Pubdate: Mon, 01 Jun 2015
Source: Taranaki Daily News (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2015 Fairfax New Zealand Limited
Contact:  http://www.thedailynews.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1056
Author: Helen Harvey
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)

MERIT AWARD AND A SUIT FOR THE OCCASION

Garth Browning, 59, of New Plymouth, has been made a Member of the 
New Zealand Order of Merit for services to health and the community 
in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

A reluctant recipient, Browning said it was for a team of community 
organisations such as Like Minds and New Waves.

"I work with those organisations, Jamie up at the Cathedral, the 
Salvation Army. By myself, the work I'm trying to do wouldn't happen 
without those people."

Browning is the co-ordinator of Needle Exchange Taranaki Services, 
which provides clean needles for people with drug addictions.

He says the award is for the work he's doing around changing 
attitudes to mental health and addiction.

"The thing that interests me is people with addiction issues. In 
about 60 per cent of cases, people have not got to the point they're 
at of their own accord. It may have been a medical intervention, pain 
relief, behavioural modifications that have been scripted and these 
people have got hooked on it."

It is an issue he feels very strongly about, he said.

"We're living in a society that puts extreme pressure on people and 
some people fall by the wayside. We need to become a community that 
helps people."

If anyone knew anything about the life of addiction, they would 
realise it's not a life anyone chooses, he said.

"It's something that people get trapped by. And we need to have 
understanding around that and change the perception. People are not 
able to move on. They are forced into an underground culture by the 
stigma, by the discrimination and they deserve more."

Because of his past, he can't think of a better occupation than the 
one he has, he said.

A gay man, he lived in Sydney during the 1980s, the era of HIV.

"I watched many friends die. I lived with a group of 8 people and 
only two of us are still alive."

He came back to New Zealand to escape the "walking skeletons" only to 
find his home country was a couple of years behind, he said.

"I went through it here. Somehow I got through that unscathed. I 
couldn't think of a better occupation to be perfectly honest."

There was a whole generation of men who were lost in the 80s, he said.

"It had a huge impact. But a positive aspect is that now sexuality is 
not the issue it was. Couples can live in peace, they're not forced 
underground."

As a child Browning lived all over the South Island, because his 
father's job with the railways meant the family moved every three 
years. He moved to South Auckland as a teenager.

When working as a screen printer he fell off a roof and broke his 
neck. While recovering he volunteered at Auckland Drug Information 
Outreach in Auckland. Eventually it led to a fulltime job. He came to 
New Plymouth six years ago.

A music fan, he is into vinyl and couldn't live without his turntable.

He's not sure about the awards ceremony, but expects it will be 
interesting. "I'll have to buy a suit I suppose. That's something I 
don't think I've owned in my life."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom