WRITER - The Tyee -
Wired to Lose - Part 1
A comprehensive examination of How to make the problems of Addictions Even Worse
The first in a three-part series.
Love the guy. Helped get him elected. But, let’s be honest. On this subject, at least, he’s on the other side of the moon. He’s so far out that one day they’ll name a new planet after him.
I speak of the Mayor of Vancouver, Sam Sullivan. And I speak of Addictions. Drugs and alcohol. Heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, booze. Even his handlers have told him to be quiet on this topic. How do I know this? I know because they have told me so.
Nobody in the known world shares the good mayor’s unique perspective. How could they? No one else is in a wheelchair. No one else believes that the wheelchair is the best metaphor for understanding addictions.
And how do I know this? Because I have had this exact discussion with His Honor many times over many years. The last time was on the phone recently when I was verifying my notes taken in his office on the third floor of City hall just before Torino. The first time was in an annoyingly pretentious and mediocre restaurant on West 10th Avenue about five years ago. On that first occasion, I became so angry that I actually jumped up at the table and started hollering. Sam loved this. There is the perennial teenager about him that just gets such a kick out of seeing grown men turn stupid. These days I am calm in the face of his nuttiness. I love the guy. I tell him he’s wrong. And he tells me that one day I will see that he’s right.
Here’s what the Mayor of Vancouver believes about addictions.
“I am in a wheelchair. When I was 19, I did something stupid on the ski slopes and I broke my neck. For quite a while I lay in a hospital bed and bemoaned the fact that now I was a quadriplegic. Eventually, I tired of that. I asked myself “What can I do now?” Here I am years later, the Mayor of Vancouver. It would have been unbearably cruel for someone to suggest that one day I would walk again. I had to face up to my reality and deal with it. And I have.
Now, addicts are like me. They have a disability. And they will always have this disability. It is a waste of time and money to pretend to them and to ourselves that they will ever change. So what we should do is make them more comfortable! Remove the criminality, give them their drugs andlet them choose what they do want to do next.”
I told him about The Sobels. Of course, he hadn’t heard of them. But anyone with an even passing interest in the subject of addictions should know the story of Dr. and Mrs. Sobel.
The Sobels were a husband-and-wife team of clinical psychologists practicing at the University of Toronto in the 1980’s. The wanted to prove that they could teach alcoholics how to become “social drinkers.” Their dedication and passion convinced the University to build a “bar” in the department, in spite of the fact that the U of T is smack in the middle of one of the liveliest downtown neighbourhoods in the western world, replete with many a lively joint.
The Sobels spent two years teaching hundreds of drunks to “sip.” Finally they were on the cover of Time Magazine. But not for any of the reasons that they or you or Mayor Sam may have predicted. After two years of work, hundreds of thousands of Canadian tax dollars spent, and much wringing of hands, the Sobels confessed that their work was 1) a complete failure, 2) misguided from the beginning, and finally, amoral!
They said, in effect, “We were wrong to do this. We hurt people. We’re sorry.”
The Mayor was unmoved.
Continued on Next Page
