Pubdate: Mon, 19 Sep 2005
Source: North Shore News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 North Shore News
Contact:  http://www.nsnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/311
Author: Niki Hope
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

ADDICT'S MOM SEARCHES FOR HELP

The Second Of A Two-Part Look At People Who Have Struggled With
Addiction On The North Shore.

A North Vancouver mother believes her youngest son might not be using
heroin if more addiction services had been available on the North Shore.

When Linda Jordan's son wanted to get off of heroin last April the
plan was to have him detox in the family home with the help of Seaview
Addiction Services Society.

But Jordan, 53, (who requested that her son's name not be used)
discovered that Seaview no longer existed. She was shocked. They had
used the in-home detox program twice before and expected to use it
again.

When help couldn't be accessed quickly enough, Jordan's son changed
his mind about coming off drugs. In June he left the family home.
These days he is a "binner": he retrieves items left in recycling
boxes and garbage cans.

"Every time they (drug users) make a change, the next time gets easier
and easier; same as when you try quitting cigarettes," she says. "The
first time you might not make it, the second time it gets easier. The
third time easier yet and eventually you're off of them."

Though it was hard to watch him go through the brutal process of
narcotic withdrawal - the vomiting, crying, sweating and diarrhea,
Jordan was willing to do it again.

"As a mother, that was hard. But as a mother you also want your child
to be well," says Jordan, who belongs to a support group for parents
of drug users called From Grief to Action. "There are some things you
just have to do."

Part of her role in the detox was to make sure her son, now 24, stayed
hydrated. A nurse would come in every day to monitor him, give him
Valium or Gravol and check his vitals.

"My son, even back then, would not go into a detox facility," Jordan
says. "In-home means they don't have to face the stigma (of drug
addiction)."

Jordan tried to find a health agency that would help her with in-home
detox, but there were none she could find on the North Shore and
employees at Vancouver agencies said they couldn't cross the bridge.

Seaview's contract with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority was
cancelled and funding was redirected toward prevention and
intervention work in North Shore schools.

"I live on the North Shore. He lives on the North Shore. What can we
do?" asks Jordan.

Like many youths, Jordan's son started smoking pot in his mid-teens,
but when he was about 18 Jordan noticed a significant change in his
behaviour.

"He used to be really good at helping around the house and the yard
and he went to being a person that didn't care about anyone or
anything," she says.

During that time he became paranoid and was eventually diagnosed as
bipolar (also known as manic-depressive because a person's mood can
alternate between the "poles": mania, the highs, and depression, the
lows).

When Jordan's son was 19, his best friend died of a heroin overdose,
which shook him up enough that he sought treatment. He was prescribed
methadone to help him overcome his heroin addiction, but it did little
more than get her son to stop injecting heroin, Jordan says. It kept
him in bondage to drugs.

His addiction has taken a toll on Jordan, who spends her days hoping
her son doesn't overdose.

"Whether your loved one has died or not, you are going through a lot
of grief," says Jordan, a mother of five and grandmother of seven,
with large blue eyes like singer Judy Collins. She and her husband
celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary this year. Jordan is raising
her grandson (the whereabouts of the child's mother, also a heroin
user, is unknown). "I feel a lot of the time that my life is on hold
because I don't know what is going to happen next."

Jordan wishes there had been more options in place when her son
reached out for help last spring.

"We need more on-demand services," she says. "It's strange. In the
time that I've been with From Grief to Action we've seen actual
changes in Surrey, Richmond, Vancouver. Why not North Vancouver? Do
the people around here think they don't have a problem?"

The hope is that a new drug and alcohol treatment facility for youths,
slated to open in November, will offer more options for parents and
drug users. An adult centre is also in the early stages of planning,
but a location for that is yet to be determined.

The youth addictions centre, being called a "daytox," will offer group
and individual therapy and possibly in-home detox, says Dr. Barnabas
Walther, regional director for mental health and addictions at the
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Services will be determined by the
needs of the community at-large, Walther explains. He couldn't give an
exact number of people who will be able to access the new centre as
that will be determined by the programs; for example, whether there is
more group or individual therapy.

One of the challenges with the former in-home detox program, according
to Walther, was finding doctors who were willing to become involved
with it.

Most people who are addicted are going to require specialized support
for a long time, says Walther, whose long-term hope is to see a
residential treatment facility on the North Shore.

"There are frequent relapses," he says. "Having said that, people do
get over addiction."

The facility on 15th Street will be a part of a larger mental health
program, he explains. Having a concurrent disorder - like Jordan's
son, who is a drug user and bipolar - is quite common, says Walther.
But he also says they are essentially one and the same.

"People say you have mental health problems and addictions, as they
are separate," Walther says. "In fact, addictions are a psychiatric
disorder. The notion of a dual diagnosis or concurrent disorder
pertaining to addictions is really not the case. It's more common than
not to have multiple diagnoses. (You) often find people with
depression who have anxiety. We don't call that concurrent (just)
because there are two of them."

As far as determining the demand for services on the North Shore,
Walther says:

"We are one health authority that includes the North Shore and part of
the ability to provide services is determined by the critical mass,"
he says. "While we do have the need for a day treatment centre,"
Walther says, "we are still going to rely on some of the medical detox
centres in Vancouver" because that is where the critical mass exists.

Jordan isn't impressed with the new facility and the yet-to-be
determined programming. Discussion, studies, forums and delays have
gone on too long, she says. "We need politicians and doctors to
recognize that we need action because it (drug addiction) is not going
away."

As far as the demand for services, borrowing a line from Field of
Dreams, Jordan says, "If you build it they will come."

West Vancouver councillor and North Shore task force on substance
abuse co-chairwoman, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, is well aware of the need
for services.

"Even now we have someone at the North Shore Safe House who wants help
and they've been told it's a month," Goldsmith-Jones says. "You just
don't have a month. When someone is ready to get help they have to
have it right away; otherwise, they get back into their pattern of
substance abuse."

The daytox centre is an excellent start, but it's still not enough,
Goldsmith-Jones says.

"I think on the North Shore we are often accused of being in denial
about substance abuse, but that has not been my experience," she says.
"I see everyone pulling together." 
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