FIGHTING THE HORRORS OF ADDICTION

We're just waiting for a call now. There's nothing left to do. He's not
answering his phone, and wouldn't tell anyone his new address. Someone
bought him a bus ticket, gave him $50 and ordered him to go to see his mum
and dad up north. Whether he caught the bus, and whether he's with his
parents, none of us knows.

In the past 12 months we've watched a complete transformation. The
handsome, intelligent, articulate, funny and frighteningly talented
30-year-old with his $1000 suits - God, he could have walked out of a
glossy magazine, he looked so good - was now wearing trousers and a jumper
which looked as though he had slept in them.

He had to be taken aside and asked gently to have a shower every now and
then because his colleagues were complaining.

His weight loss was dramatic. And sometimes his eyes would actually roll in
their sockets when he tried to focus.

The red bags under his eyes only highlighted the creamy-grey colour of his
skin, and he swayed when he had to stand still for even a couple of
minutes.

None of us are close friends - he made sure of that. He would give away a
little bit and then shrink back inside himself, until he wanted to borrow
some more money or bot a cigarette. He earns a hell of a lot more than most
of the people he shares his work day with but never had a red cent on him,
and the talk is he owes a bunch of them pretty close to a couple of
thousand dollars.

But recently, when finally the last person in the office to hear anything
knew it was the heroin borrowing, and not James, the supply dried up,
despit his charming pleas, and he turned nasty on a couple of people. And
then his girlfriend left him.

Strangely his work did not suffer - when he did it. He has a flair
unsurpassed by anyone in the company, and he knows it and, I think, is
proud of it.

Unfortunately his hours each day get shorter, and his excuses over the
phone get lamer, and it got to the stage where no-one could rely on him. He
agreed to see a counsellor, but only once a week and he was getting nowhere
fast. He knew that, too. Like a draggled, miserable puppy, he would look at
us, and the mothers among us wanted to hug him. And then we wanted to shake
him, really, really hard.

None of us has a clue about what we can do to help James. Most of us have
read a bit or heard a bit or seen a bit, but now that it's come to the
crunch we're faced with something so far out of our control that we're
frustrated and furious.

It doesn't seem to matter how much we all understand and sympathise and
care, James hasn't yet reached the bottom of whatever pit he's falling
into. Until he does all the footholds and ropes we have thrown in will not
be used. Until he's ready to start climbing, all we can do is make sure
that those footholds and ropes are sturdy.

I know not whether the use of heroin should be decriminalised, or whether
there should be safe injecting rooms, or whether safe heroin should be
given out free. For every clear, heartfelt argument I hear against those
proposals, I hear another clear, heartfelt argument for them.

But this I do know: James is addicted, pure and simple, and until he
doesn't want to be addicted any more, or until it doesn't make him feel
whatever it makes him feel, or until he is dead, he will be addicted. But I
want James back.

Addiction is a health problem. It becomes a legal problem only when the
addict begins committing crimes in order to pay for his or her addiction.

I, Judy Prisk, being of sound mind, want lots of the money I pay in tax to
be used to help people like James avoid getting to the stage where they are
committing crime. Surely that's not too much to ask.

I want you experts to agree some way to do that. Don't talk to me any more
about how we need to reform the tax system.

Tell me about how I can get James back. And the person in the car next to
me wants to know how to get Susannah back. And then there's my neighbour's
Karen, and my cousin's friend Jason.

I'll be waiting by the phone.

Judy Prisk's email address is prisk@mis.net.au

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)