‘Life-changing’ DWI Court celebrates first graduate
‘Life-changing’ DWI Court celebrates first graduate
Sixth Judicial District Judge Shaun Floerke believes Long has reason to be proud.
A little more than a year after rear-ending another vehicle on Interstate 35 and registering a blood alcohol content of 0.43 percent — more than five times the legal limit to drive — Long has completed a yearlong program of counseling, treatment and sobriety to become the first graduate of the South St. Louis County DWI Court. A ceremony will be held at the courthouse in Duluth this afternoon.
“The DWI Court is what you make of it, but I’ll tell you straight out — it’s an awesome program,” the 41-year-old Hermantown man said Thursday. “I’ve learned to believe in myself and to believe in this DWI Court because it does work and it did change my life.”
In DWI Court, the judiciary, prosecution, defense, probation, law enforcement and drug and alcohol counselors work as a team to provide treatment for drunken-driving offenders, monitor them and hold them accountable.
Until the DWI Court was formed last year, treatment for a felony DWI offender wasn’t ordered to begin until the defendant had been sentenced, which could be weeks or months after the offense.
Under DWI Court protocol, a driver’s drinking problem is addressed within days of arrest.
DWI Court coordinator Amy Lukasavitz said there are 25 participants in DWI Court. Only one person has left the program when he decided he wanted to contest his drunken-driving charge at trial, Lukasavitz said.
Participants undergo an intensive regimen of substance abuse treatment, mandatory drug and alcohol testing and frequent and random home visits in addition to regular status hearings in front of DWI Court Judges Floerke and Sally Tarnowski and the DWI team.
“Judge Floerke is an awesome judge because he gets into your life,” Long said. “Judge Floerke talks to you. You walk into the courtroom and he looks at you and says: ‘How can we help you today, Rod? How was your week?’ That’s what DWI court is. He’s sincere. He’s trying to make a program work and trying to make it so that people don’t just go and sit in jail.”
Floerke said the change in Long — who had three drunken-driving incidents in four years — has been remarkable.
“The guy was in tough shape when he came in,” the judge said. “They come to court in chains, fresh from getting arrested. He was just in awful shape. We hooked him up with someone at the chemical dependency center as part of his treatment and it just clicked in for him. He started going to celebrate recovery. … The guy is kind of a poster child [of the DWI Court]. He really, really has gotten his life back.”
Long said the entire DWI team helped him, but he singled out Floerke and Tammy Brosz, a counselor at the Center for Alcohol & Drug Treatment, as the people who really got through to him.
“I clicked with Tammy,” Long said. “Going one-on-one with her was awesome. She helped me learn how to cope with what I went through with my divorce. She said that I shouldn’t be ashamed, that I’m not the only one that has gone through this and there is help. I don’t need to abuse myself. It’s OK. I need to go on with my life.”
Sixth Judicial District Judge Shaun Floerke believes Long has reason to be proud.
A little more than a year after rear-ending another vehicle on Interstate 35 and registering a blood alcohol content of 0.43 percent — more than five times the legal limit to drive — Long has completed a yearlong program of counseling, treatment and sobriety to become the first graduate of the South St. Louis County DWI Court. A ceremony will be held at the courthouse in Duluth this afternoon.
“The DWI Court is what you make of it, but I’ll tell you straight out — it’s an awesome program,” the 41-year-old Hermantown man said Thursday. “I’ve learned to believe in myself and to believe in this DWI Court because it does work and it did change my life.”
In DWI Court, the judiciary, prosecution, defense, probation, law enforcement and drug and alcohol counselors work as a team to provide treatment for drunken-driving offenders, monitor them and hold them accountable.
Until the DWI Court was formed last year, treatment for a felony DWI offender wasn’t ordered to begin until the defendant had been sentenced, which could be weeks or months after the offense.
Under DWI Court protocol, a driver’s drinking problem is addressed within days of arrest.
DWI Court coordinator Amy Lukasavitz said there are 25 participants in DWI Court. Only one person has left the program when he decided he wanted to contest his drunken-driving charge at trial, Lukasavitz said.
Participants undergo an intensive regimen of substance abuse treatment, mandatory drug and alcohol testing and frequent and random home visits in addition to regular status hearings in front of DWI Court Judges Floerke and Sally Tarnowski and the DWI team.
“Judge Floerke is an awesome judge because he gets into your life,” Long said. “Judge Floerke talks to you. You walk into the courtroom and he looks at you and says: ‘How can we help you today, Rod? How was your week?’ That’s what DWI court is. He’s sincere. He’s trying to make a program work and trying to make it so that people don’t just go and sit in jail.”
Floerke said the change in Long — who had three drunken-driving incidents in four years — has been remarkable.
“The guy was in tough shape when he came in,” the judge said. “They come to court in chains, fresh from getting arrested. He was just in awful shape. We hooked him up with someone at the chemical dependency center as part of his treatment and it just clicked in for him. He started going to celebrate recovery. … The guy is kind of a poster child [of the DWI Court]. He really, really has gotten his life back.”
Long said the entire DWI team helped him, but he singled out Floerke and Tammy Brosz, a counselor at the Center for Alcohol & Drug Treatment, as the people who really got through to him.
“I clicked with Tammy,” Long said. “Going one-on-one with her was awesome. She helped me learn how to cope with what I went through with my divorce. She said that I shouldn’t be ashamed, that I’m not the only one that has gone through this and there is help. I don’t need to abuse myself. It’s OK. I need to go on with my life.”