Pubdate: Thu, 06 May 2004
Source: Westender (Vancouver, CN BC)
Copyright: 2004 WestEnder
Contact:  http://www.westender.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1243
Author: Diana Bennett
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

SUBURBAN HOUSEWIFE'S BOOK LOOKS BACK ON HER LIFE AS A HEROIN
ADDICT.

Who: Elizabeth Hudson

What: Author of Snow Bodies: One Woman's Life on the Streets. "I wrote the 
book because there are very few books written from a female addict's point 
of view. No time for any kind of reflection. My life was just survival. I 
wanted to detail what life was like for drug-addicted females."

Roots: Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Hudson's young life included moving 
from city to city, and attending church on Sundays. As a young woman of the 
1970s she rode the party coaster from "alcohol to marjuana to acid to 
mescaline"-all the way to injecting heroin and living and working on the 
streets of Vancouver and Calgary. "I don't think I had any real idea of 
consequences, always thought I could quit whenever I wanted to. But after 
the first hit...I just wanted more. I wanted to have that high again."

A drugstore cowboy's girlfriend: "I was with a boyfriend who supported my 
habit. In a really odd way I got to feast off the plunder of his crimes. 
His specialty was kicking over drugstores. We would sell the drugs he 
stole. And he did more violent things, like armed robbery. Once he went to 
jail, I was left with a habit, no social support and not allowed back home. 
Just doors slamming behind me. I had no place to go but the street.

Slightly-open-door policy: "I don't believe in tough love. Yes, setting 
boundaries, but totally slamming the door, no.... I begged my mother to let 
me come home. I would have done anything to come home at that point. I 
understood, after my first beating on the street, what exactly was in store 
for me. I begged to come home and she said I was the little boy who cried 
wolf too often. She said no. Parents should always leave the door open a 
crack."

Heroin highs and lower-than-lows: "The pit. I call it the pit. I couldn't 
work the street unless I was high on heroin. I could never make enough 
money. I always wanted more heroin. My addiction drove everything...on that 
altar I was quite willing to sacrifice everything."

Women need not apply: "In my day there was nowhere for women to go. 
Salvation Army shelters didn't allow women in. We couldn't get a meal. 
There was nothing for women. If we were cold, we stayed cold. If we were 
hungry we stayed hungry."

Shelter is the first step: "Every single woman who works the street can be 
reached. It just takes a vulnerable moment. For me, it was when Peter went 
to jail and I begged to come home. Then again after a major drug round-up, 
an old friend saw me on the street and asked where I was living. Nowhere. 
So he said, 'Well come stay with me.' I wasn't lonely anymore. I drank like 
a fish and smoked pot and did pills but I wasn't pushing needles in my arm."

New life in the 'burbs: "I grabbed the hand that reached out at a 
vulnerable moment." Within her savior's circle of friends, Hudson met her 
future husband. "We moved to the suburbs and thus began my resocialization. 
The other women, I just watched them...the way they talked, dressed. I 
modeled my behavior."

Too much information, Mom: "They don't want to read the book. I'm mom to 
them. They're aware I was a drug addict and a prostitute but they don't 
want to read about the trauma and the horror that was my life. But I do 
tell them there is nothing so terrible you will ever do that I won't still 
love you and be here for you."

Tough getting past 'tough love': Hudson's father has since died but she 
still tries to communicate with her mother. "Let's just say that it's been 
very hard work trying to forge a relationship. I can't get over some of the 
things she said to me, things like, 'I have other children.' Like she 
doesn't really care if I die. Tough love. It's a one-way ticket to the 
graveyard."

The writing's on the flesh: "You can't entirely redomesticate a feral cat. 
I've always hidden my past. Until the book, I never told anybody. But I 
can't erase the six-inch track on my arm, the inky jailhouse tatto."

Not-so-small victory: "The day that I got voted president of my son's 
preschool, that's the day I knew I'd passed. I'd made it. I'd done it."

- -Diana Bennett 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Thunder