An addiction-free life is well within your grasp

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Relentless and potentially devastating addictions can shake a family tree and cause havoc in a community.

Canada's 2001 National Addiction Awareness Week (NAAW), Nov. 18 to 24, is a time for Canadians to unite and fight against this common enemy.

Families suffering and learning to cope with the challenges of fetal alcohol syndrome/fetal alcohol effects, a result of substance abuse during pregnancy, will be honored during this year's event.

Interim event co-ordinator Jean Fulkner said the effects are among the "very tangible results of alcohol abuse."

NAAW is celebrating its fourteenth year of fighting addictions and rejoicing in the successes of individuals who have overcome them. In 1987, Minister of Health and Welfare Canada, Jake Epp, proclaimed the third week of November as Drug Awareness Week, which was later renamed National Addictions Awareness Week.

The annual awareness week is coordinated by Nechi Training, Research & Health Promotions Institute, an organization that works to promote holistic healing and healthy, addiction-free living.

Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities across Canada are encouraged to stage events throughout the week to recognize the problems of addictions and unite to fight against them.

Activities vary, incorporating round dances, silent auctions and other entertainment planned by schools, RCMP detachments and a diversity of health, government and charitable organizations across the country.

The national kick off for National Addictions Awareness Week is the Join the Circle Walk, held in Edmonton on Nov. 19. The walk, which enjoys the support of 20 Edmonton-area community organizations, has changed from the original event named Sober Walk, which has officially kicked off NAAW since its inception.

The new name is a sign of the week's broadening agenda.

"We are not just focusing on addictions in terms of drugs and alcohol," said Fulkner. "We're talking about all addictions and we're trying to promote addiction-free, healthy lifestyles."

It is the final year for Edmonton to host the NAAW kick-off event, although the Join the Circle Walk will continue with a more local focus.

The host of next year's kick off will be chosen through a contest being run by NAAW organizers, who hope moving the kick off to other communities will help bring attention to the national scope of the event.

The contest is open to communities across Canada. All communities wanting to take part in the contest must have their entries submitted by Jan. 31, 2002.

A number of organizations across Saskatchewan are hosting events for this year's National Addictions Awareness Week, including The Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies (SIIT), where a series of lunch-hour workshops will be held at the Saskatoon campus. Starting Nov. 19 and running until Nov. 23, lunchhour workshops will be held, with four different workshops to chose from each day.

Some of the many topics that will be dealt with in the workshops include domestic violence, growing up without a father, growing up without a mother, rebuilding trust in relationships, the loss of culture, co-dependency, and how First Nations youth can deal with grief in a healthy way. Other workshop topics will include breaking the cycle of the residential school experience, self-acceptance and self-esteem, maintaining personal wellness, healing from abuse, dealing with shame and anger, and the impact of substance abuse on the male spirit.

The workshop series has been developed by students in the SIIT Community Services- Addictions program, who will also be presenting the workshops. The workshops are open to adult members of the public, with adult learners and people working in the health or social fields encouraged to attend.

This is the third year that SIIT has co-ordinated workshops as part of NAAW.

"Since it's National Addictions Awareness Week the priority is to create awareness on some of the issues that affect and impact First Nation people, in regads to addiction, as well as in regards to symptoms that lead to addiction, such as shame, anger, lateral violence, depression, sexual abuse," explained Derek Thompson, instructor for the Community Services-Addictions program.

"So we focus on sort of the stuff that's underneath the addiction in hopes to create awareness on at least beginning talking about some of those issues."

In addition to creating awareness around addictions issues, the workshop is also organized as a way of reaching out.

"If we want to be serious about dealing with these issues that we talk about, then part of that means reaching out to the community in which we live and interact, which is SIIT and the students that come here. So we try to basically walk our talk. And we do that in different, imaginative, creative ways. Sort of step out of the safety box, so to speak, and reach out and interact with people.

"So each year has a new twist on it, and we sort of do something that's different-different it its approach-because obviously, each group of students is different every year when they come in. I give them their topic so that they speak about it from a personal perspective, and with all of them, they're issues that they're dealing with themselves in their own lives. So it comes from a really personal place, a very human place, a very interactive kind of place, rather than so called professionals or experts in the field."

For information about National Addictions Awareness Week, visit the NAAW Web site at http://naaw.net, or call 1-800-459-1884, Ext. 430. For information about the NAAW workshops being offered by SIIT, call Derek Thompson at 477-9236.