Category Archives: Homeless

Addiction, Homeless

Ban Cigarettes?

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Before commenting on the Posts call for banning cigarettes we need to clear up one major point: does the Post in anyway have financial interests (potential profits) in the nicotine replacement industry?

Cigarettes are merely the most widely used method to feed the addiction to nicotine of nicotine addicts. Unless nicotine is added to the illegal substances list along side crack, heroin, meth etc. most addicts will merely switch from cigarettes to an alternative, legal, method of feeding their addiction. Perhaps becoming patrons of safe injections sites in Vancouver?

Should the Post’s call for making illegal cigarettes and not nicotine (the additctor) be merely an oversight, I am willing to support the Post’s call for adding nicotine to the list of illegal substances and for a prohibition on alcohol.

Not because I think that prohibition or illegalization are good ideas or effective ways to deal with addiction. Rather I think it would prove very salient and educational to the public about, our current policies on addiction and illegalization of those drugs we choose to name as illegal.

I want to urge the Post to stand solidly behind its call for prohibition of alcohol and illegalization of nicotine. Assuming its position is not merely a veiled attempt to get in on the profits, political points and bucks to be made out of the illegalization of drugs.

The post’s original opinion Friday March 21, 2008

The provincial government is continuing its attack on smoking, second-hand cigarette smoke and the people who continue to puff – all in the name of improving health and by extrapolation, reducing healthcare costs and Workers’ Compensation Board claims.

Yet the senior governments won’t do the one thing that would ultimately be the best thing for all accounts – make smoking illegal.

The provincial government ads proclaiming “improvements to B.C.’s tobacco control laws” will “protect the health of all British Columbians and their communities” but doesn’t say what the law’s all about … spin doctors proclaiming a government’s dedication to health in time for the Olympics while costing pub patrons their entertainment and pub owners their profits.

So what about smoking rooms and cigar stores? And what about drinking? It’s unhealthy too. Will the government tell us all how to live?

Smoking is legal.

Addiction, Federal, Homeless

A Tale of Two Addicts

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

The opening lines of Dickens “A tale of two cities” came to mind the other day, following encounters I had with two members of the homeless community I have known for several years. After years of addiction both men had found the desire and strength to go into treatment.

The first gentleman was fresh out of treatment, looking fat and sassy, full of life, humour and joy. Bright-eyed and full of plans he spoke of going to UCFV.

The second gentleman had also been full of life and plans when he was fresh out of treatment several months ago. This day found him looking thin and tired, slipping back into addiction.

The true tragedy here is not the second gentleman losing his way and his life to addiction once again, the true tragedy is this is “business as usual”.

People struggle to find the will and strength to get into treatment to get clean and sober. In treatment they are provided shelter and plenty of food, programs and support in dealing with their need, their addiction.

One to three months later they are released to homelessness. Just reaching the point where they are capable of getting solidly on the road to recovery they are abandoned. We forsake them, failing to provide the programs and support to continue on the journey of recovery.

Three months later and they are again losing their lives to addiction again. This is the cycle for all but a miniscule percentage of those dumped back onto the streets from treatment. A painful, wasteful cycle that we choose to allow to happen; I say choose because we know what needs to be done to be far more successful.

Personal experience has taught me how much time, hard work, and sheer strength it takes to get and stay on the path to recovery and mental health. I have experienced how important having the appropriate, the needed resources and support is to recovery

With the advantage of hindsight I can see how lucky I was, not only to find the programs (VOICE, WRAP etc.) and support I needed, but once having found what was needed there were resources available so that I could receive support essential to my continued recovery.

I see, unacceptably often, what happens to people who do not find what they need or worse – find what they need but there is no space, no resources, to meet their needs.

Those who find the programs, the resources, the support, prosper. Those who don’t find a way to fill these needs end up in the misery of homelessness and often addiction.

This is also the reality for those struggling with addiction. Not really surprising given that at least 50% are estimated to suffer from the concurrent disorders of mental illness and addiction.

One or even three months does not “treat” or “cure” addiction, even if we label facilities and programs as “treatment”.

Recovery is a continual journey of learning, self knowledge, personal growth and change. During the first year(s) of this journey one needs programs and resources to guide and promote this learning and growth, with support not only through the rough patches, but from day to day.

We can keep doing what we have been doing, hoping for a different outcome. Which as anyone familiar with Alcoholics Anonymous can tell you is the definition of insanity.

Or we can change our behaviour, put in place the programs, resources and support that research, current knowledge and experience tell us is needed to reclaim lives from the scourge of addiction.

We can continue to waste millions, hundreds of millions, of dollars to achieve little success. Or we can choose to spend our money wisely, saving hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars, and starting to reclaim lives by intelligently addressing the affliction and torment that is addiction.

Lao Tsa in his “ART OF War” writes: “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”

Reality is that recovery from addiction is, like recovery from mental illness, a demanding and arduous years long journey, not a quick easy fix.

To deny this reality, to resist the changes needed only creates more sorrow. Let reality be reality and provide the resources we know are needed for people to flow forward into recovery.

Homeless

The Gate – an elaboration

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I was asked for an elaboration on what I found disturbing about the gate installed to keep the homeless from sleeping in the sheltered door alcove at the Abbotsford District Teachers Building (see A Dark disturbance in the force below).

Why do I believe this is only for anti-homeless purposes? There is another door at the opposite end of the building; one door is flush with the wall of the building, the other door recessed in a well sheltered alcove. The sheltered, alcove doorway was gated, while the unsheltered doorway was left unsecured.

Exclusion. Undesirable. Unworthy. Hopelessness.

Theses are some of the major messages that this gate sends to the Homeless. How would I know that? Partially experience at being on the outside of that type of gate; mainly that I took the time to ask them how they felt about the appearance of the gate.

They know that the gate is there to keep them out, as if they are undesirable vermin or life forms, in continuation of the deliberate efforts undertaken to drive them out of the downtown area over the past several years– as if there was someplace else for them to go.

Fence them out as they are not worthy of shelter, aid or caring. Negativity, cascading negative thinking that leads down into hopelessness. This is very destructive thinking – leading to a bleakness of outlook, self image and thought that is escaped through mind altering substances.

Wonderful – more barriers to reclaiming lives.

Paying to install the gate is more of the same old irrational behaviour that government and society engages in on so many issues, not just homelessness.

We will spend money to build structures to keep the homeless out of shelter, but not structures to give them shelter. It is easier to raise money, to get a superstar singer to help raise money, to shelter cute puppies and kittens than it is to raise funds to shelter the homeless.

We will take the easy way out, build a fence, rather than undertake the harder task of helping the homeless into recovery and reclaiming their lives. We would apparently rather continue spending an average of $55,000 per homeless person in fencing them out and leaving them on the streets; rather than undertaking the complex changes and efforts that would deliver the needed services in a targeted manner at a cost of $37,000 per person.

People seemingly prefer to pay the extra $18,000 per person in order to avoid facing the reality of addiction and what needs to be done; of having to change attitudes and see what is as opposed to what they want to believe; to suspend judgement and simply do what experience has demonstrated works.

The gate is about excluding, denial of reality, avoiding and hiding out of sight; about continuing wasteful, costly and irrational behaviours.

The rational, the smart response is not to build a gate but to get the homeless into recovery, reducing the numbers of homeless and removing the need for gates.