Yonkers and New York City cops pulled a woman off a fifth-story ledge the other night. She said she was distraught over a drug relapse. As Deirdre wrote to the Journal News, the story epitomizes what's wrong with leaving treatment for chemical dependency out of the insurance parity law that both house of the New York legislature reached an agreement on last week.

"I wonder how this woman, taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where she is undergoing psychiatric evaluation, will fare," Deirdre wrote in a letter to the editor. "The short term look will tell you mental illness—depression—lead her to the window ledge, but if you read to the end of the article it becomes clear her recent addiction relapse, brought her there. Unfortunately it is most likely both those illnesses played out in her mind but chemical dependency, with its stigmatizing influence, likely pushed her to the edge. It is a place familiar to many addicts/alcoholics.

"Being in recovery myself, I know the feeling of hopelessness. For some, it seems no matter how hard you try to get sober it’s just beyond your grasp. For others, the compulsion is lifted almost as soon as they stop. People who haven’t suffered this disease can’t understand why. There are many reasons, too many to go into here, but suffice it to say even the addict has a hard time understanding, made worse by a society that treats this public health issue as a criminal justice problem and a legislature that doesn’t think 'those people' are worth saving.

"While the recovery community is grateful the long fight for mental health parity is nearly over and many lives will be saved because of it, many others will be lost. But we should not give up. We need to remind our legislators that we are good people getting better and rather than being a burden to society, we are taxpaying, productive members who vote."