All posts by James W. Breckenridge

Consider

Keeping it surreal.

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Keeping it surreal.

The other day I recieved a reminder of just how subtle the balance of ones mental health and recovery can be.

I was giving an acquaintance a ride. As we were making our way to the car the conversation turned to mental disabilities and he asked about my personal mental health challenges.

It turned out he has a friend who also has to deal with agoraphobia and I was regaled with stories about his friend’s trials and tribulations. I could certainly relate to his friend’s challenges. Unfortunately every attempt to change the subject failed and it was a relief to drop my passenger off.

I breathed a sigh of relief and drove away.

Waking the next morning revealed that there is a certain amount of truth in Clare Booth Luce’s “No good deed goes unpunished” and I had not gotten away scot-free from my good deed providing a ride.

All I wanted to do was pull the covers over my head and stay safe and sound behind my locked front door.

This was not really a head space I wanted to revisit. At that earlier point in time of my life my phone ringing or someone knocking on my front door had me cowering, shaking and frozen in place in a panic attack. People talking outside the front door had my freezing, trembling and praying they would not knock. My front door became a barrier I could not pass beyond.

As I said, not a situation I have any interest or desire in returning to.

Fortunately I do have an interest and desire to practice the needed mental hygiene to stay in recovery. This is why I have a WRAP, a Wellness Recovery Action Plan.

Thus, when I awoke in that bad head space and mired in a negative/unhealthy mind set I did not pull the covers over my head and descend into anxiety, panic and agoraphobic behaviours. Instead I recognized what was happening and reached into my Wellness Toolbox for the mental health tools I needed to work through this … black, dark crap – and recovery my mental balance/health.

It was a long, uncomfortable 2 – 3 days and I spent a lot more time than usual meditating, but in the end I succeeded in letting it all go and finding a place of serenity.

I speak of recovery not of cure because, as this incident served to remind me, mental health (or addiction recovery) can be lost or disturbed unexpectedly and by events beyond one’s control, events that seem innocuous.
Being in a recovery mindset rather than “I am fine, I am cured” mindset lets one recognize and react appropriately before you find yourself not fine and in your illness or addiction again. I facilitate WRAP groups to share the plan that has made and continues to make such a difference in my life and which I feel is a plan, a tool, everyone who has need of it should have in their lives.

One cautionary note to keep in mind should you find yourself in the situation my acquaintance found himself in – DON’T start in on horror tales. They can have unintended negative effects on the listener.

Consider

Brought thoughts of the Food Bank to mind

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The television news report about Santa in July to raise awareness and donations for the Vancouver Food Bank set me to wondering how our local Abbotsford Food Bank was faring. So I asked the Food Bank Coordinator what the situation is.

The number of people accessing the Food Bank have stabilized somewhat. They are however averaging a couple of new people per day and while a few of those are homeless most aren’t.

I am not surprised that most were not homeless. With the cost of housing in Abbotsford and the increases in what it costs to live (especially gas), more and more families are faced with having less, little, or no money to buy food with.

I would be interested in knowing at what point the addition of a couple of new people every day ceases to be “stable” and becomes a worrisome increase.

The Food Bank is already buying pasta and by Thanksgiving, two short months away, it will be slim pickings. The coordinator is planning to put the word out to his sources this week about the need for funds and/or food donations.

I know it is a busy time of year for many, but by remembering those in our community who need the communities help to have food to eat, we can make sure that come Thanksgiving the Food Bank shelves are stocked – giving all something to be thankful for.

With school looming a food drive would be an auspicious and philanthropic manner to start the school year with, don’t you think?

Please take the time to share and help feed the hungry by supporting our Food Bank.

Homeless

Commentary: Joey Thompson’sdrug court column

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Fate put a copy of the June 23, 2008 Province, containing Joey Thompson’s column on drug court into my hands. Reading that column and the prior June 20 column she wrote on Vancouver police chief Chu’s comments on sentencing says much about why we have such an a abysmal record when it comes to helping addicts into successful recovery behaviour.

From the June 20 column: “…to ensure the crap doesn’t kill them in the short term, even though we all know it still will in the long term.”

I would predict that any program born under or from this kind of attitude will fail to provide effective help in helping addicts into recovery, but will succeed in proving those with this attitude correct by letting their addiction “kill them”.

Let us move forward to the June 23 column.

“After about a year of court appearances and treatment by a specialized recovery team, offenders are expected to have conquered their addiction and found stable housing and a job, or relative training.”

I do not know exactly what the specialized team specialized in, but having known several people who were involved in drug court I can say that whatever it was the team specialized in, it was not recovery. In fact, based on what I saw and learned of the program and feedback from participants in the program, you would be hard pressed to deliberately design a program more guaranteed to ensure the failure and relapse of participants. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to refer to them as victims rather than participants.

Given the program associated with the drug court it is not surprising that few choose to join the program, that so few complete the program and that among those who complete the program so many relapse.

“Send them off to jail, and make sure facilities offer them plenty of treatment and recovery options.”

The important unasked and unaddressed point is what these treatment and recovery options will look like. Should they be designed by the same “experts” who designed the drug court program or the majority of our current crop of treatment programs we will get our usual abysmal failure rates.

No rational, semi-intelligent person with experience with addicts and addiction would ever entertain the idea that “After about a year … offenders are expected to have conquered their addiction”.

If that is the basis of your program you are going to fail those in the program, leaving them in or sending them back to their addiction. And “Program enthusiasts (who) said they were pleased with the results, given the tough demands placed on addicts to clean up, find a job and a place to live” are badly in need of a reality check. Working with a bad or unrealistic program is self defeating since the outcomes are not going to improve in any significant manner.

You might just as well put them on probation requiring participants to go to treatment and complete the treatment program. You will end up with about the same number of positive outcomes and you can invest the funds you do not waste on an ineffective program in developing effective programs and community based support systems.

Current research and knowledge, best practices and successful recovery programs all exist. We can, if we choose to, design community based programs and support systems that achieve high success rates.

But we have to set success as our goal, design the systems to achieve that goal based on knowledge not “that’s how it is done” and to refuse to be pleased with results that do not achieve our goals.

It will not be easy or neat and tidy, but it is achievable.

Consider, Homeless

Lamentation for the Post of Abbotsford/Mission BC

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Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for public debate, discussion and an informed electorate in Abbotsford.

For the year of its independent existence The Post was, as stated by one reader, “A newspaper that takes a stand on behalf of a community; a newspaper that articulates its position through editorials; a newspaper that is not afraid to speak out!”

Readers were treated to political columns penned by three local columnists; an editorial page that was wide open to any subject of interest and importance to the community; an editorial page that granted letter writers words enough to develop arguments and ideas; stories and editorial comment on important community issues such as Plan A.

Readers wrote to express their gratitude for a newspaper that was “… and being ‘different!’ We need another voice for the public…” and the fact that all in all the Post was a “…must read publication.”

Catastrophe, as is so often the case, struck without any warning several weeks ago when CanwestGlobal’s purchased The Post making it part of the Abbotsford Times.

Quietly and without fanfare THE VOICE of public debate, discussion and an informed electorate in Abbotsford was silenced. Bound by the banal, spiritless and don’t rock boat editorial polices of the Times, Post readers have lost political commentary by local columnists and the only free, wide ranging editorial page in Abbotsford.

The timing for the citizens of Abbotsford could scarcely have been worse with this November’s municipal election looming and of such importance to the direction and future of Abbotsford.

When I was growing up community newspapers were a vital part of the community. Were, past tense. Today newspapers are part of chains, often chains with cross-media ownership, no longer rooted in the community but bound to head office and far away ownership.

Ideally Canwest Global would be required to divest itself of either its Vancouver television station, Vancouver Sun, The Province or Abbotsford Times. This does not seem any more of a realistic expectation than hoping for a return to the days of independent owned, community based newspapers.

The problem with CanwestGlobal’s purchase of The Post is that management of the Abbotsford Times quickly proceeded to remove the independent and wide open editorial content from the Post, without changing its (the Times) own editorial policies to be more open and reflective of the entire community not just “the old boys club/network”.

I am not sure how one goes about ensuring wide ranging and open editorial independence that responses to and reflects the needs of the community in which a newspaper resides.

I do know that individual communities and Canada as a whole have lost something vital in losing these independent voices to conglomeration. Given a world and issues of ever increasing complexity, we need to promote and develop independent voices in order to provide citizens with the information required to make the informed decisions needed in order to prosper.

Homeless

Shame as she should not be homeless.

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There is a woman who volunteers on Wednesday evenings to help prepare, serve and clean up after the meal for the homeless and other hungry citizens of Abbotsford.

Last week she was not at her best because she had just lost her home to fire. But this week she was back helping with dinner although she is now living in her car.

She is living in her car because, like far to many others, she has a very limited budget which sets severe limits on what she has to spend for rent and has been unable to find any place within her budget.

Governments can come up with whatever plans they want to help people find housing, people can utter whatever platitudes they want about “they’re homeless because they want to be” but the reality of homelessness for many is that there simply is no places available at a price they can afford.

And while that is a reality that politicians and the public need to recognize it is not the reason I sat down to share this story.

I am writing it because the homeless have expressed to me their belief, their concern that it is not healthy (in a variety of ways) for this woman to be living in her car and their anger that nobody in the Christian community of which she is a part is stepping forward to find or offer her a place to stay, even temporarily.

I leave it to you to ponder what it says about Abbotsford as a community that it is the homeless who are upset about the fact this disabled, not young woman is forced to live in her car while the rest of the community seemingly ignores her plight.