Breaking the chains of drug addiction: Allister and Paul share their stories

By Feona Morrison

Behind drug and alcohol addiction there are people – those with stories of struggles and triumphs. Many of these stories go untold. This holiday season will be extra special for Paul Noel Blackman-Busby, 42, and Allister Bess,46 – two recovering drug addicts.

Guyana Times recently sat down with Bess and Blackman-Busby who both shared that they have had enough with their dependency on drugs and knew that they needed help with changing their lifestyle. Though they were caught in the grips of addiction, they are determined to live in recovery, inspiring, and helping others along the way.

They are currently enrolled at the Salvation Army Men’s Social Centre (SAMSC). For over two decades, the Centre, which is located at Lots 6-7 Water Street, Georgetown has been catering to people, in particular men, who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. The centre’s drug recovery programme is highly guided by its spiritual conscience.

Curiosity
Bess, a father of seven, related that he started using cocaine at age 20 and continued up until three months ago when he surrendered at the SAMSC. Like many others, he succumbed to peer pressure and out of curiosity had his first sniff of cocaine. What came next was his uncontrollable passion to get his hands on the drug since he had the means to do so.
“I started using cocaine through curiosity at the age of 20. I saw my friends doing it and wanted to know what they were getting out of it. And that is how it started,” Bess shared during a candid interview. According to him, he was raised in a very loving and caring family, and there was nothing he lacked as a little boy growing up.
“My parents were headteachers and I’m the last [child] and you know the last does be getting what they want and how they want it. I had access to the money to buy the cocaine. It started out as fun, but later down the road, I realised that it started to get worse health-wise and with my family.”
At this point, Bess knew he had to get his life back on track and voluntarily enrolled at the SAMSC. He was eager to be a father to his children, a son to his parents, and a productive citizen in society. As such, three months ago, he started his third rehab journey having called it quits on two similar attempts in 2003 and 2013, respectively.
Asked why he dropped out of the first two programmes, he shared, “The first two programmes I didn’t decide for myself. At that time, I didn’t see that I had a problem. I always told myself that I can handle it, I can work. I’ve never slept on the road or lost my home; I had my family. I used drugs, I built a family and I thought everything was good…”
He pointed out that his time so far at the rehab centre has been “very good”. He said, “When I came here, I was more open-minded to my suggestions and what was being taught to me. I had a better chance to look into myself and I had counsellors who were there…I could have had a one-on-one with them if anything was bothering me…”
It has been proven that people abuse drugs/alcohol for varying reasons. According to Bess, while the rehab process helps one to stop using drugs, recovering addicts must adapt ways to “handle themselves”.
He emphasised, “…to deal with society as a whole and to deal with their anger. When you have them there and you don’t let go and you don’t have anyone to talk to, a person could just explode and use drugs. Drugs take everything off for a while. When the drug wears away, it is there again and you keep using drugs just to keep it away.”
Bess, who hails from Essequibo, believes he is on the road to recovery.

Self-medicate
Meanwhile, Blackman-Busby’s addiction to drugs resulted in his deportation from the USA where he lived for many years. This musician/entrepreneur believes that a lack of parental guidance was mainly responsible for his reliance on drugs.
“I just didn’t have that parental guidance. I lost my mother at a very early age, at the age of five. I was living with her… I didn’t have a father for a number of years; I met him later in life. It is just a number of parental type of things and having losses and deaths so I self-medicated myself.”
Reflecting on his earlier life, Blackman-Busby said, “I lived in America and I was sent back to Guyana due to incriminating type of things. I’m a remigrant, but I didn’t plan on doing it…So, I came back as a deportee and I have been here for 11 years…just living life.”
The recovering addict related that his time at the rehab centre has been going “very well”. He said that he has been there for seven months and during that time, he was able to do introspection.
“I found what was habit-forming for me and was able to see exactly what I needed to correct in myself. I was very fortunate to have counsellors who were proactive in relation to looking inside and finding what behaviour I needed to change,” Blackman-Busby related.
He articulated that he is very fortunate, thankful, and grateful for the Salvation Army for giving him a second chance at life. Going forward, Blackman-Busby sees himself becoming a salvationist. “I see myself being successful, taking up various other subjects in relation to music and being an example to fellow Guyanese and persons in the Caribbean.”

Changing lives
Meanwhile, the rehab centre’s Administrator, Major Pierre Antoine, who is also a minister of religion, shared that the lives of scores of young men have been saved since the existence of the SAMSC.
“Specifically those who are drug addicts. Their lives have changed completely and to God, we gave the glory,” he said while noting that 20 men are presently enrolled in the six-month rehabilitation programme.
According to him, the programme consists of various components such as skills training, anger management, counselling, relapse prevention, self-esteem, personal threat, steps to recovery, types of addiction, spirituality, and pastoral care. Despite these interventions, there are still cases of relapses, but Major Antoine said that the centre’s success rate is at 75 per cent.
He said, too, that the rehab centre offers counselling to school-age children as young as 12.  Upon completing the programme, persons can either go home or get accommodations at the centre’s halfway house.
“The halfway house is to make sure that they do not go back to the same substance,” Major Antoine pointed out, adding that persons are required to sign in whenever they leave or return to the halfway house.
This, he added, is to ensure that the men are reintegrated into their families and society and become socially acceptable and productive citizens. Currently, there are only two men at the centre’s halfway house.

Disciplinary
Meanwhile, the centre’s Senior Counsellor Reverend D. Andrew Hoyte spoke about the various treatments used.
He explained, “The approach used here is a type of psychotherapy referred to as disciplinary where we use discipline as the process through which the individuals can develop a particular attitude of determination and avoidance and to deal with themselves in terms of self-organisation and management in order to handle and harness their habits.”
This process has proven to be very effective, noted Hoyte who holds a doctorate in counselling. Another module included in the rehab programme is emotional intelligence. Dr Hoyte highlighted that this helps persons to intelligently handle their emotions.
“And to do that means you must be able to say no when there is a need to say no, and yes when there is a need to say yes. Anytime there is something outside of you with the power to tell you how to act and you are acting out of that, there is a problem, and that needs rehabilitation.”
Importantly, Dr Hoyte pointed out “anytime that anyone is coming into a rehabilitation centre, that decision has to foremost be made by the individual himself/herself” .
While it is “excellent” for family members to think their loved ones need to be at a rehab centre, Dr Hoyte pointed that if that individual does not make that decision of their own free will, when they come to the centre, they do not want to stay because they make it very clear “I didn’t make this choice”.
To this end, he said that during the intake process, the centre screens individuals to ensure that they are deciding to change by themselves. Moreover, the counsellor highlighted that the first four years of a child’s life are very important because it is during this stage that they develop their personality.
He, therefore, cautioned parents, “The hands of the persons in which you place your children are very important. A lot of what our men suffer today is because of what has happened between ages one and four.”
“Parents have to go to work, so they put the children in Aunty’s hand, or Mommy’s hand or some friend’s hand, and then when they reach 14 or 15, they start using drugs and you wonder why,” he added.
“But when you come here, I take you through the process, I want to know where your personality is located and how it was before we start to treat you,” Dr Hoyte noted as he outlined his approach to treatment.
Both Major Antoine and Dr Hoyte expressed that the social centre has been doing a very good job in contributing to the development of society. The centre continues to open its doors to people from all walks of life and even assists those who cannot afford to offset the cost of the programme.
Recognising that a multi-sectoral approach is needed to tackle domestic violence, very soon the Salvation Army Men’s Social Centre will launch a plan to combat this societal scourge. Having worked as a counsellor for over 20 years, Dr Hoyte noted that domestic violence has penetrated Guyana, other Caricom member states, and the rest of the world.