Addiction is often described as a spiritual sickness, the same could be said for aggression and depression. What all these have in common is isolation and being cutoff. Spirit implies a connection between things or persons or another. In all these examples there is no connection between the individual and the outside world. The thought process is entirely within their head with no relationship to another.

It goes further than this, the spiritually sick person is not connected with themselves. Often they live in thought with no connection to their feelings. They are cutoff from their own essence and end up feeling ashamed of themselves and resentful of everything and body else.

We all have a life force if it is absent there is just a void. The universe is designed for connection, the cutting of that connection can only lead one way to further disconnection. At the same time part of the self rebels against that, the isolated are needy looking for connection, and get into co-dependent relationships, the angry person craves agreement which if it doesn’t come he attacks and alienates the other, leading to more isolation, the food addict consumed by a sense of hopelessness feeds themselves for comfort, the alcoholic is lost and drinks to forget, the crack addict desperate for intimacy can only do it when getting high, the depressed person craves self esteem and approval because they don’t see anything of value in themselves.

Connecting with that spirit is essential for recovery, it is the disconnect that caused the sickness in the first place. Whatever it looks like: a warm touch, a smile, an acknowledgement of a sensation or feelings, a blunt comment followed a moment of clarity all equal connection and a route to wellness and turning away from sickness.

Nigel Turner, B.S. (Econ), H.S.C., Member OACCPP

Nigel works with men who have addiction, anger, emotional and relationship issues.

His style is compassionate and direct. With a background in addictions, he pursued an interest in men with addictions and relationship problems. He was trained in the Partner Abuse Response (PAR) Program and works extensively with the courts with mandated clients. Nigel understands the male psyche and what a man needs to hear to move forward with solutions to his own problems. He is conscious of the deep reluctance men have in dealing with these issues and the importance of a man discovering for himself what he needs to do. Nigel’s time limited work with the court mandated clients has given him clarity and efficiency in identifying clients’ issues, and in helping them not only find solutions to their problems but to begin to enact necessary changes. The focus is on brief rather than long term therapy.

By Susan Gamble, Brantford Expositor

Monday, April 30, 2012 2:56:57 EDT PM

 

• The end of oxy: chaos in drug world

• Top 10 cars stolen in Ontario
• Chingers say business run from reserve

It looks so easy in all the movies, TV shows and video games.

Gone in 60 Seconds, Grand Theft Auto and Need for Speed have indoctrinated kids, especially young men, with the impression that stealing, speeding and crashing cars is very cool.

And as a city that was dubbed the Stolen Car Capital of Canada in 2010, Brantford has a nasty reputation as the playground for these car thieves.

While improvements are being made notably with a joint policing effort called Team Shutdown, two area teens have died as a result of car chases in the past five years and there have been numerous injuries, not to mention millions of dollars in damages to cars and costs in insurance.

Some say it’s non-natives who are stealing cars from outside the county and dumping them on Six Nations for natives to take the blame.

Others believe that, at the heart of this, is a gang of outside influences who are directing native kids to steal cars. The kids are young and have a grid of back roads on the reserve where cars can be hidden and chopped, and where police can be evaded.

But a series of interviews by The Expositor indicates the recent problems didn’t start with Mafia connections or Asian gangs.

The problem has been a little pain pill called Oxycontin.

***

“I got in a bad car accident where I was ejected out of the vehicle and broke all my ribs. I broke my arm and my shoulder. I started taking Tylenol 3 and Percoset prescribed by the doctor but pretty soon it wasn’t working.”

That’s how one young man, “Robert” became a ‘chinger’ on Six Nations.

Chinging is the local slang for the act of stealing cars, derived from the word ‘cha-ching!’, meaning easy money.

Robert’s dependence on narcotics for his pain lead him to the well-known, but highly addictive “hillbilly heroin” — Oxycontin.

“It’s an expensive habit and stealing vehicles is easy money. People getting Oxy can turn around and sell it for $50, $60 or $100 on the reserve and that’s a good chunk of change.”

Eventually, Robert was spending $1,000 each day on his Oxy habit and there are no jobs that can support that kind of expenditure.

He quickly got involved in chinging, learning the ropes from older friends and, eventually, setting up his own system of buyers.

“There were times when I didn’t sleep for three or four days. I would be out stealing every day, all day. I’d take at least five vehicles in a night. Sometimes more.”

He was shot at and chased by police more times than he can count. When he looks back at his escapades now, it’s terrifying.

“It’s easy money but in the long run, you get caught, addicted to Oxy and not caring about your family. You end up sitting in jail and are told when you can go to bed and when to get up.”

Robert is on probation now, trying hard to stay clean and away from Six Nations.

“I’m trying to take care of me right now.”

Robert’s lawyer, Sarah Dover, has become somewhat of an expert on chingers.

Dover says she represents a “significant number” of Six Nations residents who have been arrested after dangerous car chases or repeatedly stealing cars.

“I’ve had maybe one or two clients who are not addicted to Oxycontin and all the others are.”

Dover knows a lot about Oxy.

She’s researched it and has daily anecdotal evidence of what it does to a user. Oftentimes, Dover is the first one to talk to a chinger about his Oxy habit and where it’s heading.

“There’s been greater access to Oxy on the reserve than alcohol and you become addicted in a very short time — within a week of your first use. The symptoms of withdrawal are excruciating. It’s like having barbed wire pulled through your veins.”

And here’s the problem: the No. 1 course of treatment for Oxy addiction is methadone. There’s no methadone program available on Six Nations and no detox there. To get their daily methadone dose Dover’s clients have to get to Brantford. But most are on probation for driving crimes and aren’t allowed to drive. Unless a supportive family member or friend volunteers to drive them to Brantford every single day, a lot of chingers are faced with a choice of stealing a car or dropping methadone and going back to Oxy.

And there’s another problem: if you’re already on a methadone program when you go to jail, they make sure that you continue treatment. But if you’re not on the program, you can’t get on it in jail. Instead you face about a week of acute withdrawal and then a chemically induced depression for 12 to 18 months.

“In jail, (prisoners) have no education around their addiction, no access to counselling and when they come out of jail they’re no further ahead in accessing services for addictions. It’s a huge set-up for them to fail.”

The results are heavily tinged with irony: chingers sometimes steal cars to get to their methadone appointments or even take a car at the courthouse to get home after being released from jail; one of Dover’s addicted clients had her newborn taken from her at the hospital by Children’s Aid but walked out of the facility with an Oxy prescription in her hand; native boys are facing dozens of driving charges before they even get their licences.

And they all talk about the big bucks they generate from the chinging business. But Dover says it’s a sham.

“I ask them ‘Where’s the money?’ Where are the guys with the massive houses and gorgeous cars? They don’t exist because the money’s going into opiates.

“If people are really serious about ending car chases, do something about Oxy.”

That was Dover’s statement a few months ago when Oxy use was rampant on Six Nations.

Now, with the introduction of OxyNEO, a “tamper-proof” drug that can’t be crushed, ground or liquified for snorting or injecting she says the situation is in a muted chaos.

Prices for Oxy have gone up and new suppliers are being sought outside of Ontario; addictions are switching drugs, some have overdosed; the drug world is hard at work trying to tamper with the new tamper-proof drug; and yes, some hard cases are turning to methadone as they try to drop their old habit.

MPP Dave Levac is pushing to get a new residential rehab-detox centre in the city and others are suggesting the methadone clinic at St. Andrew’s Church be moved to wherever that new location is.

Wherever it is, it won’t be on the reserve — so the problem for addicts will remain.

“We need to help those getting treatment to succeed,” said Levac.

“We want to stop people from reoffending and remove the obstacles, so that may (lead to) a transportation service or taxi chits – something so we can tackle this in a whole community way.”

Levac is one of those who believes Six Nations has been unfairly targeted because of the car theft industry.

“The idea it’s all natives doing this is a long-standing mythology. If we actually broke down the number of first nations people involved we’d see it’s not just them. It’s just a favourite dumping ground.”

Six Nations Chief Coun. Bill Montour agrees, saying it’s “outside influences” controlling many of the young people on the reserve.

“We’re getting more blacks, Asians and motorcycle gangs operating here and we’ve had four incidents involving Jamaican enforcers.”

The chief said he’s been a victim himself: his own car was stolen by thieves who used it to go to Mississauga in order to steal there.

“My son is a cop and they’re all over this.”

But lawyer Dover says it’s not gangs controlling the kids – it’s drugs.

Dover’s typical client has a Grade 8 education, is 20-something years old and has severe addiction issues.

“They come from pain. When they’re released the only thing they’re good at is stealing cars.”

Dover speaks often and passionately in court about the Oxy-car theft problem.

She’s hugely frustrated by what she considers a broken system.

“Jail is not effective in deterring my clients. I’ve had clients shot by police before being jailed and when they’re released, because the underlying dynamic hasn’t been addressed, they return to the behaviour despite a desire to have a normal life.”

Some have suggested to Dover that if her clients truly wanted to get better they’d be willing to go far afield to find help.

“The folks from Six Nations are deeply connected to their community, land and way of life. To say if you want to be sober, go to another community, you might as well say ‘be shot into space’.”

Native Horizons is the drug rehab program on Six Nations. Dover says that every year the agency puts in a proposal for a more comprehensive addictions service and every year they are denied.

It takes one to three months to get into the current rehab program and you have to qualify by being out of jail and sober for 30 days.

“If some of my clients could stay out of jail and sober for 30 days they wouldn’t need rehab,” says Dover.

There are two Alcoholics Anonymous meetings on the reserve, she adds, and people can go to counselling meetings at Native Horizons, but there are no regular Narcotic Anonymous meetings there.

“My clients are white-knuckling through withdrawal and they get out of jail and relapse.

Which, of course, leads to the theft of more cars, or worse, the rising suicide problem on this and other reserves.

What’s needed, says Dover, is a crisis approach to the Oxy problem that targets the underlying issues: too much Oxy availability; not enough rehab and methadone help; more counselling for family problems, including the residual angst of the residential schools issue.

“Robert” is glad to be done with his $1000-a-day Oxy habit.

“Looking back, I’m scared about what I was doing. I’ve been shot at and stuff. I was constantly looking over my shoulder for police and owners. Now a weight’s been lifted.”

susan.gamble@sunmedia.ca

Writing with complete transparency, Rubie has courageously walked through healing and by turns offers readers to do the same by reflecting through his poetry.

ONTARIO, Canada (PRWEB) April 26, 2012

On his dedication page, poet Gary Rubie writes, “to every alcoholic and addict that suffered, recovered and still suffers, I hope for serenity, courage and wisdom.” The same serenity, courage and wisdom can be found in the interstices of Out On A Cliff, an intricately-weaved anthology of lyrical prose which takes readers into an intense journey into Rubie’s mind, providing a glimpse into his soul’s darkest hole.

Rubie’s journey to writing poetry began just over seven years ago as a method of journaling. With no formal training he found solace in rhyme. It was a therapeutic way of putting his feelings on paper about the struggles and challenges he faced during his policing career and in dealing with severe job related trauma (P.T.S.D.) and his addictions.

Each metrical piece in Out On A Cliff are based on Rubie’s real life experiences –. From growing up, suffering abuse, to his 25-year career as a city cop, surviving deep depression, suicidal thoughts and attempts at his own life and then managing crippling job related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This all lead him through his own Dante’s Inferno, the darkest hole imaginable of addictions, his own incarceration and his eventual victorious recovery. Rubie asked his father two years ago if he would consider drawing images to go with each poem. Confident in his son’s adroitness in poetry, Henk Rubie agreed to do a collaboration between father and son.

Rubie further wrote, “If one poem touches one person and stops that one person from ending their life, or gives one person hope, or keeps one person sober for one day, then all the hard work, honesty, and hours of painful soul-searching that went into creating this book was worth it.”

As Cornwall Chief of Police Daniel C. Parkinson puts it, Rubie has taken the lid off the Pandora’s Box of policing and allows readers to peek into its harrowing side. Writing with complete transparency, Rubie has courageously walked through self-healing and by turns offers readers to do the same by reflecting through this candid volume.

For more information on this book, interested parties may log on to http://www.Xlibris.com.

About the Author
Gary Rubie was born in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada in 1962. He joined the Peel Regional Police Department in 1984 where he served for 25 years on a variety of front line and plain cloths units. He enjoyed many successes in his career being recognized 64 times with letters of appreciation from the public, police commendations and awards. He continued his studies taking 33 job related courses over his career. In 2008 in his 25th year of policing he was diagnosed with job related career ending Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and was placed on permanent disability.

Henk Rubie was born in the Netherlands in 1931 where he was educated and joined the air force for 2 years. He worked as a toolmaker until he married his wife of 53 years Antonia Rubie. Together they immigrated to Kitchener, Ontario, Canada in 1959 where they raised three children. Henk worked as a skilled machinist for years in the RMS Machinery Division, at the Uniroyal tire manufacturing facility in Kitchener. He retired in 1991. A hobby boat builder and artist he further honed his artistic skills and began oil painting, creating intarsia wood crafts and continued building scaled model sail boats.

Out On A Cliff* by Gary Rubie and Henk Rubie

Publication Date: April 17, 2012
Trade Paperback; $19.99; 314 pages; 978-1-4691-8114-1
Trade Hardback; $29.99; 314 pages; 978-1-4691-8115-8
eBook; $3.99; 978-1-4691-8116-5
To request a complimentary paperback review copy, contact the publisher at (888) 795-4274 x. 7879. To purchase copies of the book for resale, please fax Xlibris at (610) 915-0294 or call (888) 795-4274 x. 7879.
For more information, contact Xlibris at (888) 795-4274 or on the web at http://www.Xlibris.com.

I read something recently…..

It stated that in 1989 drug companies “collectively” spent 12 million dollars in advertisement…

In 2001 they spent 2.89 BILLION..( 200% increase)

In 2006 they spent 3.6 BILLION,
http://www.therubins.com/geninfo/advertise.htm

In 2008 as NY study said that the drug companies spent twice as much money on advertising than research and states that “The industry spent approximately US$61,000 in promotion per physician during 2004″ based on sales in 2004)http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080105140107.htm

Not sure what the numbers are for 2011.. it does state that Pharma spends 24 times as much vs Canada spending…..

” In addition, it takes about 7 to 10 years and only 3 out of every 20 approved drugs bring in sufficient revenue to cover their developmental costs, and only 1 out of every 3 approved drugs generates enough money to cover the development costs of previous failures. This means that for a drug company to survive, it needs to discover a blockbuster (billion-dollar drug) every few years.[5]” and “the pharmaceutical industry is — and has been for years — the most profitable of all businesses in the U.S. In the annual Fortune 500 survey, the pharmaceutical industry topped the list of the most profitable industries, with a return of 17% on revenue” (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry)

This same scrutiny came with the alcohol industry…http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110531180936.htm andhttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091109194743.htm

I believe that this type of marketing is a huge challenge… as people see a quick fix to their symptoms and do not understand that health and wellness starts at the core…..

Education and awareness is the key.

Tammy Francoeur, Co-Founder, Turning Point Habitude Program

Evidence shows that anti-depressants likely do more harm than good, researchers find

April 24, 2012 in Psychology & Psychiatry

Paul Andrews, assistant professor of psychology, neuroscience & behaviour, is the lead author of a new journal article that describes why anti-depressant medication appears to do more harm than good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QqCygE0jwgg

Michael F. Shaughnessy
Senior Columnist EducationNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University
Dr. Moncrieff is the author of The Myth of the Chemical Cure:A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment
In this interview she responds to questions about this so – called “chemical imbalance” and the treatment of depression.

1) Dr. Moncrieff, first of all, what led you to write this about about “the myth of the chemical cure”?

What is written in textbooks about psychiatric drugs and how they work never seemed to match up to reality to me. So I started to look carefully at the research on drugs and gradually I came to realise that there was no evidence that they were acting specifically- that they were reversing the basis of a disease- as it was claimed. At the same time I was interested in how drugs came to be so highly regarded in psychiatry- how they came to be the dominant form of treatment. I realised that it was because they were believed to be specific that they were seen as so important, because the idea that they are specific underpins the idea that psychiatry is a medical activity, concerned with reversing medical diseases.

So I began to try and trace how the idea- the myth as I believed it - that they are specific treatments was constructed.

2) I would think that when people have to deal with the death of a mother/father, brother/sister, or even a pet, I think that it is natural and normal to feel depressed. When did we start giving anti-depressant medication for the normal transitions of life that we all have to endure?

The modern concept of depression, as a common condition in need of medical treatment, was invented and promoted in order to market the earliest antidepressants in the 1960s. However, it was when the market for benzodiazepines collapsed in the late 1990s that the pharmaceutical industry turned to depression to create a mass market.

It was during the 1990s that the idea that depression affects up to 1 in 4 of the population and other such figures were publicised and the motive was to create a market for the new and profitable antidepressants known as SSRIs.

3) How exactly do psychiatrists find out if there is a real chemical imbalance in the brain? Or are they just experimenting with patients?

Psychiatrists have no way of telling that someone has a chemical imbalance. The idea that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance is simply a hypothesis. There is no consistent evidence that there is any biochemical abnormality in people diagnosed as depressed. The idea has been promoted by drug companies and professional organisations, but the evidence base for it is almost non existent. Most experts say that the fact that people improve when you give them antidepressants is the strongest evidence that there is a chemical imbalance. But there are other ways of explaining this- antidepressants are psychoactive drugs, that may suppress emotional feelings, or just sedate people.

Anyway, as recent research shows, people improve barely more with antidepressant than they do with a placebo.

4) The number of pills for a wide variety of so- called ” mental illnesses ” seems to have skyrocketed. Someone is making a lot of money pushing these pills. Is it all about money?

Partly, but it is also about professional status. Psychiatrists push pills because it bolsters their position as doctors. Also governments have supported medical interventions like drugs because they look like simple solutions to otherwise complex and intractable problems. Also we live at a time when big business is very powerful, and governments are unwilling to reign it in.

5) I know there are some violent, aggressive, assaultive patients who either have to be physically restrained, or put in a special room, or a straight jacket. In such instances, are we simply sedating the patient or
are we really treating them?

I think everyone would admit that at times like these we are simply sedating them, or using chemical restraint. What is more open to dispute is what we are doing to people whose behaviour is chronically antisocial, disturbing and maybe irrational. People like this are usually diagnosed as having chronic schizophrenia, or some other mental disorder. In this case, the drug treatment they are inevitably given on a long-term basis is dressed up as a treatment, but is often aimed at controlling their behaviour.

6) Are there germs, bacteria, viruses, and things that can be seen under a microscope that cause “mental illness”?

No- there are no proven physical causes of any mental illnesses.

7) We all have to deal with anxiety- we have to work, take tests, deal with disgruntled people- why do some people need anti-anxiety pills for the problems that we all have to face—and do these folks have some type of chemical imbalance?

Everyone is different and some people find stress harder to deal with than others. This is partly due to upbringing and environment, but some of it is probably due to the variation in our biological makeup. However, I don’t think it is something you can pinpoint, like a chemical imbalance.

It’s just that we are all different, biologically as well as psychologically. You can’t “correct” these differences (assuming you could identify them, which I don’t think you will ever be able to do) without eradicating individuality itself.

Is there really such a disease as attention deficit disorder or is this just a bunch of symptoms that have been lumped together in some fashion?

Its not my specialist area, but child psychiatrists I know say that they can always find a better explanation for a child’s behaviour than calling it ADHD. ADHD is a label that locates the problem in the individual child, whereas I suspect the problem really often lies in the family and the wider environment. The only reason for giving someone the label of ADHD, of course, is in order to justify giving the child stimulants. There is a big debate about whether these are useful- and if so whether they are worthwhile. They can make a child pay attention at first, but whether this is really beneficial is unclear. Also their effects probably wear off (like most drugs taken for long periods)- and the latest 3 year follow up of the biggest randomized trial of stimulants shows no benefits over non drug treatment at three years.

9) I have read some crazy stuff on the Internet about statins being given to 8 year old children. Is there any sane, reasonable, rational, realistic reason to give an 8 year old child a statin?

I don’t know about the wisdom of giving children statins, but childhood obesity (not a nice word) is certainly an indication that there is something very wrong with our society. It is also caused of course by drugs like the new antipsychotics, which are being more commonly prescribed to children. So some childhood obesity is being caused by drugs in the first place.

10) Here in the United States, we once had a commercial that said ” relief is just a swallow away”. Have the pharmaceuticals taken this mass drugging way too far?

Everyone is looking for a magic bullet for everything nowadays. The pharmaceutical industry have certainly helped create this situation, but again I think it is the broader political climate that has encouraged this to happen. Popping pills to solve your problems is a perfect consumerist activity, and it helps keep people so worried that they don’t have time to challenge the system. Accepting life’s ups and downs is not a good recipe
for keeping people working their guts out to buy more stuff.

11) I often see individuals who seem to have no coping skills, low frustration tolerance and a lack of thinking skills. Should not these people get training and counseling, rather than some pill for their alleged ” chemical disorder”?

Yes, these would be better, but often there is no individual solution. We have to ask why some people get this way, and what changes we can make to society to prevent it happening and to help them when it does.

12) Are there any psychiatric diagnosis which in your mind, are true “chemical imbalances” for example chronic schizophrenia?

No. Organic conditions like dementia and learning disability have a physical basis (but not a simple chemical imbalance). For mental illnesses like schizophrenia, manic depression and others, no physical cause has ever been proven. It is often said that we have evidence that they are genetic- but this evidence is much weaker than presented (Jay Joseph gives a good deconstruction of this). It is said that people with schizophrenia have different shaped brains- but again the evidence is weak and inconsistent and drug induced effects have not been ruled out.

13) Do you have a web site where we can get more information?

The Critical Psychiatry Network has a website where there are many interesting papers posted and other information. The address is www.criticalpsychiatry.co.uk

14) What question have I neglected to ask?

Whatever mental illnesses consist of, and we do not know, but have no good evidence at present to think they are caused by specific brain diseases like real neurological conditions, when we treat them with drugs we are merely drugging people. This may suppress the symptoms, which may be helpful for a while, but obviously there are adverse consequences. If you are drugged you are usually slower and less emotionally sensitive than if you are not under the influence of drugs. Psychiatrists need to be more honest about this- but so do politicians and society as a whole. We are pretending to treat or cure people with mental illness because that makes us feel alright about controlling them. Sometimes we need to control them-
but we should at least be honest about what we are doing. Pharmaceutical companies are cashing in on our dishonesty.

Published August 7, 2008

The psychiatric profession is ignoring evidence that treatment with antipsychotics can be harmful, according to a new book

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March 8, 2010

July 19, 2011 in Psychology & Psychiatry