Comments on: 1811 Eastlake: Revolutionary Addiction Treatment

By: Jules

Jules — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 15:34:13 +0000

I have a slightly bizarre insight into the effect of deprivation on cravings from my own life – for a year at university I shared a house with a girl who was dangerously (anaphylaxis) allergic to celery so I couldn’t bring any celery into the house and was too scared to even eat it outside in case I brought some allergens home on my skin or clothes. I went from being completely indifferent to celery to absolutely craving the stuff, and binged on it when I finally moved out. This was more than a decade ago now and while I won’t eat a whole bunch of celery in one sitting anymore it’s the one vegetable that’s always in my fridge, and people laugh at me for barging past them to get at vegetable plates at parties. Brains are weird.

By: Lisa Eriksson

Lisa Eriksson — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 07:28:45 +0000

Loved your article. Really well written and I totally agreed with it all! What a wonderful project up in Seattle. Finally bringing humanity and compassion to the homeless population and to addiction treatment. What a beautiful project! Hope for much more of this in the future!

By: Go Kaleo

Go Kaleo — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 20:19:37 +0000

Thanks Rob, I think I fixed it!

By: Go Kaleo

Go Kaleo — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 20:19:24 +0000

Thank you! I think it’s fixed now.

By: Katja

Katja — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 18:54:50 +0000

Your link to Matt’s website is bad (needs to be a fully qualified URL).

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 17:52:12 +0000

Hey Amber,

Great post- glad to see it here. Just FYI- the link back to 180D seems to be off.

Cheers!

By: Deb

Deb — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 16:05:50 +0000

The same principles are behind supervised consumption (injection, inhalation) sites, such as Insite in Vancouver, BC. Insite provides a clean safe supportive place for people to inject drugs and to chill out with each other and with support staff and counselors. There is a detox unit and a recovery and transition floor (services called ‘Onsite’), and people – clients – are also supported to connect with a range of other services in the community such as housing, mental health, addiction, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C-related supports and treatment. The place has been researched to within an inch of it’s life and that’s good because our neo-con pro drug war federal government is bent on shutting Insite down and keeping others like it from opening. A recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling favours the provision of these services as a constitutional right and recent word is that 4 supervised injection sites will be opening soon in Montreal. Insite never asks or demands any kind of commitment to getting off drugs. It just provides a safe, caring environment with amazing staff – including peer helpers – and, lo, all kinds of great things are happening in the neighbourhood. Many many great things. Anyone interested in learning more can google Insite or Urban Health Research, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. Awesome post, Matt, really appreciate learning about this place in Seattle.

By: Sangita

Sangita — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 06:32:08 +0000

One of the best articles on 180. despite being such a stellar example I doubt there will be more centers like the one in Seattle. The scorn, lack of patience and disgust we have towards people suffering from alcoholism and depression is too much really

By: Hannah

Hannah — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 01:34:00 +0000

This is brilliant. Love and compassion will accomplish what shame and judgement never can. If only we could adopt this mentality in all respects when it comes to our treatment of one another — and ourselves. Society beats these arbitrary norms and guidelines and ideals into us, and they do us all a horrible disservice. An attitude of loving acceptance can bring about more change than anything else. Thanks so much for sharing this!

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 23:47:46 +0000

Every day in so many ways what you share makes more and more sense. Thank you.