Pubdate: Sat, 20 Dec 2014
Source: Cape Breton Post (CN NS)
Copyright: 2014 Cape Breton Post
Contact:  http://www.capebretonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/777
Author: Janet Bickerton
Note: Janet Bickerton of Sydney is a board member with the AIDS 
Coalition of Cape Breton, which will soon officially be called The Coalition.
Page: B9

IT'S TIME FOR A COMPASSIONATE DISCUSSION ON ADDICTION

I think our communities could benefit from a fulsome dialogue about 
addiction and how we respond to those who suffer from addiction. That 
is, a compassionate discussion that engages our hearts and our minds, 
and avoids blaming and shaming the ultimate victim - the person who 
is addicted. Possibly, our community newspapers might be one way for 
us to have such a dialogue.

We all have increased access to myriad drugs - prescribed, 
non-prescribed, lawful, illicit, some socially acceptable and others 
not. We are tirelessly bombarded by marketing and messaging that 
encourages us to use drugs of one form or another. So it should be no 
surprise that medicating ourselves has become the answer to our 
problems and our pain.

Yet, the result seems to be an increasing number of our citizens 
falling into a life of serious substance abuse. These people may have 
been us, our children, our friends, our colleagues or strangers we 
pass on our streets.

It appears to me that our collective response to this phenomenon, for 
the most part, has come from a place of fear and confusion. Very 
recently, graffiti written on a building in a local community stated: 
"Die Druggies Die!!" This message and sentiment drives the user - the 
person who is addicted - further into isolation and shame, which 
drives them further into drug use.

Of course, we can all relate to people's fear. It is startling and 
feels threatening when people young and old become addicted to 
powerful substances and do things they would never normally do, when 
they lie or steal or sell themselves to get their drug, when they are 
no longer recognizable.

But can we just imagine for a moment the level of suffering inside 
the person who is addicted? It is never someone's life plan to become 
an "addict."

How do people end up like this? Why don't they just stop? It is 
complex, of course, as life tends to be.

As I'm sure any reader can attest, we've all engaged in harmful 
behaviours despite their harmful consequences. Why some of us become 
addicted to such behaviours and others do not has mostly to do with 
our neurobiology and our personal history of trauma.

World-renowned physician and addictions specialist Dr. Gabor Mate 
states that all of his clients who inject in Vancouver's north end 
have a history of childhood trauma, and among his female clients, 
they all have a history of childhood sexual abuse.

Mate feels it takes a whole community to help prevent and cure the 
resulting pain from that type of trauma. Unfortunately, we are not 
yet there. However, Mate continues his harm reduction work with the 
addicted population, despite the fact that most are never able to 
completely stop their use.

Mate does not consider his work to be a failure, because his aim is 
to reach out and help people reduce the harm (both to themselves and 
others) that results from their addictive behaviour - helping them to 
be as healthy as they can be and to build trusting relationships so 
they will know where to turn when they are ready to begin the journey 
to recovery.

There are individuals and organizations in many of our communities 
working tirelessly toward the same objectives. In Cape Breton, one of 
those organizations is the AIDS Coalition of Cape Breton, which will 
soon have its name officially changed to "The Coalition." It houses 
the Sharp Advice Needle Exchange.

We have so much yet to learn and understand about addiction. We do 
know that it is extremely complex and our knowledge of it is growing 
as we learn more about how the brain functions and how the brain and 
our environment interact.

But, despite the scientific evidence, we seem to be trapped in an old 
way of thinking about addiction, based on a moralistic model that 
puts the responsibility for both use and recovery solely on the individual.

We all need to take some time to learn more about addiction so that 
we can help prevent it, help those who are in the throes of it, and 
help sustain those in recovery from relapsing back into severe use.

It does not help to further isolate and ostracize people living with 
addiction. In fact, they desperately need to be treated with the 
basic respect and dignity we should afford all humans.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom