Mary is a Mental Health Counselor at the New York Harm Reduction Educators in Harlem.

Q: When did you begin with NYHRE?

About five years ago. I had been teaching ESL and College English and I started using drugs. I had to go to detox- I got more dysfunctional.

About a year later I came to NYHRE. I started as a volunteer, then part time as the literary specialist- English, fiction, and writing. I started an autobiography writing group, doing two of them.

Then Edith trained me as a mental health counselor two years ago and I was hired full time.

Q: How has that gone?

It’s great. It’s fascinating. It’s so- the thing that’s really striking- the mental health work is not that different at all from teaching. Working with young college people, the problems they have, problems with communicating. Language empowers them, too.

As a teacher you serve as a parental figure.

Both require listening. Now I read people instead of books- and people are just as fascinating. I can do more in this field than before- I don’t have to give grades. Before there were always assignments, tests…

“Now I read people instead of books- and people are just as fascinating.”

Q: How did your drug use begin?

 I am 50 now. I actually started heroin when I was 18 or 19- as a teenager. Then I went away to college- Bard- and forgot all about drugs. That was my plan, to go far away, forget about drugs, join the choir. That’s what I did for 18 years.

At graduate college at Brown I met a fellow doing drugs. He was in this chic group of students working in film. He wrote avant-garde pieces. He kept offering me heroin. And two years later I was depressed and he offered me drugs and I did them.

I was using heroin then another year and a half and then I was on methadone for eight years. That ended three years ago.

Q: How was your detoxing experience?

 I could not have done it the traditional way. I went from 75mgs to 22mgs, but I couldn’t go from 22mgs to nothing. I’m not someone who can feel pain.

So I found buprenorphine and it really worked. When I wanted and was ready to give up the methadone, the buprenorphine really worked. I had no sleepless nights, no depression, no stomach cramps, nothing.

Buprenorphine is used to cover the worst of [methadone] withdrawal symptoms. Usually you use 1-6 months. But I was so paranoid about the pain I used it for a year before I started tapering down. You still go through withdrawal with Buprenorphine, but nowhere near the withdrawal of methadone or heroin. You might get a little nervous, but nowhere near the horrible symptoms.

Q: What’s it like working with Edith?

Thinking through my own ideas about it- based on what I’ve read, what I’ve learned from Edith- I consider it the equivalent of the best master’s degree program in the best college. I’m lucky.

Learning about manic depression from a book or being told by someone else is very different from seeing it and having to think through it myself.

You are taught in social service agencies never to touch a client- to never say, “I love you,” to offer yourself as a friend, not to use your first name, that you have to be able to distinguish yourself from the client.

But I’ve been on both sides and I remember what it’s like and I don’t want to make the same mistakes people made with me. I know what it’s like to be mistreated.

I’ve been in places where if you miss appointments, you’re bad. Here, we don’t require appointments.

“…the people who come here hate themselves…”

Q: How is New York City handling the drug problem?

I don’t think it’s doing a good job. I would like to think it’s ignorance and not on purpose, but they must be enlightened enough to know about Harm Reduction.

People who use drugs are not bad people. It’s a health problem, not a criminal one.

The worst obstacle to fight against here is that the people who come here hate themselves because of their drug use.

But since the Egyptians at least, people have been using drugs. Drugs are much older than the laws against them- most people don’t know that.