Working with fellow addicts aids recovery

Page 10

The last day Jill used drugs, she was sick, tired and staying in an Edmonton inner-city hotel infested with cockroaches. Her possessions consisted of the clothes on her back.

She had hit bottom.

The Metis woman from Saskatoon said she had been on the streets for nine years, since she was 17. She came to Edmonton in 1986 to escape an abusive spouse.

Although she also worked as a waitress at times, she eventually began working the streets.

"The drug use got so bad, I had to work on the streets to support my habit. I couldn't get enough of it."

Her drugs of choice included cocaine, Talwin and Ritalin, and most other narcotics available on the street.

"When I had hit bottom, I didn't have any will to live anymore. I felt beaten, desperate, hopeless."

The Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission introduced Jill to Narcotics Anonymous, an organization that began in California in 1953. It's been in Edmonton for 10 years.

Although Narcotics Anonymous follows the 12 steps and 12 traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, the two groups are separate. There are more than 12,000 Narcotics Anonymous meetings held every year in some 43 countries. The organization has been growing at the rate of 50 per cent annually.

"I didn't have anywhere else to go. Narcotics Anonymous was the last house on the block," Jill said. "If that didn't work, I would be dead today.

"When I went to the group, and I heard the people there talking about their pain, the hurt, the anger, when these people spoke, I knew they understood," Jill said.

The program works by one addict helping another.

"They helped me recover. They accepted me for who I was, and nobody had ever done that before."

When she was in school, other children ridiculed her because she was Metis. She learned to feel ashamed of the fact and hide it, and never felt accepted by her peers.

"I have found friends who really care, who wanted to help and support me. Now, I have few friends, but they're sincere. I never had that before."

NA philosophy is that an addict - any addict - can stop using, lose the desire to use, and find a new way of life through the program of Narcotics Anonymous.

NA also deals with dual addiction, or being addicted to more than one drug. According to NA, there is one disease regardless of drugs used (the disease of addiction.)

The group has taught Jill a lot of things, she said, including how to feel good about herself.

"I was never taught life skills," she said. "I was taught women don't get angry, they don't feel. My family told me how to think, feel, and act. They didn't know how to express their feelings or how to express their anger in a positive way."

Jill said she was sexually abused by a babysitter when she was four, and by her grandfather, uncle and cousins until she was a teenager.

"I learned I wasn't worth anything," she said, attributing the drug addiction and prostitution in part to her lack of self-esteem.

"To me, selling my body for sex didn't mean anything. I never had any respect for myself. As long as I was high, as long as I was loaded, I didn't feel anything anyway.

"A lot of people who are addicts feel they don't belong, they're not loved. A lot of us use drugs to hide from our feelings.

"If I didn't go through what I went through, I wouldn't be where I am now. It has a lot to do with desire, ambition, willingness. I have the will to stay clean. It has given me the strength and the courage to say 'I can get an education and give back to society'."

Jill has been clean for more than five years. She has taken upgrading to finish high school, and is taking post secondary training to work in a health profession.

"There's not many Aboriginals in this profession. I will be able to show Aboriginal people you can have a good life.

"I am proud of who I am, proud of my heritage. I feel honored to be me. There is no shame in being Metis or Native."

(The Narcotics Anonymous 24-hour help line in Edmonton is(403) 421-4429. Elsewhere in Canda Narcotics Anonymous is listed in your local telephone directory.