A sobering-up station (Czech: Protialkoholní záchytná stanice, commonly known as Záchytka; Polish: Izba wytrzeźwień, colloquially wytrzeźwiałka; Russian: Вытрезвитель, Vytrezvitel' ) is a medical facility in which intoxicated people can spend one night to become sober under medical control, in the Czech Republic, Russia and Poland. Those in need of more long-term treatment will be referred to a rehabilitation center.
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Sobering-up stations were introduced in 1904 by Archangelskiy Fedor Sergeevich in Tula [1].
The first sobering-up station in Czechoslovakia was opened in 1951 by the psychiatrist Jaroslav Skála;[2] its first patient was a Russian naval engineer.[2] During its first 30 years of service, Prague's sobering-up station treated over 180,000 people. Other facilities in the country treated over 1,000,000 people. During its peak in Czechoslovakia, there were over 63 sobering-up stations.[3]
In Poland almost every larger city has a sobering-up station. Being drunk itself is not a criminal offence in Poland, but police and local police have the right to forcefully transfer an individual to a sobering-up station if he/she poses a threat to the public security and order (which may also include cases of domestic violence caused by alcohol abuse), or if his/her condition poses a threat to his/her own health and sefety (this may be the case with drunk people found sleeping outdoors during very low temperatures or wandering in potentially dangerous places, such as railway lines or busy roads). Even if there are no further charges against a person, one will not be released from sobering-up station until one is sober. In extreme cases it means a two-day stay. Patients are under constant medical and nursing supervision and must pay for treatment, because no insurance covers it. Some people refer it as "the most expensive hotel in town".
When the local authorities of the city Kielce shutdown their facility in 2010, the local hospital's ER quickly became flooded with drunk people brought by police[4]. Not only it became a problem for the hospital but also it is more cumbersome for police to hold aggresive drunk people. In a sobering-up station, where such people are simply locked-up, it takes fewer officers and less medical staff to keep an eye on them. For this reason most cities' authorities praise their sobering-up stations.