ADDICTIONS THIS YEAR'S THEME

Just saying no to drugs won't save kids from addiction.

That's the message keynote speaker Gabor Mate is bringing to the 17th
Annual Consultation on Chilliwack's Children and Youth this Friday at
Sardis secondary.

The consultation, organized by the Chilliwack Child and Youth
Committee (CYC), is a day of professional development, networking and
planning for teachers and other agencies that work with children in
the city, and this year's theme is addictions.

Mate, a doctor who works with drug addicts on Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside, was invited to share insight from his work and his book In
the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addictions based on
his experiences in Vancouver's drug ghetto.

But he won't just be talking about drugs.

"When you look at the brain biology or the emotional dynamics of any
addiction, it's the same processes," he said in a recent interview
with the Times. "In fact, the same brain circuits are involved. It
doesn't matter whether it's to drugs or gambling or the Internet.
Unless they've dealt with the underlying process, people will
typically give up one addiction to go into another."

According to him, the foundations for addiction are laid in early
childhood when babies are deprived of a non-stressed, nurturing
caregiver, something he says interferes with the infant's brain development.

In modern North American society, that gap is made worse by a peer
culture that competes with kids' attachments to grown-ups.

"They spend way too much time with each other from an early age on,
so they become each others' models and cue givers," said Mate. "They
lose the benefit of nurturing relationships with adults, so they're
more likely to get into addictive behaviours."

One area of growing concern is Internet addictions, according to CYC
co-chair John Stellingwerff, who'll be leading a workshop on the issue.

In his work with Chilliwack Community Services, he said he's running
into more and more parents concerned about their child's
out-of-control Internet use.

"Their teenage son refuses to go to school and spends six, eight,
even 10 hours a day, seven days a week, on the Internet," he said.
"They don't know what to do."

But the Internet itself is not to blame, according to Mate, who says
it's just one more way young people predisposed to addiction try to
fill an emptiness created in early childhood.

"As society changes, there are newer forms of behaviour that can draw
people into addictive patterns," he said, "but the fundamental
patterns are the same."

What kids need are nurturing relationships with adults, according to
Mate, and if they can't happen at home, they are that much more
needed at school.

Of the more than 500 people expected to attend the consultation,
about 400 will be teachers co-ordinating their May professional
development day with the consultation for the second year.

For Mate, who was himself a high school English teacher for three
years, teachers are key to stemming the tide of addiction. But he a
change of philosophy is also needed.

"For proper development, children need to be connected to nurturing
adults," he said, "and given that kids spend most of their time away
from their actual parents from a very early age, those adults that
they do spend their time with need to become much more than just
conveyors of information. They need to become very solid attachment
figures in these kids' lives."

Katharin Midzain, president of the Chilliwack Teachers' Association,
couldn't agree more, but she says teachers are hamstrung by a public
suspicion of teachers who show affection to students or allow shows
of affection from students, especially if they involve touching.

"Society is moving further and further away from allowing teachers to
be that nurturing adult in a child's life," she said.

She adds it's important for teachers and others who work with
children and youth to get together to grapple with the issue.

Stellingwerff agrees.

"Rather than having individual professionals each doing their own
thing with very little contact," he said, "we bring everyone who's
involved together in one place to talk about what are the issues,
what are the challenges, who's doing what."