Kenya: Addicts Need Empathy

This past weekend, lovers of modern jazz lost a great talent - Amy Winehouse who, by the age of 27, was better known for her drug-addled behaviour than for her music.

The hold that addiction to alcohol and hard drugs had on her career is well-documented. In the end, only early death awaited her.

This begs the question: how should we help addicts? Conventional modes of treatment include liberal amounts of finger-pointing and gossiping about the "worthless addict" before he or she is shipped off to a rehabilitation centre.

There, they often undergo a programme that usually doesn't help because the addiction has taken control so absolutely they wish only for death.

Worst of all, most of us roadside therapists have absolutely no idea how addiction works and how best to handle it.

More than 10,000 Kenyans are addicted to hard drugs, including a clutch of so-called local celebrities, and the number is growing.

These addicts are our friends, relatives, co-workers and business partners.

So perhaps it is time we understood that theirs is a disease, just like HIV and cancer which require a great deal of empathy.

There are a lot of Amy Winehouses in our midst.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201107260155.html