors who walk through their doors every day.

I have loved ones who walk the road of recovery and have experienced first-hand the vital need for more counseling and recovery facilities for those afflicted with the disease of addiction, alcoholism and mental illness. Catholic Community Services provides vital services for hundreds of those in recovery every year. For any person to deny them access to these vital services is not only elitist and bigoted, but unconscionable as a member of the society we all live in.

I would urge every person in recovery and every person who loves or knows someone in recovery to walk past these businesses on the “wanna-be Rodeo Drive”and spend their money elsewhere. Perhaps then these arrogant and self-serving proprietors will come to recognize who their customers are and how many of them are the human beings they so need to disassociate themselves from.

Sharon Chism