From Adele C. Smithers-Fornaci, President
Chrristopher D. Smithers Foundation
Dear friend,
Right on the heels of the ABC 20/20 program Drinking: Are you in Control?, and the recent Audrey Kishline-Moderation Management tragedy, comes the shocking news that the once prestigious, successful and highly respected Smithers Alcoholism Treatment and Training Center at Beth Israel/St. Luke's-Roosevelt hospital has changed from abstinence-based treatment to a moderation management model.
This move has far reaching ramifications, and will most certainly spawn new moderation management treatment models around the country. Alcoholics will be enticed to go into treatment without having to give up drinking! Alcoholics will try, and alcoholics will fail, and the so-called treatment center will make lots of money.
The tragedy is that lives will be destroyed and people will die in the process. This is no more sadly illustrated than in the tragically ironic case of the founder of the Moderation Management program, Audrey Kishline, who pleaded guilty last week to two counts of vehicular manslaughter, according to a Seattle Times story of June 20, 2000.
She was charged with driving the wrong way on Interstate 90 with a blood alcohol level of .26, three times the legal limit, when she crashed into an oncoming vehicle, killing man and his twelve-year-old daughter.
Smithers History
In the early 70's, my husband R. Brinkley Smithers, a grateful recovering alcoholic and the patriarch of the modern alcoholism movement, donated $10 million to Roosevelt Hospital to establish the Smithers Alcoholism Treatment and Training Center. It was the largest single grant ever made in the alcoholism field.The Smithers program became one of the leading treatment programs in the world, one on which many other programs have been modeled. Brink arranged for the purchase of the former Billy Rose Mansion on the upper east side to house the Smithers rehabilitation facility, largely because he felt that alcoholism should be treated as a respectable disease and that alcoholics deserved to be treated with dignity. This beautiful free-standing facility was very conducive to that philosophy.
A few years ago, shortly after St. Luke's-Roosevelt hospital merged with Beth Israel Medical Center, and less than two months after Brink's death, the hospital decided to sell the mansion to raise money to resolve its financial difficulties, and move the patients from the serenity of the old Billy Rose mansion to one of the sterile wards at St. Luke's-Roosevelt on the other side of the city. Services and staff were cut and the quality of this once great treatment center plummeted.
As you may be aware, I have filed suit against the hospital on behalf of my late husband's estate claiming that the hospital was not using the endowment in accordance with the original terms and intent of the $10 million gift, and also alleging misappropriation of funds and seeking to remove the Smithers program from that hospital. That suit is still in the New York courts.
An Anathema
That takes us to the current issue of New York Magazine , with its article titled Drink Your Medicine. My son Christopher B. Smithers and I, and my family along with the entire board of directors of the Smithers Foundation want it understood that we have absolutely nothing to do with the program that bears the name Smithers at Beth Israel/St. Luke's-Roosevelt hospital. We strongly object to the "moderation management" model, which was an anathema to Brink.Twenty-five years ago the Rand Report came out with similar findings. We rebutted them and sent out copies of our Foundation's publication titled Experimentation: The Fallacy of Controlled Drinking Where Alcoholism Exists. If you would like a copy of this publication, please let us know and we will send you one free of charge.
After you read the article I would encourage you to write a letter to the editor, which you can do online at NYletters@primediamags.com.. Or you can write to them at New York Magazine, 444 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10022. I also urge you ask your colleagues to do the same.
Sincerely,
Adele Smithers-Fornaci, President
Christopher D. Smithers Foundation
