STARTING DRUGS IS EASY, STOPPING IS TOUGH

Much of what certified alcohol and drug counsellor Louise Cooksey had to
tell Grade 9 students gathered at Selkirk College Friday for an Interior
Health sponsored drug and addiction symposium came from her experience
working as a counsellor for the past 20 years. But some of the most
revealing information she had about addiction to share with students came
from a period before that - when she herself was an addict.

Cooksey noted that a lot of people choose to use drugs looking for
something outside of themselves to make them feel better. She knows from 16
years of personal experience chasing that elusive goal why it has been
called "chasing the dragon," continuously looking for something you had
once but may never get ever again. She said it's like a puppy chasing its
tail. "What is it going to do once it catches its tail? Chew it off."

Cooksey became a user in the 1960s when the drug philosophy was to turn on,
tune in and drop out. "We thought back then that if the world smoked dope,
the world would be a better place - everybody smoked dope and we thought
that made the world a better place."

But is it any better?

On a recent trip to Los Angeles, Cooksey was asked if it really was
possible to openly smoke dope on street corners without anything happening.
Her first response was to say no, but reconsidering, she admitted it to be
the truth. Vancouver does have a very liberal attitude towards drugs, so
much so that in a place like Los Angeles, Vancouver appears to be a drug
Mecca. But in addition to a liberal attitude, Cooksey said Vancouver has a
huge problem.

To put addiction into perspective, all drugs must be examined, not just the
hard drugs but drugs like alcohol, tobacco and caffeine. "Any substance
that can change your mood in a psychoactive manner can be called a drug."

Cooksey noted, too, that while the focus of news stories is always on crack
and heroin, society pays dearly for its use of legal drugs - upwards of $18
billion a year.

Marijuana could be added to the list of legal drugs, says Cooksey. "But
we're already paying $18 billion dollars for health care costs for problems
related to legal drugs, does it seem logical to add another one?

"Legalizing pot won't solve our problems," said Cooksey. "It will give us a
whole set of new problems."

But as future voters, she told students in the audience that they will soon
be able to make the decision whether pot should be legalized. "You'll be
paying taxes - some of the $18 billion dollars will be coming out of your
pocket. Your parents are already paying 40 per cent of their money into
taxes. It's already affecting you - 40 per cent of what your dad makes goes
to taxes, he's not taking a lot home for you."

As a free society we can do what we want to do. As a youngster Cooksey said
that she did what she wanted to do, and that was get high everyday.
Originally, that's not all she wanted to do. She had wanted to be a jock
but eventually she got kicked off the team because she couldn't show up
straight for practice. "I thought that was terrible, but it was an
acceptable loss for me. I didn't like losing that uniform - but I didn't
want to stay straight everyday. I thought that was a ludicrous idea."

Who is an addict? Do they all come from trailer parks? No, said Cooksey,
they come from all walks of life: a 40-year-old lawyer, a 15-year-old kid
in school, a 50-year-old airline pilot. "How do you like getting on the
plane thinking that your pilot just smoked crack in the washroom."

"It can happen to anybody," said Cooksey, predicting that of all the
students in the Selkirk gym, it was a given that someone in the room would
be in rehab before they were 20. "I don't know who it will be. If you look
around, you may know who it may be, and if you think it might be you, make
some choices."

Most people use drugs to have fun and get high, not to become addicts. Not
many people want to lose all their teeth, not have any belongings and shoot
dope everyday. "Not many people think that's what their choice is going to
be, but people end up there." People that want to use will continue to use.
Cooksey said she wanted to use for a long time, not realizing that if she
wanted to stop that she couldn't. "I thought I had that choice."

Try a little experiment Cooksey suggested. Pick something you like to do -
smoke cigarettes, drink coffee, then stop doing it. "That's just a minor
taste of trying to quite drugs once you are addicted to them - it's tough
to be off something that you're used to doing all the time."

You don't have to live your life as a nun, you don't have to live with pain
and depression, said Cooksey. But you do have to think through your choices
of what you are going to do.

"You can accommodate what you want in your life. You can accommodate
alcohol, pot, any other drug you want but you also have to accommodate the
consequences of that."

A lot of people do use drugs socially and they are ok with it. "But you
don't know that you're one of them," said Cooksey. And for all her years as
both an addict and a counsellor, she can't predict who will become an addict.

"It's totally a crap shoot. It can happen to anyone."

Why does someone become an addict? "It doesn't matter why, all that really
matters what you do about once it happens."

When you ask an addict their drug of choice, you know what they are going
to say? More.

"Drug of choice is a fallacy. Once you become addicted you don't make
choices. It's just about using."