First of all, I do NOT condone driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, however, I do believe that even those who are convicted of doing so still deserve to be protected under Constitutional law (First Amendment's Establishment Clause)and should not be forced to attend AA/NA meetings as a condition of their probation. AA/NA is based on the Twelve Step program and six of them are explicitly religious in nature. The man who began the AA concept back in the 1930's (Yes,it IS that old and outdated)claims to have gone into a trance from a drunken stupor when "he was saved" and immediately created the Twelve Steps with his hand but "by divine intervention". Mandatory AA/NA as a probation condition is blatantly illegal in my opinion and has been challenged in court rooms across the country which include Federal, Circuit Court of Appeals and State Supreme Courts. A number of higher courts have made clear that government agency or court coercion to attend AA/NA violates the First Amendment's separation of church and state. More than a dozen state and federal judges have ruled that AA/NA is a religion or engages in religious activities as defined in constitutional law but the system still sends offenders to AA or AA-based treatment. I hope the new Chemical Dependency Home being built in Litchfield will be operated in such a way as not to violate anyone's rights under the First Amendment by making it an AA-based facility. There are non-religious alternatives available and I would encourage our local and county officials to at least make an effort to contact them. Mandatory AA/NA forces people to be subjected to things they may not personally believe in order to get off probation and that is equivolent to making them lie and become hypocrites just to fulfill a court order. How can our court and probation services justify that?