Drug Users Deserve Dignity Not Death
Image description: Text 'Drug Users Deserve Dignity Not Death' and '@DWS_EndViolence' on a grey with an illustration of a fireweed flower in the middle
Image description: Poster with text, ’Why Can’t People Just Quit? Understanding Addictions. Monday, January 23rd 1-4pm Chief John Jonas Centre
We will discuss how addictions work, why it is difficult to quit, and the process of recovery. We will also explore ways to support those who are strugglin and their loved ones. Finally, we will review self-care techniques and connecting to feelings for a hopeful future. *Light refreshments provided.
For more information contact Dez Rioux 867.332.6794 or desire.rious@yukon.ca
A collaborative partnership between TH Wellness and Mental Wellness and Substance Use Services.
Nihè dinch’è jì’ wë̀tä̀zul’ with an illustration of a fireweed plant with people with arms raised growing out of the flowers and the TH and Yukon Government logos.
Next Monday, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Wellness and Mental Wellness and Substance Use Services is hosting a discussion about how additions work as part of nihè dinch’è jì’ wë̀tä̀zul (it is better when you are with us) suicide prevention and life promotion.
When: Monday, January 23rd from 1-4pm
Where: Chief John Jonas Centre
What: We will discuss how addictions work, why it is difficult to quit, and the process of recovery. We will also explore ways to support those who are strugglin and their loved ones. Finally, we will review self-care techniques and connecting to feelings for a hopeful future. *Light refreshments provided.
Contact: Dez Rioux 867.332.6794 or desire.rious@yukon.ca
This post was published on January 28, 2022 and has been updated.
Yukon is in the centre of an opioid crisis.
Yukon Government announced a ‘substance use health emergency’ .
It’s not a question of ‘Strength’
Dr. Daniel Sumrok challenges us to instead of thinking about ‘addictions’ think about “ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking” because “ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking (what traditionalists call addiction) is a normal response to the adversity experienced in childhood, just like bleeding is a normal response to being stabbed.”
Lots of folks assume that if substance use is harming someone they should be ‘strong’ enough to stop, but most folks who struggle with substances have one or more harmful childhood experiences - fancy name is adverse childhood experiences that can be:
physical, emotional and sexual abuse;
physical and emotional neglect;
living with a family member who’s addicted to alcohol or other substances, or who’s depressed or has other mental illnesses;
experiencing parental divorce or separation;
having a family member who’s incarcerated,
witnessing a mother being abused.
To add to that, many folks with minimize or normalize their bad childhood experiences for so many reasons:
“Everyone growing up showed up to school hungry! You just dealt with it.”
“All my friends’ parents were struggling silently with how residential school harmed them. Why I am any different?”
“Most kids in my friend group had divorced parents who talked through the kids. I didn’t know there was help out there for me.”
Substance use often isn’t a first choice, but a response to traumatic experiences that folks could not control.
Coping with Pain
Gabor Maté, reframes support folks using substances and talks about ways we can manage and heal from pain.
“All of the substances of abuse [...] they are actually painkillers. Some are painkillers, but physical pain and emotional pain, the suffering is experienced in the same part of the brain.”
“The real question with addiction is not ’why the addiction?’ but ’why the pain?’”
Folks doing the work
“You can’t send people to treatment if they are dead.”
Fabulous human and justice-doer, Vikki Reynolds, chats with former Yukoner Zoë Dodd and Tara Taylor about their work supporting folks using dugs, safe injection sites, and preventing opioid deaths.
Trey Agnew and Tara Taylor, who both work in overdose prevention, talk with Vikki about Canada's first Overdose Prevention Site, honouring that 'peers' do the heavy lifting in the opioid catastrophe, deaths by bad drug policy and creative resistance.
Grief After Opioid Deaths
“Our resistance to people just becoming a number in this epidemic is we’re going to remember who people are, remember their teachings, and we’re going to keep those teachings alive.”
Lots of strategies of caring for ourselves and our communities after a death from opioid overdose, including the difference between a just anger and a righteous anger.
Why Does DWS Care?
Being a shelter that provides immediate emergency housing to both women and kids leaving violence and to homeless women, we can’t separate the issues of why folks use substances to cope, and why folks might need emergency housing. For us they are entirely related.
That said, DWS is not the experts in substance use in Yukon. Blood Ties Four Directions does absolutely incredible work.
Where do we go?
We have some ideas on how to prevent deaths from and related to substance use that include treating substance users with dignity as well as working on prevention.
Ending the opioid catastrophe includes such glamorous things as:
continuing to create a world without colonialism and patriarchy based on equity, consent, and Indigenous teachings
housing, income, childcare, nutritious food for all
mental and physical healthcare for all
DWS’ emergency shelter and 24-hour support line never close!
Please call if you are in immediate need of safe housing, supportive listening, or are worried about a friend – 867.993.5086.
DWS offers all of our services free of charge. Donate today to help support our work.
