How Trump can write the prescription for addiction recovery

Many Americans are hoping that President-elect Donald Trump will be a jobs-recovery president: that he continues to have success keeping jobs in America, bringing some jobs back to the states from other countries and opening the doors for foreign countries to expand their businesses here.

But I would like to see the president-elect also become known as another kind of recovery leader: for sobriety. Because nearly every home in the United States houses someone who suffers from an addiction.

{mosads}The Overdose Prevention Act, introduced to the Senate on June 23, 2015, is helping to protect many Americans by giving lifesaving shots to people in the business of saving lives, which will prevent people from dying as a result of a drug overdose. But needs to be more to help those who suffer from addictions, not only to drugs but also to alcohol.

The president-elect, while on the campaign trail, talked about the misfortune his elderly brother faced as an alcoholic. Freddy Trump Jr., as the business mogul has shared, begged him to promise never to drink alcohol, and to this day, the-president-elect does not. Donald Trump says he has never used drugs either.

Fred ‘Freddy’ Trump, Jr. : 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know https://t.co/AGY6CdbzJ5

— Muckmaker (@RealMuckmaker) August 29, 2016

If Trump can focus some of his past experiences with his brother’s early death and fight with alcohol, perhaps he can help to save the lives of countless people suffering from drug and alcohol abuse.

Many Americans describe their struggles with addictions much like having a demon, in which they struggle in a daily fight to overcome evil. Just go to a local AA meeting and you’ll hear stories from all types of Americans on their daily struggles. The holidays especially can be a hard time; about 40 percent of traffic fatalities are related to alcohol abuse, as indicated in 2005 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. With those who have been taken away from their family, friends, co-workers, neighbors and others, at the hands of those impaired or by their own hands, it’s not always a Merry Christmas for everyone.

Waiting until after the holidays for addiction treatment? Here’s why you should rethink it –> https://t.co/gGEVm1mPdP

— Addiction Campuses (@AddictionCampus) December 2, 2016

Donald Trump should use his presidency to announce a special board to help the members of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate to introduce legislation to build treatment facilities all across this country — perhaps in memory of his brother and all those we have lost to the battle of addiction.

He should make a pledge, a public service announcement, that he will help those Americans who truly want to be helped and sign into law funding that can be allocated to build those treatment centers so that no addict who wants help will be turned away. The waiting line to be treated in most states can be several weeks to get that help, and in some states the wait is months to see a medical provider. This can be a deadly delay.

Yes, I would hope that a President Trump could be called the nation’s first “recovery president.” We fill the jails and courts with alcoholics and drug offenders — but if the American people are going to pay the billions of dollars that addicts cost this country every year, we should place a larger focus on recovery and allocate money to treatment centers instead.

If President-elect Trump can help those who suffer it will help “make America great again” and a better America for all.

John D. Rodriguez is a community organizer and Arizona licensed sports agent.

The views of Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.