SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO WHEN YOU'RE NOT WRECKED!

TURNING POINT TO OPEN IN NORTH VANCOUVER

GLOBE AND MAIL

 

June 20, 2013

Councillor hopes recovery house will be a precedent

By WENDY STUECK

Service provider leasing site from municipality to build and operate nine-bed facility

After stickhandling a proposed recovery house through a lengthy approval process in the District of North Vancouver, Councillor Doug MacKay-Dunn hopes the facility will become a template for other jurisdictions.

"This is a model that can be replicated across the province," Mr. MacKay-Dunn said on Thursday. "It costs the city or municipality essentially nothing. And it provides a level of service that has not been provided in the past and it is being managed by an NGO [non-governmental organization], not by a tax-funded agency."

Under the proposal, the District of North Vancouver will lease a site to Vancouver-based Turning Point Society, which will build and operate a nine-bed women's recovery centre on the property.

The province is also involved, through providing a loan that will allow Turning Point to build the centre.
The site is on the north end of Lloyd Avenue on the edge of Murdo Frazer Park. Some area residents objected to the facility because it would require rezoning what had been park land for development.
Proponents, however, said the site had been previously developed – a home that once stood there was demolished in 2010 – and was already connected to city services.

The rezoning process began in 2011 and included an "alternative approval process" for a bylaw to remove the land from park status. Under that process, opponents would have had to gather signatures of at least 10 per cent of eligible voters, or several thousand people, to block the bylaw. By the January deadline, only 176 voters had sent in opposing responses, clearing the way for council to proceed with the bylaw. The rezoning received final approval at a council meeting on June 10.

Mr. MacKay-Dunn, a former police officer who has championed the facility, says he was encouraged by support from residents who agreed that such a service was required in the neighbourhood.

Some residents said they were not opposed to the idea of a treatment centre, but to the precedent of removing land from a park. Mr. MacKay-Dunn, however, calls the site a "brownfield" property that was not going to be developed for any other purpose, and suggests other municipalities have sites that might be suitable for recovery facilities.

Turning Point currently operates one facility in Vancouver and two in Richmond.

The group is also part of a consortium developing a planned, 130-bed affordable housing project in Richmond. That project, announced last year, involves Turning Point and five other non-profit agencies along with the provincial and city governments. Richmond has agreed to lease a city-owned site at a nominal rate to the non-profit groups, which will operate the facility. The province is expected to help pay for construction, but final details – including how much the province will contribute – are still being negotiated.

Richmond, which backed the project as part of its affordable housing strategy, has said the facility should be complete by the spring of 2015.

NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS - CLEAN & SERENE BOAT CRUISE

AND WHY KNOT?

Keep heroin out of our backyards

Do you want a supervised drug consumption site in your community? These are facilities where drug addicts get to shoot up heroin and other illicit drugs.

I don't want one anywhere near my home.

Yet, as I write this, special interests are trying to open up these supervised drug consumption sites in cities and towns across Canada — over the objections of local residents and law enforcement.

We've had enough — that's why I am pleased the Harper government is acting to put the safety of our communities first.

Today, the Harper government introduced tough new rules that will give local law enforcement, municipal leaders, and local residents a voice before a permit is granted for a supervised drug consumption site.

The Trudeau Liberals and Mulcair NDP are against us. They want to repeat the experiment of Vancouver's Insite facility across the country — maybe even in your community.

Because of the tough rules the Harper government introduced today, your voice will now matter.

Add your name if you demand a say before a supervised drug consumption site is opened close to your family:

http://www.conservative.ca/?page_id=3190

Sincerely,

Jenni Byrne
National Campaign Manager, 2011

P.S. Forward to your friends and family, and encourage them to add their name if they would want to be consulted before drug consumption sites are allowed to operate in their neighbourhood.

The Downside of High

Saturday June 8 at 1 pm on CBC-TV

Related Video

 

The Downside of High

Watch this film online.

45:05 min

 

Downside of High

Watch a trailer.

:30 min

Teenagers who start smoking marijuana before the age of sixteen are four times more likely to become schizophrenic. That's the startling conclusion of some of the world's top schizophrenia experts, whose research is featured in the new documentary The Downside of High.
The scientists' groundbreaking work on the connection between marijuana and mental illness also reveals that, for all young adults, smoking marijuana nearly doubles the risk of developing recurring psychosis, paranoia and hallucinations - the hallmarks of schizophrenia.

Ben was first introduced to marijuana while at a high school in BC. His increasingly psychotic behaviour led to a year-long hospitalization. The Downside of High, directed and written by Bruce Mohun, tells the stories of three young people from British Columbia who believe - along with their doctors - that their mental illness was triggered by marijuana use. All three spent months in hospital psychiatric wards, and still wage a battle with their illness. Today's super-potent pot may be a big part of the problem. Modern growing techniques have dramatically increased the amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana - ramping up the threat to the developing teenage brain.
But there's an intriguing twist to the story: in the process of cultivating more potent strains of pot, growers have also been breeding out a little-known ingredient called cannabidiol that seems to buffer the effects of THC. So today's high-octane pot actually contains a double-whammy - more psychosis-producing THC, and less of the protective CBD or cannabidiol.

Tyler was 14 years old when he first started experiencing psychotic episodes. For many people, smoking marijuana is not a big deal - it is, after all, the most widely-used illegal drug in the world. The Downside of High provides a scientific perspective on some of the little-known and little discussed risks of marijuana, particularly for teenagers.
The Downside of High is directed and written by Bruce Mohun, story-produced by Maureen Palmer, and produced by Sue Ridout for Dreamfilm Productions of Vancouver.

Russell Brand on heroin, abstinence and addiction

The last time I thought about taking heroin was yesterday. I had received ‘an inconvenient truth’ from a beautiful woman. It wasn’t about climate change (I’m not that ecologically switched on). She told me she was pregnant and it wasn’t mine.

I had to take immediate action. I put Morrissey on in my car and as I wound my way through the neurotic Hollywood hills my misery burgeoned. Soon I could no longer see where I ended and the pain began. So now I had a choice.

I cannot accurately convey the efficiency of heroin in neutralising pain. It transforms a tight white fist into a gentle brown wave, and from my first inhalation 15 years ago it fumigated my private hell. A bathroom floor in Hackney embraced me like a womb, and now whenever I am dislodged from comfort my focus falls there.

It is ten years since I used drugs or drank alcohol and my life has immeasurably improved. I have a job, a house, a cat, good friendships and generally a bright outlook.

But the price of this is constant vigilance, because the disease of addiction is not rational. Recently, for the purposes of a documentary on this subject, I reviewed some footage of myself smoking heroin. I sit wasted and slumped with an unacceptable haircut against a wall in another Hackney flat (Hackney is starting to seem like part of the problem), inhaling fizzy black snakes of smack off a scrap of crumpled foil. When I saw the tape a month or so ago, what was surprising was that my reaction was not one of gratitude for the positive changes I’ve experienced. Instead I felt envious of this earlier version of myself, unencumbered by the burden of abstinence. I sat in a suite at the Savoy hotel, in privilege, resenting the woeful ratbag I once was who, for all his problems, had drugs.

That is obviously irrational, but the mentality and behaviour of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and, unless they have structured help, they have no hope.

This is the reason I have started a fund within Comic Relief, ‘Give It Up’. I want to raise awareness of, and money for, abstinence-based recovery. It was Kevin Cahill’s idea — he is the bloke who runs Comic Relief. He called me after reading an article I wrote after Amy Winehouse died. Her death had a powerful impact on me, I suppose because it was such an obvious shock, like watching someone for hours through a telescope advance towards you, fist extended with the intention of punching you in the face. Even though I saw it coming, it still hurt when it eventually hit me.

What was so painful about Amy’s death is that I know that there is something I could have done. I could have passed on to her the solution that was freely given to me. Don’t pick up a drink or drug, one day at a time. It sounds so simple, it actually is simple, but it isn’t easy — it requires incredible support and fastidious structuring. Not to mention that the whole infrastructure of abstinence-based recovery is shrouded in necessary secrecy. There are support fellowships that are easy to find and open to anyone who needs them, but they eschew promotion of any kind in order to preserve the purity of their purpose, which is for people with alcoholism and addiction to help one another stay clean and sober.

Without these fellowships I would take drugs. Because even now the condition persists. Drugs and alcohol are not my problem — reality is my problem. Drugs and alcohol are my solution.

If this seems odd to you, it is because you are not an alcoholic or a drug addict. You are likely one of the 90 per cent of people who can drink and use drugs safely. I have friends who can smoke weed, swill gin, even do crack, and then merrily get on with their lives. For me this is not an option. I will relinquish all else to ride that buzz to oblivion. Even if it began as a timid glass of chardonnay on a ponce’s yacht, it would end with me necking the bottle, swimming to shore and sprinting to Bethnal Green in search of a crack house.

‘We’re invited to dinner at the Biebers’ — seven for nine-thirty.’

I looked to drugs and booze to fill up a hole in me. Unchecked, the call of the wild is too strong. I still survey streets for signs of the subterranean escapes that used to provide my sanctuary. I still eye the shuffling subclass of junkies and dealers, invisibly gliding between doorways through the gutters. I see the abundantly wealthy with destitution in their stare. I have a friend so beautiful, so haunted by talent that you can barely look away from her, whose smile is such a treasure that I have often squandered my sanity for a moment in its glow. Her story is so galling that no one would condemn her for her dependency on illegal anaesthesia, but now, even though her life is trying to turn around despite her, even though she has genuine opportunities for a new start, the gutter will not release its prey. The gutter is within.

It is frustrating to love someone with this disease. A friend of mine’s brother cannot stop drinking. He gets a few months of sobriety and his family bask, relieved, in the joy of their returned loved one. His life gathers momentum, but then he somehow forgets the price of this freedom, returns to his old way of thinking, picks up a drink and Mr Hyde is back in the saddle. Once more his face is gaunt and hopeless. His family blame themselves and wonder what they could have done differently, racking their minds for a perfect sentiment wrapped up in the perfect sentence, a magic bullet. The fact is, though, that the sufferer must be a willing participant in their own recovery. They must not pick up a drink or drug. Just don’t pick it up — that’s all.

It is difficult to feel sympathy for these people. Can there be any other disease that renders its victims so unappealing? Would Great Ormond Street be so attractive a cause if its beds were riddled with obnoxious little criminals who had ‘brought it on themselves’?

Peter Hitchens is a vocal adversary of mine on this matter. He sees this condition as a matter of choice and the culprits as criminals who should go to prison. I know how he feels. I bet I have to deal with a lot more drug addicts than he does, let’s face it, I share my brain with one, and I can tell you first-hand they are total nightmares. Where I differ from Peter is in my belief that, if we regard alcoholics and drug addicts not as bad people but as sick people, then we can help them to get better. By we, I mean other people who have the same problem but have found a way to live drug- and alcohol-free lives. Guided by principles and traditions, a programme has been founded that has worked miracles in millions of lives. Not just the alcoholics and addicts themselves, but their families, their friends and of course society as a whole.

What we want to do with Give It Up is popularise a compassionate perception of drunks and addicts and provide funding for places at treatment centres where they can get clean using these principles. Then, once they are free of drugs and alcohol, to make sure they retain contact with the support that is available to keep them clean.

I wound down the hill in an alien land; Morrissey chanted lonely mantras. The pain accumulated and I began to tell myself the old, old story. I thought of places I could score. Off Santa Monica, there’s a homeless man who I know uses gear. I could find him, buy him a bag if he takes me to score.

In my mind, I leave him on the corner, a couple of rocks, a couple of $20 bags pressed into my sweaty palm. I get home, pull out the foil, neatly torn. I break the bottom off a Martell miniature. I make a pipe for the rocks with the bottle, lay a strip of foil on the counter to chase the brown, pause to reflect and regret that I don’t know how to fix, only smoke, feeling inferior even in the manner of my using. I see the foil scorch. I hear the crackle from which crack gets its name. I feel the plastic fog hit the back of my yawning throat. Eyes up. Back relaxes. The bottle drops and the greedy bliss eats my pain. There is no girl, there is no tomorrow.

Even as I spin this web I am reaching for my phone. I call someone, not a doctor or a sage, not a mystic or a physician, just a bloke like me — another alcoholic, who I know knows how I feel. The phone rings and I half hope he’ll just let it ring out. It’s 4a.m. in London. He’s asleep, he can’t hear the phone, he won’t pick up. I indicate left, heading to Santa Monica. The ringing stops, then the dry-mouthed nocturnal mumble:

‘Hello. You all right, mate?’

He picked up. And for another day, thank God, I don’t have to.

Published on The Vancouver Observer (http://www.vancouverobserver.com)

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Life begins at the end of your comfort zone: recovery from addictive behaviours

Candace Plattor

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone—so true.
I love this saying, and wish I could take credit for thinking it up. In my humble opinion, whoever came up with it is a genius—and when I saw it on a fridge magnet many years ago, I bought several of them to give as gifts to people I recognized as being entrenched in their comfort zones. (Sometimes it really does take one to know one.) Having given most of them away, I am now down to just the one that lives in its special place on the side of my fridge, where I can see it every day.
For those of you who follow my Loving an Addict, Loving Yourself page on Facebook (see link at the end), you recently saw a post with a photo of an awesome purple cake adorned with that exact saying: “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” A client of mine, upon seeing my fridge magnet, took this sentiment to heart in a big way—and when it was finally time to celebrate a truly terrific and hard-won milestone in her life, she decided to reward herself with that very cake. After some hard inner work, she was able to embrace a vitally important understanding: in order to become emotionally free, she needed to make the conscious choice to move past what was comfortable for her and actually start living.
I’m so happy for her—and for all of us who eventually arrive at this place within ourselves.
What is a ‘Comfort Zone’?
Although this expression has become a catch phrase in self-help psychology, the term can be misleading. A comfort zone is really anything but comfortable. Neither is it an emotionally healthy place to be, and a lot of people unwittingly become stuck in them for long periods of time.
A comfort zone most often stems from family-of-origin dynamics. Over many years, we grow to know those well and easily fall into them. Sometimes a comfort zone can be the result of a negative feeling we’ve developed about ourselves, and we can hold onto that defective—and untrue—self-image well into our adulthood.
For example, one of my favorite comfort zones when I was growing up was to be a ‘good girl’ at all costs and to never make any waves, because I understood at a very early age that there would be difficult consequences awaiting me when I tried to speak my truth or act in a way that my parents didn’t appreciate. That particular comfort zone tenaciously had its roots in my faulty core beliefs about myself. Built up over a lot of years, those beliefs informed me that my opinions didn’t matter and that I somehow didn’t deserve to be treated as a valuable member of my own family. And, in the short run, it became more ‘comfortable’ for me to believe that and act as if it were true, than it would have been to challenge those beliefs and face the potentially uncomfortable consequences. With my wiser adult self-awareness, I see now that this was the perfect environment for many of my long-lingering comfort zones to develop and hold me hostage—until I learned about the pain that accompanies us when we make the choice to stay trapped in unhealthy behaviors.
The Two Kinds of Pain
What really happens in a comfort zone?
Comfort zones provide us with what is referred to in 12-Step literature as the ‘easier, softer way out’—until it no longer feels like that for us anymore, which is when change can happen. When we get stuck in a comfort zone, it’s like getting used to clothes that are just too small for us—until that magnificent moment when we realize we’ve outgrown them. But until that time, we continue to practice our learned behaviors in order to protect ourselves from the perceived potential pain of evolving and growing.
What many people don’t understand is that there are two distinctly different types of pain: there is the pain that goes on and on, and the pain that has a light at the end of the tunnel. When we choose to remain in a comfort zone, we are ultimately choosing the former because if we keep doing the same things, we keep getting the same results. As the profoundly wise saying goes, if nothing changes, nothing changes. Although that choice can appear easier, it will only feel like that in the short run. In the long run, the pain continues.
All addictions are comfort zones. If you are struggling with any form of addictive behavior, you’re using it in an attempt to shield yourself from the harsher realities of your life. As understandable as this coping strategy may be, addiction is ultimately a twisted form of self-care—with ‘twisted’ being the key word. There is nothing self-caring about hurting yourself over and over again just to be able to keep your eyes closed and stay in denial. That will only serve to create the kind of pain that never ends.
Coming out of Your Comfort Zone—Yes, You Can!
I don’t always agree with everything good ol’ Dr. Phil says, but every once in a while he comes up with something great. An example of this is the question he inevitably asks almost every one of his TV guests:

How’s that been workin’ for ya?

Interestingly, virtually every time I ask this question with my clients, I get the same response: “Not so well.” And when that is the case—when we finally recognize how stuck we are—the next question that needs to be asked is:

Are you ready to try something different?

When we decide to raise the bar for ourselves and choose a healthier behavior, most of us will immediately experience will be an overwhelming feeling of fear. This is a reasonable response because we are basically giving up an option that has felt like a security blanket or a best friend. We need to be gentle with ourselves when we make this courageous choice—we need to allow ourselves to vent, grieve, cry our tears, and then get on with facing reality outside of our comfort zone.
And let’s remember to pat ourselves on the back for being so brave!
It might help you to know that the second experience you’ll have is a marked increase in your self-respect—and in my opinion, nothing is more valuable than that. Once you’ve made the choice to actually feel your fear and embark on the journey of recovery from your comfort zone anyway, you will automatically feel better about yourself, even if you’re still a little scared. You will undoubtedly recognize that you’re now on the right track, even when this decision leads you into growth periods that make your hair stand on end. We all have times like that, whether we stay in addiction or choose recovery from our unhealthy coping behaviors. During these times, we need to remind ourselves of the two distinct types of pain and re-commit to being on the higher path, the one that will ultimately lead us to freedom from our addictions.
The truth is that you alone are responsible for making the decision to leave your comfort zone—but the good news is that you don’t have to do the inner work this requires by yourself. Please don’t hesitate to reach out for the help you need. There is no shame or stigma in needing help from others—the real tragedy occurs when we try to protect our pride and our egos by not asking for assistance. I have needed help many times over the years, and I still reach out for it today when I need to. I so appreciate the many people who have been there to help me, and I am profoundly grateful to be able to pay it forward with others who come to me for this.
Will you choose to opt for the pain that will actually end?
Are you ready to live the amazing life of freedom that awaits you at the end of your comfort zone?