Addiction: It's Everywhere

    Sabotage is expected from the opposition of the occupy movement, however I must address one form right now. That is the issue of addiction which has been used politically to discredit the movement altogether. For example, A woman at Occupy Vancouver recently died of a drug overdose. Instead of our local newspapers reporting on the tragedy for what it is worth, and perhaps shedding light on the causes of this type of tragedy, the news teams decided to use the death as a means of trying to discredit the occupation and dismiss it as "out of hand" and "unsafe". I have yet to find a person opposing the movement who has a logical explanation for this death somehow undermining the movement. The premise would be hard to make, as it is, and it is the reason why ideology in our news has trumped meaningful and accurate reporting. This fear mongering by our major news sources is becoming more and more common as political officials continue to bicker immaturely about solutions to the occupations presence. Presence alone has got people worried and pissed off for no real reasons, while we all continue to ignore the issues actually being put in the spotlight by the occupation.

Anyway, back to addiction. The negative view of addiction as a whole has been perpetuated elsewhere also, my twitter feed was littered with tweets about an occupation that experienced something quite odd. Someone proceeded to dump needles around the perimeter of the property....

Somehow, some people in society have gotten the idea that falsification through drug abuse exposure will be effective. I might remind some people that those on Wall Street are notorious for cocaine use and prostitution. Several elite prostitution rings around New York have come out publicly and stated that a good portion of their business comes from high-ranking banking officials, representing all of the major financial firms. Studies have also come out showing that the chemical reactions in the brain caused by winning monetary reward are the same reactions caused by ingesting cocaine. This explains the cyclical nature of Wall Street drug use. Therapist Jonathan Alpert stated "it is amazing to see how much cocaine these wall streeters can use, and then get up and go to work the next day". Huh, post-binge bankers are responsible for handling and investing my money... that's just fantastic.

We never hear about the drug lawsuits involved on Wall Street, yet we always find a way to blame the homeless for participating in addiction. We forget that addictions take many forms, power and acquisition of wealth both included in this terminology. We see nothing wrong in de-humanizing an addict for a Meth addiction, but forget that this type of addiction is far less reaching socio-economically than say; General Motors cutting jobs in the 80's while posting record profits in attempts to improve their bottom line. Or a tobacco company executive deciding to spend millions more on advertising in attempts that people will buy the product, despite the fact that this will directly contribute to rising death rates and accumulative health problems in society. These addictions, as Dr. Gabor Mate explains (PhD physician who works in preventative care in downtown Vancouver), are rewarded greater despite their exponentially higher level of negative social consequences.

And although I can compare all day, it does not give me the right to falsify character on the basis of addiction, no matter what that addiction is. We are all a product of environment, shaped by the experiences that occur in our lives and also by the people we are surrounded by. Certain emotional responses are in fact there because of another experience, your brain justifying the action with the response. Some are subconscious, some are formed in the rational mind. Whatever the emotional offence, we all have coping mechanisms that accompany our addictions, as well as negative circumstances that always seem to define them. A drug addict, most likely severely emotionally scarred, is coping with the pain by taking a drug that ups the endorphines; These are our "feel good" emotions that occur naturally with proper environmental upbringing. With endorphins lacking, we feel the need to compensate, as it is our minds seeking safe haven. Who are we to judge addictions, when we most of the time have no idea of the circumstances that lead to them? How can we work to rid ourselves of these influences in the most enriching of ways, when we are so fixated on blaming them and simultaneously convincing ourselves that addictions cannot be reversed or prevented.

Addictions can be meaningfully addressed, but only if we recognize that no human is free of environmental influence; negative influence will lead to improper social connections within the brain, and thus a decreased ability to adapt to social conditions that we otherwise could have conquered through perseverance, will-power, or financial opportunity.

Addictions play a critical role in the Occupy movement. It has exposed the fact that addictions are everywhere, and that we tend to vilify the least risky of addictions as the most acute and unchangeable ones. Addiction takes so many forms, and we all experience them. We can only identify them if we mature enough to realize that we have them, and that they became manifest through emotional response to an unfavourable condition.

We MUST address these unfavourable conditions, and attack them at the source rather than try to blame some, and justify others. Housing, preventative care, harm reduction, job opportunity... these are easily implemented steps to reducing the prevalence and occurrence of devastating substance addictions. These types of policies are advocated by protesters adamantly. However, the more powerful of addictions.... power, wealth acquisition, profit margin performance, control... these are built in components to the system that we continue to justify and forget to pay attention to. It is because of this that it does not help to blame individuals in power. They are simply puppets playing their role.

The most negative of addictions have become the most celebrated, and this has to stop. Addiction built into the system has spelled trouble, as was expected. One of the key aspects of addictions is it's negative consequences and denial of them, therefore we must address the negative consequences and identify them as changeable; and ultimately, create solutions that limit our ability to inherit socially devastating addictions.

Prevention is always better than the cure folks.


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