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What a giant jerk.
I couldn’t focus on Onava’s speech at all. My eyes were searching for Adam and when he discreetly took a seat on the other side of the aisle, I tried hard not to look.
Onava spoke for at least forty minutes before she opened up for questions.
“Do you have a question?” Onava asked a man a few seats behind me who had raised his hand.
“Can you elaborate on what you just meant when you said: we don’t inspire others by being perfect. We inspire them by how we deal with our imperfections.”
Onava nodded. “The idea is that we stop blaming, shaming, and judging. That instead of turning our back on the person suffering, we reach out and show them we all fight battles and that no one should have to fight alone.
“If we look at the traditional approach it would be to make sure the abuser has no access to drugs or alcohol. Yes?”
People nodded.
“That works as long as people are in facilities without access to alcohol or drugs, such as rehab centers or even prison. But when they return home they often suffer a relapse and end up as miserable as before. Why? Because the reason they started drinking in the first place hasn’t been fixed.
“So that’s what our program is focusing on. Finding the root cause and finding a way to heal that person from the inside out.
“Yes?” Onava pointed to a woman who held her arm raised.
“I agree that different people need different approaches, but wouldn’t you agree that sometimes an abuser can come from a good home and just make the mistake of taking drugs one time and then become addicted?”
Onava put her hands in her pockets and tilted her head. “Oh, you mean that some drugs are so addictive that after you’ve had them once, you become an addict?”
“Yeah, exactly,” the woman said.
“A lot of people believe that, partly because of some early experiments on rats that showed they would choose drugs over water every time. But luckily scientists have challenged those tests and asked important questions like: Would the rats still choose the drugs if they weren’t in an empty cage, but had other rats to interact with and things to play with?
“The answer is no,” Onava said and looked over the crowd. “A healthy rat with a good life doesn’t want the drugs.”
The woman who had asked the question stood her ground but was biting her lips.
“Trust me, sweetheart,” Onava said to her. “I was young in the sixties and I can tell you first hand that the myth about instant addiction isn’t true – and if you don’t believe me then I want you to consider this. Doctors prescribe pills with much higher purity and potency than the heroin you find on the streets. If you ever had a major surgery or know someone who has, you’ll know that they get pain relief, often for weeks at a time, right?” Onava waited for the lady to nod her head.
“So if the myth was true, anyone who received high doses of drugs to get over a painful surgery would become an addict and potentially end up on the street with a needle in their arm.”
The woman who had asked the question sat down as Onava continued walking to our side of the stage.
“Think about it. If it was truly just a matter of the drugs making your body need more drugs, then every prescription from a doctor would be a sentence to become a drug addict. Is that the case?”
“No,” people in the crowd answered her.
“So if we can agree on that part, let’s look at the new research suggesting that the difference between the people who get addicted and the people who don’t is their environment. Are they lonely, disconnected, troubled? If so, there’s a much higher chance of them using drugs to numb themselves.
“What we do in this program is to help people create a fulfilling life that makes drugs unattractive to them.
“Many of these people have burned bridges socially and made bad choices in life. It’s easy to say that they brought it on themselves, but my message tonight is that sometimes it's more important to give people what they need than what they deserve.”
I raised my hand, driven by curiosity.
“Yes?” Onava pointed at me.
“But the thing you said before – how does that explain that some of the most successful people end up taking drugs? Why would they do that when they have dream lives?”
Onava seemed to be considering how to answer my question.
“You can be the biggest rock star and still feel disconnected and lonely. You might have screaming fans and millions who admire you, but they’re not your close friends and don’t bring you that deep sense of belonging that humans need to thrive. And success…” Onava took a few steps. “What is success? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a millions times again. Success should always be measured against the price you paid to get it. If you have a big house but no true friends who want to visit, then your success came with the price of loneliness. If you achieved a high position within a company but are feared by everyone, then you may not laugh a lot.”
