ADDICTION AFFECTS ALL

Thirty years of intravenous drug use have left Amy to sort out how
she can get control over her life.

Speaking alongside other drugs users at the All Nations Hope AIDS
Network centre Friday in Regina, Amy said what would become a
familial cycle of addiction began with her mother, an alcoholic.

Harmony wasn't in the family's future. By age 13, Amy -- who, like
others in this story, asked that her last name not be used -- was in
foster care and addicted to drugs. At 16, Amy started a 30-year
on-again, off-again relationship with the justice system -- charged
so many times for soliciting, she jokes, she should now be the
solicitor general.

She favoured drugs -- ritalin, morphine, cocaine -- that she would
inject intravenously. Amy was using when she gave birth at 21 to her
daughter, Natasha.

The little girl grew up among pimps, prostitutes and needles. She
didn't realize that her life wasn't like everyone else's until a
friend came over and gasped at the sight of a hypodermic needle.

When Natasha was 13, she was taken from her mom and put in the care
of her grandmother. Amy was so addicted her daughter's absence didn't
affect her.

Shortly after, Natasha's grandmother gave her granddaughter the
option of living with her or taking care of herself.

Within a month, Natasha was on her own, drinking, committing crime
and working as a prostitute. Like her mother, Natasha also became
addicted to intravenous drugs.

Her life began crumbling away when, at 19, her son Isaac was put into
foster care when he was a month old.

"It hurt. It hurt a lot," the 22-year-old said in an interview
Friday. "It broke my self-esteem. It broke me because I was turning
out like my mom."

Now clean for 18 months, thanks in part to the methadone program,
Natasha and her common-law husband, Derek, also shared their story Friday.

The gathering was organized by Margaret Akan, executive director of
the All Nations Hope AIDS Network, to put a face to the growing
problem of intravenous drug use in the city.

"I really wanted to bring forward today that it's a family," she
said, gesturing toward a very pregnant Natasha and her mom.

"There's two, three families struggling with addictions and they need
to be addressed together."

Drug addicts in the city are labelled as junkies, and Akan said she
wants to catch the attention of policy makers and educators in the
hope of dealing more effectively with people struggling with addictions.

"Those types of labels and the way they treat people can be really
detrimental to how they access services and programs," she said.
"That's why we don't see a lot of people struggling with addiction
walking into those services that are available right now."

Akan also wants to see treatment programs for whole families that are
addicted to drugs -- programs that would allow mothers like Natasha
to see their children during treatment.

Amy, now 43, is waiting for a spot in a Prince Albert detox centre.
Since being released from her last treatment program in April, she
has tried cocaine once and is drinking again. But when she looks at
her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren, Amy is inspired that she
too can walk away from an addiction that has been with her for most
of her life.

"They've been clean for 18 months now," she said. "That's the longest
I've seen anyone stay straight in my family."