Pubdate: Fri, 03 Jun 2011 Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC) Copyright: 2011 Times Colonist Contact: http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/letters.html Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481 Author: Andre Serzisko, Times Colonist, Addictions Counsellor QUIT BICKERING Different Addiction Steps Valid After almost 18 years in the addictions field, I am still hearing the same old antiquated arguments from all sides of this debate. Harm reduction versus abstinence, disease versus learned behaviour, residential versus day programs, private versus public and the list goes on. The series on addiction has featured private sector addiction services criticizing public treatment services and VIHA higher-ups giving lip service to the necessity of a full spectrum of care while eliminating prevention and residential services on the island. Members of the abstinence community attack harm reduction initiatives while supporting Overeaters Anonymous and Sexaholics Anonymous - both harm reduction groups that focus on ending our problem behaviour, not on abstaining from food or sex. Harm reduction supporters criticize abstinence based initiatives because they feel that they promote the notion of relapse being a failure. Secular groups attack the 12-step community for being too God-oriented. Enough is enough! We seem to care more about our perspective being right then allowing the person with a problem to make that decision. There are many perspectives on the causes and treatment of addiction and no one perspective is any more true or false than the next. Everyone is different and approaches change in different ways; one perspective and one treatment cannot serve all people. We need to embrace and work with these differences, not fight them. The more we polarize and engage in this debate the further we get away from providing a consistent and gapless service delivery system where the focus is on the person and families needing help . Andre Serzisko Victoria - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.