Imagine you’re volunteering at the Preble Street soup kitchen in Portland because it’s the holidays and you’re a good person and this is what good people do this time of year.
Across the table from you sits a homeless woman. She’s addicted to opioids, and it being the holidays and all, she has what those in social services call a “moment of clarity.”
Now what?
In a perfect world, as Preble Street Executive Director Mark Swann noted last week, a social worker would “jump on that,” recognize the opportunity for what it is and immediately steer that person toward recovery and, fingers crossed, a better life.
But Maine, for all the talking we do about opioid addiction, is far from a perfect world.
