Homeless in Calgary Part 3

Can education help solve the recurring problem of additions in the homeless people?

ADDICTIONS are a common occurrence among homeless people. For some, it is a contributing cause to their homeless state. For all, it is an escape from reality. But what they use for that escape generally offers only short-term effectiveness followed by long-term after-effects.

The truth is that none of these addictions allow the person to escape from themselves, nor does it rescue them from an undesirable state such as homelessness or poverty.

I am going to review some of the common addictions, but this list is by no means complete.

Tobacco- I am not sure what kind of high state smokers get from nicotine, but I do know that it is addictive and is a difficult drug to stop using, for most people. Part of the reason for smoking is the myth portrayed by advertising and shows, that the person's self-esteem and lifestyle will be enriched by using it. The truth is that the only ones who get rich are tobacco companies.

Alcohol- Ethanol is a poison, and many of the flavour ingredients in alcoholic beverages are toxic chemicals. When ingested, alcohol first heightens perception and the senses, but that effect only lasts a few short minutes. A hangover follows, as the chemical affects the brain, and the liver attempts to filter it from the blood stream. Heavy use can damage the body chemistry.

Drugs- Most drugs taken by those with addictions affects the brain chemistry. Like alcohol, the user will experience a "high" state for a short while, followed by a hangover state of "withdrawal" as the body tries to correct the chemical inbalance. Generally, increases in dosage are needed to get the same effect, until the level of dosage causes permanent damage to the brain or other organs. All of the above assumes that the users are taking pharmacy-grade versions of the drug chemicals. Sadly, that is rarely the case with street drugs.

The real danger is in the distribution system. To get more profit, the distributor adds other ingredients when they subdivide (or "cut") the original drug that they have received. Some added chemicals may be harmless, such as powdered milk, corn starch, icing sugar, or talcum powder. But the distributor could use any chemical available at hand, and some may be poisonous. If the distributor creates the product in a crude chemistry lab, how can the users be certain that the correct proportions of ingredients were used? Or whether or not the distributor added another chemical as a catalyst to speed up the production reaction? (Such as adding benzene to create overproof alcohol.) And has the distributor only a high school chemistry education instead of a university one, or did he get the recipe and instructions from other distributors or the Internet?

There is no guarantee of what buyers are really getting for their money, unless they have a chemistry lab of their own to test the product.

Therefore, the practice of buying illicit drugs on the street is still referred to in the same way that it was many years ago. Dope- what the buyer is putting his trust in and buying from a stranger, or Dope- what the buyer really is for purchasing drugs from other than a pharmacist at a drug store.

Other addictions: an excessive involvement in, to the exclusion of everything else:

gambling, Internet, video/arcade games, role-playing games, sports, movies, sex trade

The first thing to go into these addictions is the rent money (or credit rating). Those who are addicted revert to crime to feed their habit, generally getting ten cents on a dollar value for whatever they steal. And the increased amount that they need to get the same effects increases their involvement in crime. Because their health can be adversely affected, they are prone to illnesses and can have permanent damage to their bodies.

So, the big challenge is, how do we educate the persons who are prone to seek addictions to fill the empty parts of their lives? How do we convince them that none of the addictions really fulfill their needs or expectations; that none of them are worth the expense and risk to health and finances; that they are all illusions of the real thing that they pretend to be?