EXPERT - EDUCATION LITTLE HELP TO ADDICTS

Those With Brains Hard-Wired For Addiction Unlikely To Respond To
Prevention Programs, Conference Hears

People hard-wired for addiction to drugs or alcohol won't likely be
helped by prevention or education programs, said Dr. Graeme
Cunningham, an addictions expert speaking at a conference in Victoria
yesterday.

"Prevention doesn't work," said Langham, speaking at the Addictions
Medicine Conference, hosted by the Vancouver Island Health Authority.

If education was the key, Cunningham said he should have never become
an alcoholic.

"Education has nothing to do with it. You're not going to get much
better educated than me," said Cunningham, 63, director of the
addiction division of Homewood Health Centre and an associate clinical
professor at McMaster University.

Asked in an interview whether better education and drug- and
alcohol-prevention programs would stop students from becoming
addicted, Cunningham said 25 per cent who are using these substances
will become addicted and 75 per cent won't.

End of story.

"Using cocaine, using heroin or using alcohol doesn't mean you're
going to be addicted to it, but if you have the brain chemistry you
are going to be," Cunningham said.

Cunningham said both his father and grandfather, also doctors, died
alone and penniless on skid row in Glasgow, Scotland.

More than 20 years ago Cunningham, the father of five, was headed for
the same gutter. Having lost one marriage, poised to lose a second,
and having jeopardized his high-paying, respected job, he got his
wake-up call in the form of a cardiac arrest.

Lying in a hospital intensive-care unit, he pulled out his feeding
tubes and checked himself out of hospital because he needed a smoke.

At home, with a drink in his hand, he called for help. He reached the
point where he could no longer pretend he was in control. He drank
right to the point where he went through the door of a treatment
centre. That was Jan. 8, 1986. He has since regularly attended
Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

While supporting harm-reduction methods -- in some cases offering the
addict a weaker drug, clean needle or safe place to inject to prevent
disease -- he said they are meaningless without complementary
counselling and treatment options.

In most cases, he advocates abstinence and lifestyle change as the
only treatment to truly heal the addicted person.

Cunningham said because of a brain predisposed to addiction, he was
powerless after he first began drinking at the age of 16. That first
drink is all that's needed to lead to two drinks the next day.

That one sip, toke, snort or hit will forever change a person's brain
chemistry and trigger craving, he said.

"If you're genetically loaded, you get the reward from the drug, you
memorize that reward and chase that reward sometimes into your grave.
It's a brain disease," he said. "It's permanent."

And he doesn't differentiate seemingly mild marijuana from the more
alarming drugs such as crystal meth. The drug of choice for the
addicted mind is "more," he said. And that drug can be as simple as
chocolate.

He noted family practitioners play one of the most important roles in
helping addicts. "The power of your white coat," is strong, Cunningham
told the audience in Begbie Hall at Royal Jubilee Hospital.

Cunningham instructs his patients to "call me when you want to get
better." A lot eventually call, he said.