Taking a Sober SIP

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The program is dubbed SIP. It aims to prevent street drunks from taking one more slug of Thunderbird, King Cobra or a rotgut concoction that down-and-outers call “felony in a bottle.” SIP also offers them a way off the pavement to become sober, productive citizens. And it saves local taxpayers several millions annually in police hours and medical costs.

Lofty goals for the city’s Serial Inebriate Program, the brainchild of two San Diego cops who wanted to rid local streets of the “chronics”—the 500 or so men and women who habitually pass out in public, soil themselves, drive away store customers, scare children and disgust tourists. Past city efforts to deal with homeless alcoholics had failed spectacularly, and Sergeant Rich Schnell and Officer John Liening decided to try simplicity and common sense.

SIP is their concept and works under their direction. Chronics are arrested for drunkenness or related charges; they’re jailed but are offered the option of an alcohol-recovery program instead of custody. If they drop out before completion of the program, they go to jail for the whole stretch. Some just do the time, or leave town. But since SIP began in 2000, nearly half have opted for help, and of those, about half have remained in recovery.

“Everyone was frustrated by the old system, which was a very expensive revolving door that basically just kept these guys on the streets,” says Liening, 39, a native San Diegan with eight years at the police department. “Now the word is out: You can’t stay drunk and live on San Diego streets.”

Schnell, a 22-year veteran, admits he and Liening were “a bit naïve” when they attempted in 1999 to bring nine red-tape–wrapped public bureaucracies to the table to agree to try something new. But one year later they did it, and they now get calls from across the nation from other departments that want to implement SIP.

Liening is full-time with SIP and gives drunks in recovery his pager number. Schnell, who also oversees a bicycle patrol unit, works SIP part-time. Both began their careers with the idea they would solve homicides and prevent robberies. Now, they literally and figuratively lift people out of the gutter.

“We believe in problem-solving, and I think we’re making a difference,” says Schnell.

“It’s the most rewarding work I could ever imagine,” says Liening.

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