Drink and Drugs News DDN 1806 | Page 26

Letters and Comment

DDN welcomes your letters Please email the editor , claire @ cjwellings . com , or post them to DDN , cJ wellings ltd , romney House , school road , Ashford , Kent tN27 0lt . letters may be edited for space or clarity .

‘ Why we would want to copy models from a country with the highest number of prisoners ( more than 2m ) and an insatiable appetite for locking up ethnic minorities is baffling .’

DownwarD spiral
I applaud Ms Durjava ’ s sensitive and respectful study of heroin users in prison ( DDN , May , page 6 ). Government drug strategies invariably talk negatively about drug use and base their strategies accordingly – on the crude assumption that , given plenty of stick and a bit of carrot , all users want to stop . It is refreshing to read heroin use interpreted rationally for once , as a solution rather than a problem .
The UK prison system is in free fall and heading for the very bottom , as we all well know , and in spite of all the warnings successive governments have failed to take responsibility .
There are oases of good practice here and there , but overall successive governments have been utterly failing the disadvantaged , maligned , and ever increasing population shoved out of sight behind bars . As a result , the article explains , prisons are in perpetual crisis . It is hardly surprising that their residents like taking heroin , or anything else that might help to obliterate their misery .
It does not have to be like this . In search of humane and effective alternatives , the Dutch government has been closing prisons since 2009 , sometimes renting them out for use by offenders from Norway and Belgium . Our government too has looked across the water for inspiration . Their preference though has been for American business models that drive down costs and do almost nothing for resources .
Why we would want to copy models from a country with the highest number of prisoners ( more than 2m ) and an insatiable appetite for locking up ethnic minorities is baffling . It ’ s a recipe for ongoing failure , and signals just how divorced from reality have become the ministers and civil servants propelling us down this miserable road .
The mandarins who peer down the wrong end of a telescope from their ivory towers before making up some new policy or other are , quite simply , clueless . Think of former justice secretary Grayling ’ s tenure , for example , and his aim to restrict prisoners ’ access to books , or to sell prison training to Saudi Arabia . Thus many prisoner governors , staff , and indeed prisoners desperate for change , find themselves endlessly thwarted instead of supported by government .
Meanwhile life in prisons grinds on , at the mercy of ministers who have little or no idea what they ’ re dealing with . Take so called drug-free wings , offering privileges to people who agree to random drug testing . As cannabis may be detectable for a month or more while opiate traces are gone in more like 24 hours , policy has created another scenario where taking heroin is the rational choice .
What hope this Brexit-obsessed government will ever get a grip ?
Paul Taylor , by email
Capital Crisis
In response to Alex Boyt ’ s piece in the April edition of DDN ( page 12 ), one cannot help but recognise the absence of distinction between what can perhaps be classified as ‘ addiction ’ with a small ‘ a ’ to indicate a behaviour that includes the habitual use of psychoactive substances for recreational reasons which might have some social and personal consequences , in contradistinction to ‘ Addiction ’ with a capital ‘ A ’ to indicate chronic substance misuse that has reached a life-threatening level after following a chaotic path of personal loss and degradation that impacts family , friends and society at large .
Alex is clearly referring to ‘ addiction ’ with a small ‘ a ’ when suggesting someone in recovery being able to imbibe a beer on a warm day while neglecting to take into consideration the neuroscience of Addiction with a capital ‘ A ’ that has ascertained the fundamental requirement of a corridor of abstinence for the metabolism to realign itself towards overall stability . This , for those suffering chronic lifethreatening Addiction with a capital ‘ A , affords an opportunity to achieve homeostatic neurochemical balance that includes the ability to keep addiction with a capital ‘ A ’ in remission by the observance of abstinence on a daily basis .
Alex also struggles with the word ‘ powerless ’ within the 12-step framework ; yet this terminology is simply a paradox that proves the truth so to speak , in that once one has been able to accept their ‘ powerlessness ’ over Addiction with a capital ‘ A ’ one immediately gains the ‘ power ’ to do something about it , given that such admittance brings one out of denial which has been the unconscious dynamic driving the Addiction .
Of course Alex is being true to himself exploring his own preferences and prejudices while questioning the integrity of the 12-step programme – the efficacy of which is predicated on abstinence – although one wonders why he has to do this in a magazine of wide circulation that is read by individuals who may be in early recovery and have achieved ‘ power ’ over Addiction with a capital ‘ A ’ by means of the abstinence-based 12- step programme ? What is the gain in casting doubt ?
One wishes Alex well on his own journey , while perhaps suggesting he might demonstrate an attitude of acceptance for others who might not be as articulate as he is , but who nevertheless have an attitude of simple faith that abstinence-based recovery supported by the 12-step programme works as an enduringly life-saving intervention for each person individually .
John Graham , therapeutic counsellor ( retired )
Just be happy
There ’ s lots of great things about the fellowship ( DDN , April , page 12 ) that I have benefited from and it certainly guided me from a selfish crazy drug addict child to the decent adult that I am now . I learnt how to laugh and judge and meet entirely the wrong men .
I liked God for a bit but wanted my power back – the one I own to make choices based on my own critical thinking . I agree that it has inherent flaws for me , but it played a valuable part .
But it was just a part . We did it so we are entitled ( after a life of beating ourselves up for being flawed ) to think and feel whatever we want . And to be happy . We are awesome .
Jo Rollason , via www . drinkanddrugsnews . com
18 | drinkanddrugsnews | June 2018 www . drinkanddrugsnews . com