'Sense of community' can help Yukoners prevent opiate addiction

Yukoners can lean on family, culture and connections to the land to help deal with opiate addictions according to Mae Katt, a nurse practitioner from Ontario.

"Yukon can do it, they have such a wonderful environment here and that's exactly what we have," said Katt during a break Wednesday at a conference in Whitehorse on preventing opioid addiction and misuse.

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"We use our land," she said. "Land and culture based interventions, that alone is a way to provide healing."

Katt is involved in the health care of about 30,000 Indigenous people in northwestern Ontario, including students at an aboriginal high school in Thunder Bay.

She said five years ago 43 per cent of the students admitted to opiate addictions. Many came from satellite communities where the overall addiction rate was much higher. Now, after five years,Kattsaid the school no longer has any students requesting treatment for opiate addictions, although some are addicted to other substances like alcohol.

Opiate addiction can be beat, with support

Katt said addicts are often left with no support.

"I think when you look at drug addiction, people burn bridges," she said.

"They're trying to obtain the drugs that they need because they have a physical addiction to that. 'Burning the bridges' means they're stealing from people, they're doing things they're not very proud of," said Katt.

"So once you start treating the addiction you can start rebuilding the relationships that they have. Some lady here talked about the high capacity to forgive in her family and I think we saw the same with the families of the young people that we work with," she said.

"When you take a young person and they've made some bad choices, I think what you can do is help them with an education, with some support, with some guidance, and help them increase their self-esteem and make them successful in education," she said.

Connections crucial to battle addiction

The conference heard from Karen, an addict, who did not provide a surname.

She talked about the sexual abuse she suffered beginning at age nine. Karen said her mother told her at the time not to tell anybody else.

Her life soon spiraled into substance abuse and by age 15 she was living on the street in Vancouver.

She said through setback after setback including periods in jail she was never offered or encouraged to get help for her addictions. She further isolated herself by treating others badly, she said.

Dr. Leo Elwell, a Whitehorse psychiatrist and addictions specialist, said support is crucial.

A former military doctor, he said it's well known in the armed forces that a feeling of community plays a big part in the recovery of military personnel.

Elwell said he continues to see that in his current practice.

"I love it when we have a person still connected to their job, still connected to their family, still connected to their cultural group, it makes my job a heck of a lot easier and that's a good thing," he said.