Skip to content

Healthy Living: Enabling a better place

One simple thing I have realized in my recent life of recovery from addiction, and general pathologically self-harming actions, is individual and community mental health are interdependent entities.
Healthy Living Powell River

One simple thing I have realized in my recent life of recovery from addiction, and general pathologically self-harming actions, is individual and community mental health are interdependent entities. We are enmeshed together; an individual and the community are part of the same, larger social organism.

A simple, and at the same time, incredibly complex reality is that we are all in a continuous, mutually symbiotic relationship. We are socially, psychologically, and even spiritually, interwoven together to create a group that is stronger when all the parts are healthy and working together cohesively.

We share the possibility to flourish and grow together or, conversely, stumble into unhealthy disorder together.

Powell River is an idyllic place abundant with natural beauty and resources but, sometimes, we feel slightly disconnected from “big city” problems. However, we are not immune to some unsettling social problems we see on the nightly news.

In a reality we sometimes try to avoid, Powell River has the second highest fatal overdose rate in the Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) region. For perspective, VCH also includes Richmond, Vancouver, Sunshine Coast, the Sea-to-Sky corridor, the North Shore, Bella Bella and Bella Coola. The fentanyl and opioid epidemic has shown up on our shore and, collectively, it damages all of us in some way.

The recently introduced Powell River Overdose Prevention Site (OPS) is a rational and reasoned response to a community health emergency. Based in a large collection of science-based evidence, supervised injection sites reduce overdose deaths and have shown to lessen the harm of the plague-like situation drug-use has on society.

The OPS is a proportional response to a severe societal issue.

Sticking our head in the sand in fear and ignorance while our friends, coworkers and, possibly, family members die in parking lots and alleys is not a healthy reaction to this situation. Self-education on the topic of the growing science around addiction is the first step in opening our eyes and working toward a better place.

The phrase “drastic times call for drastic measures” comes to mind when I think about the current fentanyl epidemic. The idiom is believed to be originated with ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, when he wrote: “For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable.”

Social stigma around drug addiction has shown to be a factor in increasing the problematic situation. Feelings of shame push people away into places where an overdose happens unattended. Needlessly and avoidable, it’s then that people die alone.

We are social creatures who are not meant to live alone and, also, we are not meant to die alone. Particularly, when it’s an avoidable tragedy with education and actions, such as the Powell River safe injection site and other forward-thinking, harm-reducing efforts.

Robert Skender is a Powell River freelance writer and health commentator.