Parvati Magazine February 2014 - Sobriety1

WELLNESS HOLISTIC RECOVERY V iewers of “Intervention Canada” may recognize the beautiful Muskoka landscapes of the GreeneStone residential addiction treatment centre, as it has been featured on that show on multiple occasions. Parvati Magazine spoke with physician William Jacyk, who is the Senior Clinical Consultant to the Greenestone clinic, responsible for program development and design, education of staff and residents and clinical mentoring and staff development. Parvati Magazine: What inspired you to train as an addiction physician? Dr. William Jacyk: I had some personal family experience growing up which was very negative, and I had a very judgmental attitude toward the problem. After medical school, I had my own experience and then was inspired to look at the problem as a human condition (“disease”). PMAG: Why do you think people who have experienced trauma are more likely to struggle with substance abuse issues? WJ: Survivors of traumatic experiences are often left with some intense emotional reactions which are not adequately expressed or soothed at the time of the trauma because the focus is usually avoiding greater harm or death. Unfortunately, these emotional experiences are recorded and stored in the brain and can emerge after the danger has disappeared. These “delayed emotional reactions” have been perceived as abnormal and, therefore, as symptoms which should be suppressed rather than processed. Many such survivors learn to “self-medicate” and continue the process of denial despite the emotions re-appearing repeatedly. Others may actually enable this to continue, with statements such as “you should be over that by now”, till the first awareness that there are unresolved traumatic experiences is a diagnosable addiction. PMAG: What does Greenestone do to help people dealing with addiction and how does a holistic approach help in this? WJ: A large component of our program involves proper education as to the nature of the problem, and what a successful program of recovery can accomplish. The goal in a holistic approach is to restore the body, mind and spirit to a balanced state so that we are in the best possible state to manage stress (whether internal or external) in a positive, creative way, so that we are constantly building more and more resilience. When we handle stress by suppressing

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