Friday, September 30, 2005

Who's the addict?

One question we asked a few times this week at Urban Seed was, 'Who's the addict?'
Twenty-five percent of Melbourne's heroin use takes place in the laneway behind Collins Street Baptist Church. At the same time, near the front entrance, someone is spending thousands of dollars on a shirt or tie. However, these two addictions are seen very differently.
This led to talking about how our addictions to consumption effect other people (like the people who make our clothes or grow our coffee) and the idea of getting addicted to good things, like prayer or reading scripture or recycling. Marcus told us about this guy who got off heroin by getting addicted to Catholicism.
At lunch yesterday I talked to a guy who's been off heroin for seven months, with the help of more socially acceptable drugs: alcohol and marijuana. He's hoping to eventually get down to just tobacco, and then give that up too.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Do you get alongside many heroin addicts with your Urban Seed work? I've been reading this amazing book, Chasing the Dragon, about a woman who committed her life to being a sister to those addicted to such life-halting drugs and the way God moved among them was totally astounding. I'm beginning to think that it's only among the utterly downtrodden and dispirited that I'm going to see God move like this.