MENTALLY ILL ADDICTS FIND UNDERSTANDING IN SELF-HELP
GROUP

Dual Recovery Anonymous Patterned After AA

They could be the guys you play old-timers hockey with every weekend.

Fred has a constant twinkle in his eye and is the practical joker.
Mike likes to wear funny T-shirts and talks a lot. Then there's
Bruce, the strong, silent type who is a bit younger and wears a ball
cap and a hoodie. And finally Dave, the more erudite member of the
team who doesn't talk a lot, but everybody listens when he does.

Instead of belonging to a hockey league, these middle-aged men belong
to a group called Dual Recovery Anonymous.

They're dealing with two problems, and two reasons for being
stigmatized -- recovering from an addiction as well as dealing with a
long-term mental illness. This small group gets together every Monday
night to support each other, talk about how their week has been and
just be there for the bad times, as well as the good times.

"A lot of people think the typical drug addict with mental illness is
someone you see on a street corner with a bottle or talking to
themselves," says Dave. "This disease spans a wide variety of men and women."

The two problems compound each other. For the most part, they were
self-medicating with street drugs, unaware they had an underlying
problem that kept driving them to drink or drugs.

Take Fred, who has had a lot of reasons to lose his sense of humour,
but still likes to joke around.

"My idea of happiness was to have two jobs," says Fred. "I was every
company's dream manager to get jobs done."

He had suffered from bipolar disorder and didn't know it. He was a
lifelong workaholic and thought that working 14-hour days with his
mind going at warp speed was normal.

He had a brief bout with cocaine addiction at the age of 35, but
managed to kick it by himself. His problem was finally diagnosed
after he became addicted to crystal meth at the age of 49.

"I used it in my manic phase to get more of the excitement, but it
brought me to my knees very quickly."

Then there's Mike Knowler (he wants his name used) who, until six
years ago, was using booze and tranquilizers to medicate himself for
bipolar and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

"I didn't know why I was drinking," Knowler says. "I would drink a
bottle of vodka on Sunday to sedate myself."

The former engineering sales rep racked up 40 emergency-ward visits
and 16 detox treatments, coming close to dying three times before he
finally got clean.

Dave was treated with Ritalin as an adult for some of his problems,
which included bipolar disorder and attention-deficit disorder. He
soon graduated to cocaine.

"It took me a long time to ask for help," he says. "Everyone else was
an addict, but I wasn't because I knew more about it."

His career was related to medicine and he found it difficult to ask
for help, although he managed to keep his job -- for a while.

Like Alcoholics Anonymous, DRA, which started in Kansas in 1989, is a
12-step program that involves acknowledgement of a higher power. The
members of the local group all went to AA, but they also wanted a
support group in which they could deal with management of their
mental illness as well as their addiction.

While the two Edmonton groups are small, their dual problem isn't unusual.

Allan Aubry, senior manager of adult outpatient services for AADAC,
says the estimates of psychiatric disorders in the people AADAC
treats for addictions is somewhere between 50 and 80 per cent.

AADAC has acknowledged the two go together and has adjusted its
practices so people coming in with both problems can get treatment
for both rather than being sent somewhere else, Aubry says.

"These people used to get doors slammed in their face left, right and
centre," he says.

Now if someone goes to AADAC for addiction treatment, they are also
assessed for a mental disorder, and there are mental-health staff on
site, including a psychiatrist. The mental-health clinic in the
Northeast Health Centre has been converted to a mental
health/addiction clinic, and one is opening in Eastwood.

Aubry sees an important role for DRA as most people attending groups
such as AA and Narcotics Anonymous are uncomfortable talking about
mental-health problems.

Indeed, going to a DRA meeting can be a reality check. As Dave says,
you might be feeling pretty good and start thinking about going off
your meds, which can set off a downward spiral. If you know you're
talking to people in the same boat on Monday night, you're less likely to slip.

Fred says: "I love this room -- it's the highlight of my week. It's
the safest environment, talking to people with similar illnesses."

The group has been going for about two years in several locations,
including in a basement room at the Misericordia Hospital, which they
decided to vacate after noticing that bodies were being wheeled past
them on the way to the morgue. That wasn't exactly a mood elevator.

But now they have found a comfortable room in the rectory beside
Sacred Heart Church at 10821 96th St.

For more information call 474-3740.