Novus Successes Newsflash 59

    Generations of students read Alfred Lord Tennyson's stirring lines from his poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade":

'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd
Theirs not to make reply
Theirs not to reason why
Theirs but to do & die
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.'

   This famous poem was written in 1854 about the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War. Russia was fighting Britain, Turkey and France over control of the sea lanes from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

   Considered one of the more monumental military blunders, on October 25, 1854, 637 members of British cavalry, the Light Brigade, were ordered to charge into a valley where the Russian artillery and infantry were aligned on both sides. The charge was a disaster as ranks of the charging cavalry were raked with artillery and small arms fire. Only 200 men were to survive the charge.

   The Battle of Balaclava would have been long forgotten but for Tennyson's poem. British military recruiting was greatly assisted by the poem, and those brave men who did not reason why but just followed orders and died became immortalized. Such is the power of words.

   At Novus, we regularly see people who are in their own valley of death. Their valley does not have hills on either side on which artillery and guns are massed and waiting, but is even more treacherous. They are in a valley of death created by alcohol and drugs.

   Like the Light Brigade, many of our patients were ordered to take the pills to which they became addicted by someone they trusted-their doctor. Like the Light Brigade, they were not told about the dangers but were expected "not to reason why" and just take the dangerous narcotics.

   At Novus, we are proud that we help our patients escape their own valley of death created by drugs or alcohol. We want to share one of their stories.