Recovery Today

“I never thought I’d end up here.” She said. Her clothes were torn.  Not in that fashionable way. But a sleeping outside and not having anything else to change in torn and worn way.  Her hair was matted. There was dirt on her hands and face. She was white at one time.  “I graduated college.  I had a husband and a child before social services took my baby.  I don’t know where she is now.”

She’d been sleeping in front of the bank because there was an overhang there that kept some of the rain off her sleeping bag and newspaper shelter.

“I drank first but then it got to harder stuff. I needed the drugs.  I didn’t like what I did for them.  Drug dealers are all disgusting pigs.  But I didn’t have any money. “. She was crying, shoulders shaking.  She did’t smell fresh either.

I didnt’ know if this was true or just a tale she’d picked up and used.  The stories are passed around and reworked for most impact. Especially the stories of abuse. They’re so polished that I’ve even heard the lawyers down here repeating them as their own.  Jungle tales.  But she sounded real.  What was sad is how the last thing blamed was the drugs. First the parents, then the men or women or the job or even the banks and government but finally one day if they’re lucky they look in the mirror and say, “It’s me. It’s the drugs. My drug dealer isn’t my friend.” 

AA considered calling the Big Book, the truly classic recovery read, “The Way Out”.

So many who develop drug and alcohol abuse had trauma that many think the subsequent self destructive lives are ‘identification with the aggressor’ and Stockholm Syndrome.  No one doubts that it becomes a disease.  The brain changes.  The amygdala and hypothalamus are altered. DNA and neurotransmitters are all altered.  The very thinking is high jacked like a worm in a computer. Addiction can be followed by public health like a viral epidemic.  It spreads in poverty and war from carrier to target.  There are well established vectors.  The enablers are the most interesting group.  A twisted form of narcissism.  Dr. Scott Peck described them in “People of the Lie’.  Without the enablers the natural history of the disease would be brief.

“I ran out of money and no one wanted me. That ‘s why I came in.” He said. He’d been a teacher at one time. 

I first met them in the detox ward I supervised nearly 40 years ago.  Back then the Delirium Tremens of the alcoholics challenged me. I’d be up all night trying to keep the patients alive as they crashed about screaming and hallucinating and I’d be afraid of how much medication I gave them because they’d have liver disease, heart disease and lung disease from smoking and drinking. Mostly they were older men then.

Today’s it’s children. Nobody realizes how many beautiful young women are addicts today. Female alcoholism has passed that of men.  Red Red Wine.! Poor ME. Poor Me . Poor Me Another Drink! The guys are coming in younger too.  

40 years ago it was alcohol or heroin but today it’s everything.  

“I don’t want the methadone or suboxone. I was just told I had to see you and fail your program before they’d give me the free heroin.”  He was 18 years old. He’d started using drugs when he was 6 years old. His mother was a prostitute and his father a career criminal.  “I”m pretty sure he’s my father. I visited him in jail. The guy my mother said was him. He acted okay and said we’d get to gether when he got out. He’s in for another 20 years. Manslaughter. I didn’t go back.” 

There’s lots of solutions. All the options are available here for treatment. The management of these options has been described as the worst managed in the western world.  The problem is communication and coordination.  The administration though is always playing their favourite game of divide and conquer and self aggrandizement. The emperors and empire building in beurocracy is rife.  

“I’d feel badly but when I see how incompetent the legal system is following known terrorists and dealing with criminals who use guns what is done in health care is genius by comparison.  Politics is just messy everywhere.” She said. A wise nurse teacher now working on the frontlines after leaving a cushy university position for reality.  

The housing crisis doesn’t help.  The bed bug stories and rats in 21st Century Canada frighten me.  Typhus outbreaks in Democrat California. Won’t be long before that spreads up there.  We still get syphilis cases and we’ve done everything to wipe out these diseases but as the government devolves the danger increases. We’ve got TB again but so far no Plague in Canada. The breeding grounds are growing though.  The anti vaccers don’t help either but who wouldn’t believe conspiracy theories with the lies coming out of Ottawa and Brussels about scientific ‘predictions’ that are just modern day political ‘prophecies’ .  

If the person has a job and family in tact as Dr. Ray Baker literally preaches, “We can get 80% or better outcomes at 5 year follow up with early intervention.  We do better with addiction that any of the other specialities in this regard but we are no better than they are treating end stage illness’.  Dr. Baker was the one who started the first medical school addiction education program when the authorities were in complete denial and blaming the victims like the courts and judges and too many politicians still do.  

The treatment of choice has been around since the Navy Pilot program. When AA began in 1935 there was no ‘cure’ but 50 men in Akron found that abstinence and accountability groups, 12 steps and broad based ‘spiritual’ focus rather than narrow focus resulted in 5 year cures for what was an otherwise deadly disease.  Unfortunately until people understood immunity, partial immunity and genetics of disease and disease spread little more progress was made for decades .But now, thanks to AA that millions of alcoholics were surviving and then Addicts too there were test subjects and money to continue the research that has lead to a broader based approach to the disease. The Navy Pilot program was 80% successful with early identification in the workplace, referral to a psychiatrist trained and experienced with addiction , seeing them monthly, seeing a drug and alcohol counselors weekly and attending three AA meetings a week after an initial 4 to 6 week (proverbial 28 day) inpatient treatment.  

There’s little change in that winning formula today except that there’s now ‘outpatient’ ‘DAYTOX’ and “SMART” Recovery groups alternative to the 12 step programs and a variety of faith based ‘accountability groups’ more appealing to particular religious affiliation.  Psychologists and psychiatrists have begun to treat the trauma that is usually associated with addiction at 3 to 6 months abstience.  Motivation Therapy and DBT groups are now psychological advances over the CBT developed in the 80’s .  Recovery Capital work is the foundation of modern psychosocial therapies. 

In addition a variety of drugs like Revia 50 mg a day have been developed to reduce craving and assist recovery much like the highly successful Chiantix used for quitting smoking. 

Harm reduction strategies have expanded the applicability from the original , ‘take it or leave it ‘ approach so that a number of approaches have been established to get people into the now generically termed ‘RECOVERY’ process. It’s becn said ‘you’re either on the up elevator or the down elevator.” Once it was believed that you couldn’t be ‘forced’ into recovery but functional MRI studies show that people who have been using drugs are literally ‘not in their right minds’ for at least 90 days or 3 months.  Intervention and rescue models and treatment Centers offering 3 month initial programs have followed this learning. The old ‘tough love’ AA program is still likely best practice for ‘relapse prevention’. 

 These harm reduction procedures include replacement models, like methadone, suboxone, and now morphine and injectable morphine. Internationally the highly successful injectable long acting antagonist treatments have been used though Canada and the US often because of the long delays haven’t  haven’t caught up with the Russian and Australian approaches to chronic relapsing disease. . Mostly the local  courts and beurocrats cause delays because of their lack of  scientific education in face of  crisis.  When I worked with the AIDS epidemic the courts and individual judges and beuroccrats by their delaying tactics and self aggrandizement accounted for thousands of passive aggressive deaths.  That said hundreds  of judges and thousands of beurocrats along with the front line workers turned that disease around as they are now grappling with this fentanyl epidemic.

Dr. Jordan Peterson though, always one to avoid the political correct language of deceit, confronts the problem directly but saying that today 10% of the population are ill equipped to have any work. Work and the family are the cornerstone of community and without community the gangs and drugs take over.  Work has been a key component in limiting the spread of addiction.   It literally keeps people in contact with positive associations however as Dr. Peterson points out in the past there were all kinds of work that didn’t require intellect or computer knowledge or even reading and writing. But these kinds of jobs have been mostly taken over by machines. Society must come to terms with this problem. Some countries have brought back conscription while others are moving to a similar non military but public health peace corp type approach for those young people who are not going to make it to college or trade schools.  Anything is better than leaving these marginalized people to gang predators.  Some 75% of those in jail are there for crimes to obtain drugs.  The enablers are often those with a conflict of interest in maintaining the antiquated punishment jail based legal system which has much value but not in this arena.  The drug court is just one of the very best solutions to the problem but recovery houses and work must follow.  

The good news is recovery is working. A week doesn’t go by that I don’t meet someone who says they remember me , like others,  who were along the way in their recovery journey. They stop me and say ‘thank you’ .  I don’t remember them. I’ve seen so many thousands of patients struggling and recovering from the disease.  They never look like they did when I met them in their addiction or early in recovery. 6 month, a year or 10 years later the big difference to me is the ‘eyes’.  They look alive’. “Dead eyes’ is a well known term among those who care and know.  

What’s even better is the ‘life’ the people in recovery have.  They tell me about their new jobs, their education, the trips to exotic places, their reunions with family, their church or temples.  It still remains that those who are 20 years or more recovered tend to be going to AA groups or involved in some spiritual organization.  

It’s a tough field to work in especially with the alcoholism and addiction rampant in the authorities  and the denial in high places where the desire is to expand the tax base and hope that the 90% of people who can play with fire safely are not destroyed by the 10% of people who turn out to be arsonists.  Despite that it’s still rewarding in time to see the lives gained.  Those young people who I knew who had so much potential but died premature unnecessary undignified deaths still remain with me.  But the woman who lost her children and family is now 2 years clean and sober . That’s thanks to methadone, her drug and alcohol counselors, AA,  a smart psychologist, her local church, an enlightened social worker and family who were glad to have their daughter back. She has a job working as a secretary for a housing authority, a government beurocrat going out of his way to help her get work without stigmatizing her for the other non life she’d lived before recovery. That’s the new normal story in this work.  I’m thankful to have been a part of the recovery process.

Vancouver Thieves

Out walking Gilbert this morning. Half dozen guys gathered in the parking lot.
"We've had thieves," one said to me.
"My cooler was stolen."
"New batteries were taken right out of the box of my truck."
"I just set down some luggage and was going back to get it. This guy was walking off with it. I called out for him to stop and got it. I was just unloading my car and this guy was taking the stuff."
I know that's normal in Vancouver. Even the head of the RCMP and the Chief of the Vancouver police are more concerned about complaints from criminals about police use of bad language than the city being safe from crime. Everyone I know tells a tale of theft and mayhem. Assaults are common too. But no one reports anything any more. Police say they aren't allowed to fight crime in Vancouver and their only job is to 'record' crime.
Two friends describe recurrent thefts to their property which resulted not in criminals being caught but in them being denied insurance.
The principal theft in the city is associated with the drug trade. A heroin addict needs roughly $300 a day for their habit not to mention the crack and other drugs. Since the exchange rate on stolen property is on 10 cents on the dollar this means that each heroin addict must steal $3000 dollars a day 356 days of the year. That translates into roughly a million dollars a n addict a year in theft.
The best treatment for individual and society is the methadone maintenance program. The best legal response is the Vancouver Drug Court. Yet the Vancouver Drug Court despite it's high success compared to traditional 'punishment' models is the least funded of services despite having the most enlightened judges and the greatest success rate addressing theft and crime.
The city collectively is losing dozens of minutes per day per citizen working because they can't even put a shopping bag down beside a cart without risk of these legions of thieves picking it up. Everyone, myself included, wastes an inordinate amount of time locking and checking and placing cameras and such to attempt to compete against the criminals whose full time occupation is to steal from the workers of the city.
Over the years there have been a variety of measures taken to address theft in communities, certainly community service and repayment of the debts to individuals and society is high on the list in communities that have gone beyond barbarism. Thousands of years past cities used 'banishment' from the city to reduce crimes of theft. Clearly I consider it a priviledge to live in Vancouver on the west coast in a kind climate compared to Yellowknife but should we not support the police and simply have those people who have had recurrent theft charges have their right to be in the city removed until their pay their debts to those they have stolen from. 
The notion of 'gated communities' has been ridiculed as a place where theives know the location but historically people had to be able to show reason to be in 'areas' of cities.  Interestingly in the 1800's in Milan Italy, the famous Gallerina Centre was developped as a 'safe shopping site'.  In the Pentagon no one enters without a pass.  Clearly some areas of the city could be considered 'theft free' and people with a history simply not allowed to enter.  Yet that brings to mind the Scarlet Letter debate as a means to identy crime and criminals.  Where does one draw the line. What does work.
The beauty of drug treatment is that a thieve who steals from innoscent people is by addressing their drug dependency taking 'action' to address their 'theiving'.
Of course not all drug dependent are theives and some theives are simply psychopaths and sociopaths. But then society has to really question it's fundamental attitudes towards multiculturalism as a leading provincial representative argues that it is 'ethnocentric' of the 'majority' population to impose it's views against theft on a 'culture' who have use thieving as their main means of survival.
First Nations people rarely speak about their historic and traditional 'punishments' for offences against the tribe. All manner of highly objectionable punishment occured within different tribal systems.  Theft between tribes was celebrated at times where as theft between individuals was as much as an offense as today.  The notion of communal ownership or the idea that we don't 'own' but 'borrow' the land still causes anger and fear in children who having 'borrowed' something take offence at someone else 'borrowing' it back. In general if a man stole the Chief's head dress for instance, there would be hell to pay. Commonly death sentences were the norm  in many of the 'cultures' that make up Canada yet in 'multicultural' Canada we reject this.  
As a Christian I noted that the first deaths in Christian history in the Christian community were recorded in Acts when a man and woman died as a consequences of stealing from the communal group.
My Christian childhood neighbourhood didn't require locks on the door and we didn't lock our bicycles and we didn't know theft. I miss that world where I wasn't constantly looking over my back worrying if I locked my computer, my car, and afraid to set down a bag beside a car for fear it will be snatched.  I miss a world in which people trusted each other and collectively no one stole and respected each other's boundaries and property.
Personally I think it's time for the Bible to returned to the classroom. If not then lets have a review of the multicultural laws regarding 'theives' and do something more 'effective' than we are. What are the new "morality and ethics' classes doing and are they as effective?  I don't believe it's at all Canadian to be a thief and it's fundamentally against Canadian Culture to Steal. Canadians believe collectively 'thou shalt not steal'.  The problem lies not with the collective culture but rather what one does to achieve this agreed principle of living.s
People are not 'stealing for food'. This is not a "Jean Val Jean" times. There is so much 'food' in the downtown eastside that people are trading the sweet stuff for drugs. Theft remained a major concern in Communist Russia and continues to be a major concern in Communist China.  The extent of theft in these anti religion secular theocracies is probably greater than in traditional non ideological societies.I don't steal because to steal would be to steal from God and hurt my very soul. The 10 commandments say 'thou shalt not steal'. That's Hebrew, Christian, and Moslem. The Buddhists and Hindus believe that a thief will come back without hands in the next life. Karma is a the consequence of theft but in the countries with the highest density of buddhists or hindus theivery is punished worse than it is in an Christian country. It appears even in countries which believe in reincarnation no one is ready to wait for the criminals to get their just desert in the next life. This is no different in Judeo Christian society where we believe that theives will burn in hell but historically were happy to chop off their hands, burn them in oil or send them to Australia before God got his licks in . First Nations killed theives just as most pagan cultures. Indeed Christians and Jews collectively in the world have the greatest history of mercy despite their otherwise tough approach to sin.
Dr. Johnson was paraphrased by Bob Dylan in that great philosophical theological treatise "I and I',  "steal a little and they put you in jail, steal alot and they make you king".  Theft then has been a matter of the most powerful nations taking from less powerful nations but within these nations at the neighbourly level there is still the sanctions surrounding theft. It might be alright for the King, Queen or Commissar to steal since as in  "Animal Farm" some animals are more 'equal' than others.
Faced with the theives in Vancouver I really do wonder how people are raising their children. Historically in many cultures in the east the parents and family are held accountable for the thefts of children with the consequence that the community approach to crime is found most effective.   This proved a highly effective collective strategy which might well be considered in our individualist culture.
Possibly if we got it together to address theft at the parking lot and back yard and office level then we'd really be in a place to be righteously indignant about CEO's and Banksters stealing massive amounts of pensioner funds and the bottles out of the babies of the nations mouths.
Personally in Vancouver I've had my houses broken into despite cameras and locks, my cars and trucks broken into repeatedly, (car insurance never has paid for the loss or more importantly the cost in time dealing with broken glass and such) ,  my boat broken into, an office staff who turned out to be a psychopath lying and stealing but actually admitting her theft to the police without any consequence to her, ultimately costing me $50,000 because of corruption in the system,  despite her chronic history of theft and deceit and my being 'targetted' by her,  several computers have over the years been  stolen from work, though thankfully no confidential data loss. Still  I fear putting through insurance claims though I've had hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen in my life time and pay roughly tens of thousands of dollars insurance a year. What a waste of a life!!!! Why should any one get a job and build and create if theives can come and take without consequence?  That's what I 'feel' some days and 'emotional reasoning' dictates. Yet when I talk to friends and neighbours they describe similiarly horrific experiences yet continue to muddle on. The power of good people to persist with so little support from the authorities and so many psychopaths and sociopaths parasitizing them remains utterly astonishing. I learn from construction company executives that they have horrendous losses from theft but just "soldier on".  Society grows and people generally prosper. Our lives are longer and never before in time were as many as rich as they are today. 
Several gang members who I've known over the years in work or riding my Harley have told me that just as there are private schools and a private postal system and Canadians cross the border for private health care in the US (our longstanding 2 tier medical system) there has always been an alternative 'police' system provided by 'private' services. I've spoken with many people from ethnic communities who have no faith in the Canadian 'services' and they admit that they aren't concerned about the RCMP or Vancouver Police because some member is caught on video kicking someone.
They just don't think the Canadian police will get their stuff returned or do anything but "record" crime. Japanese society and America in the times of the Kennedy's certainly had an 'arrangement' with the so called 'criminal forces' of the world and times.  Given the example of the Rolling Stones concert with 'private' security services that became more dangerous than the crowds needing 'security' control ultimately ruined what could have been a truly great concert.  Sadly there are simply too many people who feel entitled to what Mick Jagger has without realizing the tremendous work he does.
 It does appear that there is a vacuum of law enforcement regarding 'theft'.  Theft is now considered a 'virtue' by the kids raised in schools without Bibles in court rooms without Bibles in a world where work is for suckers and theft is what the smart one do.  But Plato and Socrates didn't condone theft any more than Moses or God.  So all societies have to judge themselves on how well they protect those who create.
It's hard to start the day and go to work when my neighbours are collectively standing about in a parking lot 'frustrated'. I see the leading news story by the head of the RCMP is that the 'culture' of the policing must change. I know I'm old fashioned but I'm of the belief generally that the police and citizens are frustrated because the countries leadership is living on a different planet and watching too much You Tube and not hearing the frustration people have who are doing everything to work and pay taxes but are routinely having stuff stolen. Break and entries, cars, purses, and offices theived. Why should anyone go to work in Vancouver when theft is so much easier and clearly in Vancouver has little consequences.  Crime pays and the police, if not their politically correct  leadership  would truly like to do something about it.  In these economically difficult times can we really afford to put political correctness over protection of person and property.

British Columbia has the greatest property crime in Canada second only to the N.W.T.   Some 5,600 property crimes per 100,000.  This doesn't even touch the full extent of crime as so little of the total is reported.  What's most infuriating as a tax payer is that when ever I am robbed I am invariably 'blamed' for it as if the beaurocrats and insurance people and indeed the police themselves aren't all in this same mess together with me. I feel like Job talking to these morons whenever I've been violated and something has been stolen knowing full well that they cannot be immune from theft as I despite my best efforts have experienced it repeatedly in this city where property crime is literally ubiquitous.  
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