Msgr. William B. O’Brien, 90, Is Dead; Helped Start Drug Rehabilitation Agency
By PAUL VITELLO
OCT. 25, 2014
Msgr. William B. O’Brien in 1990. He was an advocate of drug treatment programs and a fierce critic of the war on drugs. Credit Frankie Ziths
Msgr. William B. O’Brien, a co-founder of Daytop Village, one of the first and most successful residential drug and alcohol treatment programs in the United States, died on Oct. 19 in Scarsdale, N.Y. He was 90.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York announced his death.
Monsignor O’Brien opened the first Daytop treatment residence in 1963 on Staten Island with three partners: Dr. Daniel H. Casriel, a psychiatrist; Joseph Shelly, the chief probation officer of the criminal court in Brooklyn; and Alexander Bassin, a social worker and criminologist.
Over the next two decades the program grew into a national franchise, with 28 facilities in five states, and became a model for substance abuse treatment centers around the world. Daytop officials say its centers have treated more than 200,000 people in the United States alone, achieving a long-term sobriety success rate of over 80 percent.
Tall and dapper — he favored well-made suits and snap-brim caps and called his clerical garb “my monkey suit” — Monsignor O’Brien became something of a celebrity through Daytop, which is not affiliated with the Catholic Church. He was courted by politicians, invited to brief Pope John Paul II about substance abuse and featured on broadcast news shows like ABC’s “20/20,” which called him “one of the world’s recognized experts in rehabilitating drug addicts” in a 1990 report.
At the invitation of public health officials, he helped set up programs similar to Daytop in 66 countries and was one of the founders of the World Federation of Therapeutic Communities by the time he retired in 2010.
Monsignor O’Brien leveraged the publicity to become a powerful advocate of treatment programs and one of the fiercest critics of the so-called war on drugs. He testified frequently at legislative hearings in state capitals and in Washington, and could be stinging in his criticism of government officials for building more prisons while cutting funding for drug treatment.
“We’re in a fortress mode, building more and more prisons to handle the drug problem,” he said in a 1996 interview with America, a public policy magazine published by the Jesuit order of priests. “The American people are on a high. They think that law enforcement can solve a major social problem like drug abuse, and politicians are following suit, insulating the public from the truth — that American society is in trouble — to make them feel good with simplistic solutions.”
continued http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/n...ed-start-drug-rehabilitation-agency.html?_r=0
By PAUL VITELLO
OCT. 25, 2014
Msgr. William B. O’Brien in 1990. He was an advocate of drug treatment programs and a fierce critic of the war on drugs. Credit Frankie Ziths
Msgr. William B. O’Brien, a co-founder of Daytop Village, one of the first and most successful residential drug and alcohol treatment programs in the United States, died on Oct. 19 in Scarsdale, N.Y. He was 90.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York announced his death.
Monsignor O’Brien opened the first Daytop treatment residence in 1963 on Staten Island with three partners: Dr. Daniel H. Casriel, a psychiatrist; Joseph Shelly, the chief probation officer of the criminal court in Brooklyn; and Alexander Bassin, a social worker and criminologist.
Over the next two decades the program grew into a national franchise, with 28 facilities in five states, and became a model for substance abuse treatment centers around the world. Daytop officials say its centers have treated more than 200,000 people in the United States alone, achieving a long-term sobriety success rate of over 80 percent.
Tall and dapper — he favored well-made suits and snap-brim caps and called his clerical garb “my monkey suit” — Monsignor O’Brien became something of a celebrity through Daytop, which is not affiliated with the Catholic Church. He was courted by politicians, invited to brief Pope John Paul II about substance abuse and featured on broadcast news shows like ABC’s “20/20,” which called him “one of the world’s recognized experts in rehabilitating drug addicts” in a 1990 report.
At the invitation of public health officials, he helped set up programs similar to Daytop in 66 countries and was one of the founders of the World Federation of Therapeutic Communities by the time he retired in 2010.
Monsignor O’Brien leveraged the publicity to become a powerful advocate of treatment programs and one of the fiercest critics of the so-called war on drugs. He testified frequently at legislative hearings in state capitals and in Washington, and could be stinging in his criticism of government officials for building more prisons while cutting funding for drug treatment.
“We’re in a fortress mode, building more and more prisons to handle the drug problem,” he said in a 1996 interview with America, a public policy magazine published by the Jesuit order of priests. “The American people are on a high. They think that law enforcement can solve a major social problem like drug abuse, and politicians are following suit, insulating the public from the truth — that American society is in trouble — to make them feel good with simplistic solutions.”
continued http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/n...ed-start-drug-rehabilitation-agency.html?_r=0
