Pubdate: Wed, 14 Dec 2016
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Wayne Moriarty
Page: A3

SOBRIETY ONLY ANSWER TO OPIOID CRISIS

Harm reduction plays a role, but treating and overcoming addiction is
absolutely crucial

As a man who has, at times, lumbered through life with a posse of
demons in his head, I've met a number of alcoholics and drug addicts
along the way.

The worst alcoholic I ever met managed to avoid a life of destitution
on the Downtown Eastside mostly on the largesse of friends and family
ripe for the scamming.

How this person did not fall out a window or die some other tragic way
often felt, well, miraculous. All hope was in the hands of divine
providence, it seemed.

Apparently, today, this person is sober and has been for a while.

I bring this ghost from the past forward to make the point that even
the most crippled of alcoholics and drug addicts can stop using.

To date, more than $40 million has been spent by government
departments in British Columbia on the fentanyl crisis. On Tuesday,
Vancouver city council approved a tax increase of 0.5 per cent on all
homeowners in order to further assist in this fight. The tax is
expected to raise approximately $3.5 million next year, with most of
the money going to all the predictable resources required when "harm
reduction" is your guiding principle.

Here's an idea: Instead of going all in on harm reduction, why not go
all in on sobriety?

Sobriety, sadly, has been lost in much of the discussion around the
fentanyl crisis, and yet sobriety is the only thing that is guaranteed
to work.

Instead of more safe injection sites, more naloxone kits, more
paramedics, more of everything and anything that will keep drug
addicts stoned and safe, let's invest in sobriety and, by extension, a
vastly improved quality of life.

Sometimes, when I listen to people talk about the care and treatment
of addiction, it's like they are talking about Stage 4 pancreatic
cancer. This is, of course, folly. I am not a doctor, and I have only
a modest understanding of how the addictive brain works, but I do know
one thing for certain: Everyone, and I mean everyone, who is dying in
the grip of addiction can save themselves by getting sober.

Instead of this obsession with harm reduction, seemingly at the
exclusion of all other solutions, our obsession ought to be
overwhelmingly focused on having abusers of drugs and alcohol stop
abusing drugs and alcohol. This means more publicly funded treatment
centres and way way way more beds for the mentally ill.

There have been so many staggeringly sad facts emerge from this public
health crisis. Two people are dying every day in B.C. as a result of
an overdose, for example. There have also been countless anecdotes of
heroism on the part of front-line workers and volunteers. A common
anecdote is the EMT who has brought the same person back from the dead
numerous times in the same day.

Is there a better definition of short-term problem solving than a
paramedic running around the Downtown Eastside saving the same person
in the same day again and again and again from overdosing on fentanyl?

Call me an old softy, but I have to think after the second time
someone has been revived in a day, we really need to open a bed
somewhere so that person can, at least, have the opportunity to stop
using. Should that person decide to not make use of an opportunity for
a bed to stop using, well, life has consequences and one of them can,
at times, be death.

I am an alcoholic who hasn't had a drink for 10 years. I'm not special
in this regard. Tens of thousands of people in British Columbia have,
like me, been given the gift of sobriety. Harm reduction certainly has
a role to play in any public action around addiction, but it's not a
panacea and shouldn't be treated as such.

Sobriety is the panacea.
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MAP posted-by: Matt