THE LESSONS OF ADDICTION

Editor, The News:

Re: Addicts get support, families pay the price (letters, Feb. 6).

Dear J. I do feel for you although I am comfortably numb!

I'll explain. I arrived here in Maple Ridge in about 1986, to the West
Coast in 1985. In the summer of '85 I was admitted to Burnaby Mental Health
Unit where I started on psychopharmaceuticals, first green horse tablets of
lithium and so on. Here in Maple Ridge, Mental Health 'reefer'ed me to a
clubhouse pro'gram' officially known as a "psycho-social rehabilitative
workshop" (1987).

Nancy and I got together in 1991 and our daughter was born in 1994. Taken
by the Ministry in September 1995, the Friday after cheque day I think.
(Coincidence?)

Anyway, I could write a list of all the drugs I've tried in my life but the
article would be too long to print. Nowadays I try to restrict myself to
coffee, cigarettes and beer, the legal recreational drugs in our society. I
am still taking haloperidol and benzatropine (which looks like Gravol to
me) but not on a fully compliant basis. If you were a political prisoner or
a POW would you believe "their" doctors had your best interests at heart?

It's strange, I profess I want to eat vegetarian and people start bringing
meat into my home. I think, no no no, I don't smoke it no more, and it is
shoved toward me.

Nowadays I attend one drug and alcohol group at the club. If I were a
teacher in the B.C. public school system, I would teach the kids the truth
about sex and drugs and rock and roll, but as I would probably mention the
Devil I'd be fired (separation of church and state and all).

Pa passed on in 1998 and we still don't know if it was the 20 years of
chloropromazine or the 55 years of smoking.

Forgive your ex, J. These biological suits are susceptible to many things.
I've even found Ibuprofen addictive.

D. K. Morris Maple Ridge

Editor, The News:

Re: Legalize it (Letters, Feb. 20).

Dave Michon wake up! How dare you make light of J. Howell's husband's
cocaine addiction.

My ex-wife has a cocaine addiction. Her addiction destroyed our marriage
and my career. When I left she got so angry that she made false allegations
that I was physically abusive. It took me a year to clear my name in
criminal court and two years to redress my wrongful release from the
military. I've also lost thousands of dollars worth of my own belongings
because of her. (We were only together for two months before I left.)

I know what Mrs. Howell is going through; you do not. My whole outlook on
life has changed for the worst because of what my ex-wife did to me.

Lee Hanlon Mission