ROOT CAUSES OF ADDICTION MUST BE ADDRESSED

Re: Been there, done that, June 25.

Gerry White is described in this article as having "more often than
not, a Cameo cigarette at his lips."

Mr. White should be commended for quitting alcohol, but statements
about addiction carry less weight when one has a cigarette in his or her mouth.

Mr. White thinks that harm-reduction programs are akin to assisted
suicide. Apparently his "encyclopedic knowledge" about
substance-abuse programs doesn't include recent results from the
NAOMI (North American Opiate Medication Initiative ) project, in
which every participant was given free, clean heroin.

Every participant gained weight, and every one of them stopped using
street heroin and stopped committing crimes to get money. Mr. White
would likely call this a "failure."

Like many recovering addicts, Mr. White thinks that the cure that
worked for him should be inflicted on everyone: "Those who claim that
AA doesn't work simply aren't committed to following the program ...
In my view, there's only one way to recover and that's to come clean."

There is a lot to be said for that method, and AA works for a lot of
people, so it should continue. But it is not for everyone. I have
been to many AA meetings, and what I saw was a bunch of people who
traded in their alcohol addiction for a cigarette, caffeine and
group-hug addiction. The main problem was that the root causes of the
addiction were seldom addressed.

Like many other AA enthusiasts, Mr. White should follow a new maxim,
which is: "OK, now shut up about it."

Russell Barth,

Ottawa