‘I’m a person who uses drugs,’ not a crackhead

Before we caught up, or perhaps instead of catching up, Frank — I had not seen him in a while — invited me to come and hear him speak at a workshop for people who work with drug users. Frank uses crack. He has been using crack for a long time and he confounds the stereotype. He is hip, articulate, self-aware; next to him, any other Frank is a guy in white shoes wearing a white belt, watering a lawn.

He began his part of the workshop by saying that he is neither ashamed nor guilty about his drug use, but that he has regrets, and he laid out the dominoes of his life in order to show how they toppled:

He had a job. He had a family. He had a life. He got laid off. His brother died of an AIDS-related illness. And then his wife left him and took his daughter.

He was depressed. You’d be, too. He was alone and he was living in Regent Park and he began to do what some men do. “I spent a lot of money on sex workers. They used drugs. I gravitated toward that and spiralled down.” He spent time in jail. He bounced around. No soft landings. These days he works in harm reduction whenever he can. He is an engaging speaker; if you know jazz, bop and rebop is his sound; in the palm of his hand was his audience. Then he shifted gears. “The basis of harm reduction is respect for the other as a human being; respect and dignity. People who use drugs are not bad, nor do they have an inherently low sense of morality.” People wrote that down. He spoke of the need to build trust. “If there’s no trust, I won’t tell you what I feel or what I want. Working with drug users is not selling shoes or pumping gas; it’s working with human beings in crisis.”

He said he figures half the people living in shelters use drugs. I have no reason to think differently.

FRANK CRACK USER

He said, “You have to deal with things as they are. You have to be non-judgmental. You have to be patient, more than in any other job.” And what he said next was the Zen of connection: “Listening is not the same as waiting to speak.” People wrote that down. He said that people who use drugs may be less interested in help because they are preoccupied with more pressing matters: “Where can I score, where can I use, where are the police, where can I stay?” He paused and said, “You aren’t trying to get people to stop. You’re trying to diminish the chaos.” I wrote that down. He said some people are corks bobbing in an ocean, drifting with the tide. “The cork has no choice. You want to help people make choices. It can be hard for people who have been beaten down.” Amen. He also talked of practical matters. “People who use drugs need bank accounts. Why? It beats going to the Money Mart.” It isn’t just because of the fee the cheque-cashers extract: “You walk out, you feel like s---, you lose a percentage of your money.”

And what happens to a drug user who has a pocketful of cash? “You’re a mark; and soon every penny’s gone because you can’t say no.” He said that, when he was living at Seaton House, he deposited his money in their bank, and they put him on an allowance. That’s not just practical. That’s genius. It helped to make his money last. Because when people with no money get their drugs on credit, as sometimes happens, they are prone to violence, including sexual violence.

And then he offered this thought about the nature of the conversation: “They say I’m a crackhead. No. I am a person who uses drugs. It’s part of who I am. It’s not everything I am.” Joe Fiorito appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. jfiorito@thestar.ca

“People who use drugs are not bad, nor do they have an inherently low sense of morality.”