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Harm reduction in the context of real life

Syringe - downloaded from the netA couple of weeks ago I attended a panel discussion about “harm reduction in a socio-political context,” sponsored by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

During the audience Q&As, a young man named Max Rowsell took the microphone. He told us that he has been using opiates intravenously for three years, and he just found out he has Hepatitis C. He works on the Harm Reduction Youth Advisory Committee of the Youth Services Bureau.

Max was interesting and articulate, and I wanted to hear the rest of his story, so we got together for dinner on Friday evening. I didn’t take any notes, so I hope my memory doesn’t let me down too much here. (For the record, Max gave me permission to identify him on my blog and said everything we discussed was bloggable.)

The first thing I noticed was that Max wasn’t making a lot of eye contact and his eyes were rolled back in his head a bit, so I figured he was probably high (he confirmed this later). Regardless, he was absolutely coherent: his thoughts and words were crystal clear. And he was intriguingly open and honest.

He doesn’t seem to blame anybody for his addiction, and he’s empathetic about his parents’ circumstances and the choices they made along the way. He describes his mother as “the most wonderful and nurturing woman you could imagine.” She moved to Norway when he was in his teens, and Max moved to Ottawa to live with his father.

Suddenly his whole world had changed – he had lost his family, his friends, his city, his school – and he was forced to adjust to an all-new family, friends, city and school.

Max says if someone had said to him, “You’re going to go to school one day and learn how to hit up in the bathroom,” he would have had trouble believing it. He would have thought “How could that happen?”

But that’s what happened. He was seventeen years old. Of the five friends who all started using together in that high school bathroom three years ago, four are still addicted.

I asked him how long it took him to become addicted. He says he’s not sure when he slipped over the line. But the difference is that an addict gets dopesick when he goes too long without drugs. He says it’s really hard to endure that kind of sickness when you know you can alleviate all your symptoms in 30 seconds.

“If you could go back to that day in high school,” I asked him, “Would you change it?”

“That’s a good question,” Max said, “I don’t think I would. I’ve had some bad experiences as a result of the drugs, but it’s also brought some really good people and experiences and opportunities into my life.”

I think we all carry around in our heads a stereotype of what a drug addict is. I know I do. Even though I’ve been an addict myself, and my own lived experience tells me that my stereotype is merely a caricature of an addict, I still can’t quite shake it.

Drug addicts are not all the same. Every addict is also a person with their own unique combination of qualities, quirks and flaws. There’s as much variation between addicts as there is between non-addicts.

But the drugs themselves do create commonalities among and differences between groups of addicts.

Max points out that the nature of crack, for example, makes crack addiction a full-time job. Within minutes of smoking it, you start craving it again. All your waking hours are devoted to smoking crack, looking for crack, or getting money to buy more crack. He says it’s important that crack addicts have a voice in harm reduction since they are the experts on themselves, but it’s harder to engage or mobilize them because of the all-consuming nature of their addiction.

Opiate addicts, on the other hand, aren’t usually so consumed. Opiates include heroin and pharmaceutical opiates/painkillers like codeine, demerol, dilaudid, meperidine, methadone, morphine, percocet and percodan. In Max’s case, he uses two or three times a day, and it takes about half an hour to become functional again after each use.

In practical terms, this difference between crack addicts and opiate addicts is huge. Opiate addicts tend to have far more time and capacity for other pursuits like school, work, hobbies, and community activities.

Max seems to be living a full, rich life – which includes school, work, activism, community, a relationship, friendships, conferences and public speaking engagements – while managing an active addiction. He credits harm reduction for making it possible for him to do all the other things.

He doesn’t see harm reduction as simply about disease prevention or needle exchange and crack kit programs. Harm reduction, in its broadest sense, is about employment and education and health and well-being – it’s about helping people be the best they can be.

A couple of weeks ago, at the Homelessness Forum, Rob Boyd said that pitting harm reduction against treatment – as some politicians like to do – makes no sense because harm reduction is at the front lines of treatment. They’re on the same side.

I asked Max about treatment. He said he thought he could quit if he chose to, and he spoke very knowledgeably about the various treatment options for opiate addicts. He’s done his research; he understands the biochemistry of opiates and the various treatment options.

Max says many drugs, including opiates, are not in and of themselves particularly harmful. The harm comes from the things one might do and the risks one might take in order to get and use the drugs, such as sex trade work, crime, sharing needles, etc. It’s the criminalization of drug use that makes it unnecessarily risky and creates much of the harm. The Conservative government, by focusing its drug strategy on prisons and punishment, is actually making things worse.

Since I started writing about addiction occasionally on my blog, I’ve had a few parents email me and ask how they can help their addicted child. I’ve always felt bad that I can never answer that question to their satisfaction or my own. I asked Max what he would tell them.

I’m paraphrasing here:

“Tell them that you love them and that you’ll support them no matter what, whether they’re actively using or not. Talk to them about harm reduction. Tell them you don’t want them to share equipment. Tell them you don’t want them to do sex trade work to get the money.”

I think if Conservative politicians were to meet Max they would change their minds about harm reduction. They would see a smart and likable young man with many qualities and strengths, who does give a damn about his own well-being and about his community, and whose future is clearly and undeniably worth protecting. How could they not see that?

We left the restaurant and walked for awhile. There was a beam of light sweeping the sky, and Max explained to me how it works and what its purpose is. He walked me to my bus stop, waited with me until the #14 arrived, then leaned way down (he’s 6’7″) and gave me a big hug goodbye.


Just Post AwardUpdate: This post won a Just Post award!


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I’m going to write a good post, but not today

I feel like I owe you all a damned fine post because I’ve been kind of slacking off a bit lately. Polls about the weather, pictures of pictures, links to inane quizzes – I really haven’t given you anything meaty lately, have I? (At least my recent posts have been mercifully short. Like February.)

I do have a couple of interesting posts in the hopper though.

For example, last night I had dinner with a bright, personable and articulate young man who is an intravenous drug addict and harm reduction activist. I learned a lot from him, and I’m going to blog about it.

Also last night, another of my long-lost brothers re-surfaced after a 17-year absence. I might blog about our adventures hitchhiking from Vancouver to Ottawa together as teenagers.

But not today. Today is just more of the ho-hum same here at Knitnut.net.

If you haven’t voted yet, it’s the last day for voting in Round One of the Canadian Blog Awards. (KnitNut.net is nominated in Best Activities Blog, Best Local Blog, and Best Personal Blog.) Even if you don’t take the CBAs seriously, they’re still an excellent source of good Canadian blog links. Just in case you’re not reading enough blogs.

Lots (but not all) of my favourite Ottawa bloggers are up for various CBA awards, including Watawa Life, Elgin Street Irregulars, Hella Stella, XUP, Salted Lithium, Miss Vicky, A Peek Inside the Fishbowl, Dr. Dawg, and Stage Left. Did I miss anyone?

Speaking of missing someone, on the last day of nominations I tried to nominate Jo Stockton for Best Blog Post for her post Tea and Sympathy, but they unexpectedly closed down the nominations in the middle of the day. I was too late. But Jo’s post is still the best post of the year. It even inspired a tea-shirt.

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Mother, this is Howard

Look what I bought at the Ottawa School of Art last night! Every time I look at it, it cracks me up. Even the title cracks me up.

It’s called Mother, This is Howard.

Mother, this is Howard

The artist is Sharon Lafferty.

Poll: The vilest month

This poll appears by special request from Grace, whom I have not yet me but who describes me as “one of her favourite imaginary friends.” She hopes it will settle a dispute she is having with another friend.

(If you’re reading this in a feed reader or email, I think you’ll need to click over here into the blog to vote.)

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Pet of the Month

Usually Duncan just walks around the house naked*, but this week he was invited over to the Elgin Street Irregulars’ blog for a special guest appearance on their Tank Top Tuesday series.

Knowing that talent scouts are closely monitoring the ESI blog for the next hot thing, GC and I helped Duncan out as best we could, lending him clothes and holding him down and taking glamour shots with sexy lighting and cheesecloth over the lens and so on. We even considered shaving him, but we know how the ESIs feel about that sort of thing.

Anywho, Duncan had mixed feelings about wearing clothes until he saw himself on the ESI blog today. Now he’s digging through my drawers and strutting in front of the mirror and figuring out how to use the self-timer on the camera. He just asked me if there’s a Canadian Blog Award for sex kittens.



*In case you were wondering, XUP has some thoughts about walking around the house naked. (Also in case you were wondering, there are only five days remaining in the Blogging About XUP series.)

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Ottawa Blogs!

The Canadian Blog Awards are back on, and the first round of voting started today and ends on Friday, I think.

KnitNut.net was nominated in several categories: Best Personal Blog, Best Local Blog, and Best Activities Blog. (Thank you very kindly to those who nominated me; it felt good to see my blog on the list.)

If you haven’t checked it out, you should go look to see if your blog was nominated for a CBA this year. They don’t notify you, and I don’t think links from their website show up as incoming links either, since the CBA site isn’t a blog itself. I took a very quick peek and was pleased to see a few of you* on the lists.

Windsor swept the blogging awards last year, and I’m hoping Ottawa will do better this year. Hopefully the Canadian blogosphere won’t punish us for that godawful summer blogging slump we went through.

 


*including you-know-who.

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Which board game are you?


You Are Scrabble


You are incredibly clever and witty. You can talk your way out of (and into) situations easily.
You are an excellent decision maker. You are good at weighing the options in front of you.
You’re the type of person who can make something out of nothing. You are very resourceful.
You know a lot of things. Most importantly, you know when people are wrong – even when they won’t admit it.

I saw this board game quiz thingy on Wandering Coyote’s blog and I couldn’t resist.

I was pleased it said that if I was a board game, I’d be Scrabble. I don’t know if I ever told you this, but GC and I met playing Scrabble on Facebook, back when Scrabble was called Scrabulous. (It hasn’t been the same since they took it away from the Indian pirates, fancied it up and changed its name to Scrabble.)

I LOVE board games. I can waste hours and hours playing them. As a kid, once I’d burnt everybody else out on Monopoly or backgammon or Scrabble, I’d play by myself, taking turns for my imaginary friends.

It probably could have been predicted, even back then, that addiction might become a problem for me.

I loved the popomatic bubble, didn't you?Remember Trouble? The game with the popomatic bubble? The only skill required to play Trouble was the ability to count to six. Here’s a confession: as a young woman, I would play Trouble with my five year old son, and he would get bored with it before I did. After he had wandered off in search of more intellectually stimulating activities, I’d play Trouble by myself for awhile.

I’ve gotten hooked on a lot of computer games over the years too – everything from Bouncing Babies, Minesweeper, Snood and Civilization to the MMPORPG* Dark Age of Camelot.

My current gaming addictions are Word Twist and Scramble, both on Facebook, but not to be confused with Scrabble or Scrabulous. I play with various friends including bloggers XUP and Aggie. Scramble’s my favourite, but it’s hard to find people who want to play with me. I used to play it a lot with Ember Swift but she quit cold turkey a couple of months ago. She told me I was her favourite opponent, but she needed more time for other pursuits. She let me down gently.

How about you? Do you like games? What’s your favourite? How often do you play it?



*MMPORPG: Massively multi-player online role-playing game.

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Our first argument

I used to work with Gail, who who could argue to the death about the placement of a comma. She knew all the rules, and all the terms for all the parts of the English language. She could wax eloquent (and endlessly) about insubordinate modifying clauses and coordinating conjunctions.

One time Gail insisted that “more common” was grammatically incorrect and that “commoner” must be used instead. (eg: “Disability is commoner among older people.”) The editor finally conceded that Gail was technically correct but that there was no way in hell that sentence could be published because it sounded so wrong.

While Gail was a language geek with an encyclopedic knowledge of the rules, I tend to be more intuitive about language. I judge a sentence by how it looks and sounds. I can’t explain why a mistake is a mistake; it’s just something I feel in my gut.

Maybe I acquired my intuitive sense of the language from my mom, who was an English teacher with a low tolerance for grammatical or spelling errors.

I was about thirteen when she decided all my clothes would come from the brown family, and all my sister’s clothes would come from the blue family. This, she said, would make it easier to put together outfits, because everything would match.

She also decreed that every Sunday night my sister and I would complete Outfit Charts for the coming week. These charts would list exactly what we would wear each day. For example: Monday: brown corduroy pants, white and brown striped blouse, tan jacket, beige socks.

There were so many possible misspellings of the word beige (baje, biege, beyge, baige, bayje, for starters) and I kept getting it wrong on my weekly Outfit Charts. After several weeks and multiple warnings, she grounded me for two weeks.

You’ll notice I don’t spell beige incorrectly anymore. (Perhaps coincidentally, I don’t wear brown or plan my outfits ahead of time anymore either.)

Anyway. All of this prelude brings me to the fact that GC and I are having our first argument, and it could be a dealbreaker. We need your help.

We’re at odds over the use of the words ‘fast’ and ‘quickly.’ Neither one of us can explain why we think we’re right, so we’re hoping some of you might offer an opinion* and an explanation. If you’re reading this in a feedreader or email, I think you’ll need to click over to my blog to vote in the poll.

*XUP? Do you have an opinion on this?

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Signs of Impending Christmas

The other day I saw two sure signs of impending Christmas.

1. My Christmas Cactus at the office bloomed.
My Christmas Cactus is blooming

2. Some guy walked up O’Connor Street in his Christmas pants.
Christmas pants

One of my friends at work has not only finished all her Christmas shopping, but has done all her wrapping too. I haven’t even started wrapping my head around the concept yet.

How about you? How’s Christmas coming along?


Update: Oops, I almost forgot to mention XUP! (Just 10 more days in the Blogging About XUP series. I think she and I will both be happy to turn this particular page on the calendar.)

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R.I.P. Stogie

Stogie at Irene's, Summer 08, taken by SB?I went to Stogie’s funeral today. More formally known as Wayne Campbell, Stogie succumbed to prostate cancer on Saturday at the age of 62. He outlived his prognosis by three years, which surprised nobody. Stogie was a fighter. He was tough.

Although I believe we originally met decades ago at the Alex Hotel, I knew Stogie primarily through Irene’s Pub, where he was a well-loved regular. Our years of being regulars at Irene’s didn’t overlap, so we never got to know each other as well as I would have liked. I can’t say we were good friends, but we liked each other and shared some good friends in common. I guess that made us good-friends-in-law.

His funeral was well attended by friends and family, and there were lots of tears and some ripples of laughter. The last time I was in that room, it was for Paddy Mitchell’s funeral, and I couldn’t help but notice the parallels.

For a few years, a long time ago, Stogie led a notorious Ottawa bike gang. Maybe that’s what ‘bad boys’ with entrepreneurial spirit and leadership qualities aspire to, I don’t know. (The thing about bikers is that while society may not always agree with their morals, they do tend to be intensely loyal to their own moral code, which creates an interesting juxtaposition. Can you regard someone as moral if you disagree with their morals?*)

Anyway, Stogie’s biker career was just one interesting chapter in a richly lived life.

After the Reverend finished with the official part of the service, he asked if anybody would like to share some stories about their experiences with Stogie.

Silence. People shifted and shuffled and looked around. There were a few grins. Finally somebody said “I think we’re all taking the fifth on this one, Father.”

Everybody laughed, and then people started stepping forward and sharing their stories.

This is my inadequate attempt to distill it all down into a single paragraph, to describe this man to people who will never meet him:

Stogie was a Scottish bagpipe-playing adventurer, storyteller and family man. He loved music and possessed secret artistic talent. He was an avid motorcyclist, fisherman and skiier. He was a natural leader and he had a knack for teaching and encouraging others. He wasn’t afraid to take risks, but he was smart about it. He was an excellent rider. He lived life large and had a wicked sense of humour and a big infectious laugh. He was a tough guy with a huge soft spot. He was kind, generous and good to his friends. A lot of people are going to miss him.

As funerals go, it was a pretty good one. Some people were creeped out by seeing him so thin and small and dead and waxy with combed hair and a suit in his open casket. He wasn’t recognizable. Fortunately there was a video screen looping through photos of him living his life. It was touching and reassuring to see him and recognize him and not to have to reconcile this small wax body with our memories of him.
They played Amazing Grace on bagpipes at the end of the service. I was holding up pretty well until then.

I was told last night that his mom, now in her 80s, has buried of all three of her sons now. That just about broke my heart.


*I think XUP and I have diverging opinions on this one.