Resilient, but not indestructible

The following is a first-person account by an individual who is helped by the Salvation Army food bank, the recipient of this year’s Be An Angel campaign. To donate, visit The Herald office, Monday through Friday, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., at 101-186 Nanaimo Ave. W., or visit www.pentictonherald.ca. I came in for a food hamper today. I’m just on my bike, so they gave me new heavy-duty bags to hold all my stuff on the handle bars. All my earthly belongings are on my handle bars now and a bag of food and an insulated cover to sleep under.

I go to the Soupateria for lunch and the Salvation Army for the rest of what I eat and I just got some dry socks and a backpack. I have got lots of help from the Salvation Army in the past years. I have stayed at Compass House. I have addiction problems, though.

My family wrote me off a few years ago. They don’t want to enable me. And they have their own lives and troubles of their own to deal with.

I had a chance once to get into a treatment place, but at that time I did have a pretty good job and I would have to quit that job so I didn’t go to that treatment centre in Alberta. That was probably a bad call.

Everybody who is addicted has a past that they are trying to forget. I have an anxiety disorder because of a traumatic event. And I selfmedicate. All these are terms that I know so well now. Maybe for other people it is violence or abuse or they lost someone they loved. You don’t just get to be an addict overnight.

Now the new word is “resilience.” Apparently I don’t have very much resilience. That’s funny. I’m resilient enough to have lasted on the streets for three years.