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Do a test on this first?
Yep.
[Inaudible]
(Conference organizer): Testing - test for CART.
[Inaudible]
(Conference organizer): So thank you folks for coming to the third workshop
for the day. So before we begin, before the workshop, we're gonna obviously
take the time to acknowledge that this building and this land occupy a portion of the
Mississauga and the [inaudible] First Nations land, and as settlers on this land
it is our responsibility to honour, to protect, and to sustain it, but also to - in our
conversation - to be cognisant of the continual project of colonization
[Inaudible]. We also want to work collectively to create safer spaces, so
oftentimes - the pa - the mic will be passed around to have question and answer -
we're - we're happy about having dialogue and discourse, but we ask that everyone
be cognisant of the language, the actions, and being cognisant of sharing the
space collectively. So this workshop is both simultaneously translated into
ASL and also we're using CART service, so just housekeeping notes,
oftentimes when the mic gets passed around, if one of the interpreters asks you
to repeat something, or to clarify a name or to clarify something, just - do that,
and be okay with being interrupted. The same thing with CART, also, we -
oftentimes the computer will freeze, or if you're not speaking directly into the mic,
our CART translators from Texas won't be able to hear you. So just make sure
that - everyone - if you ever speak into a mic, that you're speaking
directly into it! And if you - yeah. That's generally it. So yeah, we're going
to pass it along to Sobriety as Accessibility: Interrogating Intoxication Culture.
We have moderators and speakers.
[Applause]
(Geoff): Thank you Kylie! Victor, are you good? Okay. [Inaudible]
(Amy): Sure! My name is Amy Saunders and I'm talking about the
relationship between drugs, alcohol, nationalism, and colonialism, and I will
be the last speaker of the panel.
(Clementine): Hi everyone! I'm Clementine Morrigan and I'm going to be
looking at intoxication culture through a gendered lens.
(Geoff): Hi, my name is Geoff, and I'm going to be examining the addict
constructed through the normal and abnormal body,
and also the addict as disposable.
(James): My name's James Damaskinos, I'm a moderator of this panel.
I'm a second-year law student at Osgoode Hall in Univers-- York
University and I'm very excited to have this conversation with you guys.
(Quinto): My name's Quinto Zimmerman, I'm also one of the moderators for this
event. I'm a disability activist in Toronto and I'm really pleased
to be here with all of you!
(Geoff): So I'm just gonna start. I should be dead. Isn't that how the story usually
goes? Boy is troubled, he rebels, boy gets into drugs. He has fun for a bit. Boy
begins to struggle, he becomes addicted and continues to struggle.
continues to struggle even more, becomes desperate and lifeless. Boy is
found dead. Or is the story that someone struggles with addiction and the
family gathers itself to initiate an intervention?
We all have common - a common imagination and understanding of what
addiction is and what it looks like. What does the addict or the alcoholic look
like? What does the non-addicted figure look like? When you think about
addiction, do you first think about death, destruction, and decay before you
would ever think about life and beauty? When you imagine an addicted, drug-
infested area in the city, do you first think about areas like Parkdale, Regent
Park, or Queen and Sherbourne before you would ever think about Bay Street?
Audience member: Watch what you say about Parkdale! I live in Parkdale.
Geoff: I've lived in Parkdale too.
Addiction is more than the tradedy and the intervention. Addiction is more
than fighting stigma and more than a "Defeat Denial" campaign. Addiction is rich
with experience, histories, and stories. Addiction warps the idea of what a life
should be and what kind of life is considered worth living. Addiction is more than
a life just waiting to die. Do we regularly think about addiction in this way?
For the purpose of this presentation, I will be proposing a theory: a person's
relationship to a particular substance, in conjunction with their identity markers,
works to govern how this person is treated and how they treat others. I will
begin by describing the concepts that have influenced this theory; starting with
the individual and social models of disability, followed by discussing the idea of
intoxication culture. Next, I will describe how normative drinking works to
construct the abnormal addict. I will continue to describe how intoxication culture
works to socially construct addiction as a life not worth living. I will conclude my
talk by conceptualizing sobriety as accessibility and resistance.
Before I begin, I would like to highlight the scope of our presentation. Our work
and talk will primarily focus on the constructions of the addicted and
non-addicted body. We are not here to discuss the different reasons why people
use substances, but how these choices impact people's lives. I would like to
acknowledge that everyone in this room has a different relationship to
substances whether you use or not. Further, intoxication culture impacts our
communities in different ways. Clementine will discuss the impact of
intoxication culture on women and Amy will discuss the intersections of
colonization, class, race, and addiction. I would like to highlight that
intoxication culture affects our gay, lesbian, transgender, ***, racialized,
recovery, and disabled communities in different ways. Lastly, for us, we are
not just talking theory. For us, we are discussing our lives at stake here.
Mike Oliver describes the individual model of disability as locating disability
within the individual, compared to the social mode-- model that locates
disability in the organization of society. The individual model would describe
disability as a problem in need of a solution. Further, disability would - would
be defined as an abnormal, inhibiting condition that re-- that requires medical
intervention in order to bring this condition to the closest state of a normal
body. The individual model would describe addiction as an individual problem
and such a tragedy. Addiction is understood as a chronic, progressive, and
fatal illness and if you do not pursue rehab or treatment, the rest of your life
will be miserable until the day you die.
In contrast, the social model of disability would argue that society works to
disable people be creating barriers, either physical or social, that work to
exclude and restrict society's interaction with individuals. In this way, society
disables people by promoting cultures of exclusion through creating barriers
instead of creating cultures of inclusion by creating access. For example, if
there was a series of steps that would, like, lead into the room, people using
a mobility device like a motorized scooter or wheelchair would face a barrier to
entering the room. In this way, the building planning and architecture work to
disable people who use mobility devices. The stairs would be a physical barrier
while the lack of consideration for people that use mobility devices would be
the social barrier. Having a ramp in addition to stairs would be a way of
creating access into this room.
What would an application of the social model look like in relation to
addiction? In her blog titled "Leaving Evidence", disability justice organizer
Mia Mingus wrote, "We must, however, move beyond access by itself. We
cannot allow the liberation of disabled people to be boiled down to logistics.
We must understand and practice an accessibility that moves us closer to
justice, not just inclusion or diversity." Disability studies scholar Eliza Chandler
reaffirmed Mingus' work, saying "Accessibility is more than just creating
access into a room, it's a - it's about promoting a culture of access and
justice within a space." Is there a possibility of justice for the addict? Or is
the idea of justice negated by the emphasis that addiction is an individual
problem, not a societal problem?
In "Towards a Less *** Up World: Sobriety and Anarchist Struggles",
Nick Riotfag defines intoxication culture as "A set of institutions, behaviours,
and mindsets centred around consumption of drugs and alcohol." Intoxication
culture can be though as the weekend ritual of getting wasted, the glorified
culture of drug dealing, the Canadian identity of beer drinking and
peace-loving citizens projected by Molson Canadian, or even simply having
a glass of wine with a meal - or even this weekend, celebrating for St. Patty's
Day as well, too. We live in a culture that promotes substance use as a way
of medicating the body and mind, as well as a social lubricant that offers an
escape from the pressures of reality. We live in a culture that rewards those
who use particular substances in a particular way, while punishing those who
who do not use substances in this way. Could we consider intoxication culture a
societal barrier that restricts access for the social participation of addicts?
Within intoxication culture, there is a drug hierarchy that works to dictate what
ideal substance use should be. At the top of this hierarchy, I would argue that
the consumption of alcohol in a fun, yet controlled way is the preferred type
of substance use. This normative substance use is the standard that others
are judged. How many addicts or alcoholics in this room have ever wished that
they could just use normally? By judging ourselves against the norm, we work
to define ourselves as the abnormal. What does alcohol use look like in
comparison to crack or *** use? On the opposite end of the spectrum,
chronic, compulsive crack, crystal ***, or *** use - or even recently,
bath salts use - is quite the undesired form of use. In this way, it is not just
your relationship to what substance you use but how you use it that impacts
the way you are treated. For example, for a bunch of Bay Street bankers,
socializing over drinks at a bar may lead to building networks and closing
business deals. In this way, drinking aids to materially and socially benefit
these bankers by maintaining their class privilege. In contrast, a - a group of
homeless people drinking on the street corner gives police due cause to start
questioning this group and potentially arresting them. Further, due to their
class status, homeless individuals are excluded from private places to drink
and are forced to drink in public spaces like bathrooms, parks, and the
streets, where they become highly visible. In these examples, class status,
the type of drink, how the drinking occurs, and the space where the drinking
occurs differentially affects how a person is treated: the bankers are rewarded
through privilege and the homeless group is punished. When we begin to
think about a person's relationship to a substance - the substance - to a
substance and consider their social location, we can begin to understand how
the treatment is legitimized and injustice occurs. Further, instead of examining
addiction as an indiviaul problem, we can begin to examine how addiction
is perpetuated by systemic factors like lack of affordable housing, poverty,
and social isolation.
As part of the "Defeat Denial" campaign, the Centre for Addiction and Mental
Health (CAMH) created an ad that reads as follows: In quotations and in
capital letters - or capital writing:
"ANYONE CAN QUIT - JUST TRY HARDER." Following, it reads:
"Most people don't understand addiction. That's why 2 out of 3 people
suffer in silence." In my paper titled "Rolling With the Sickness: Our Lives Are
Not Just Pain", I argue that CAMH needs non-addicted people to understand
addiction as suffering in order to convince them to refer addicts to their -
to refer addicts to their institution and legitimize their position.
As suggested earlier, normative drinking is done in a fun yet controlled way.
This ad would suggest that for people who cannot quit, that there is
something wrong with them. In this way, addiction is then understoof as
lacking in capacity; the inability to cope and stop. The non-addicted person
needs to understand addiction as unable - as abnormal in order to affirm their
position as able is normal. Further, non-addicted people need to understand
addiction as suffering, otherwise there would be no point of referring them
to CAMH and the likes as well, too.
In the book titled "Rethinking Normalcy: A Disability Studies Reader", Rod
Michalko asserts that suffering becomes normalized for the disabled body.
When addiction is only thought of as an abnormal, suffering condition, it is
then easy to think of addiction as an individual problem in need of a solution
that can alleviate this condition. Additionally, suffering is naturalized for the
addict: if a person is using substances in addictive ways, suffering is par--
is expected to be a part of that edxperience. When suffering is normalized
and naturalized for the addict, rehabilitation and treatment are legitimized
to only address addiction as an individual problem, not a systemic one.
As an addict in recovery, suffering is a part of my experience but is not my
whole story. I often say that addicts are viewed as the *** of the earth.
When we don't comply to normative intoxication culture, if we are sober, we
are thought of as boring. In contrast, if we are using substances in an
abnormal way, we are thought of as hopelessly weak and eventually
considered to be a lost cause. When addicts are thought of as write-offs,
the consequences are violent and deadly. In the book titled "Society Must
Be Defended", Michel Foucault states, "Biopolitics deals with the
population, with the population as a political problem, as a problem that
is at once scientific and political, as a biological problem and as power's
problem." Following, in the book "Terror Assemblages: Homonationalism
in *** Times", Jasbir Puar furthers this concept of biopolitics, asserting
that "In the - whoops - in the biopolitical control of populations, no one is
left out, though many are left behind." Addicts are part of the population
that is to be left behind; to be killed or to be left for dead.
Two summers ago, a dear friend of mine was living in a sober supportive
living house and one of his roommates went missing. The missing roommate
was found dead in his room and had overdosed. He had been dead for
over 24 hours. Emergency services carried the late gentleman out on a
stretcher, not a body bag. As EMS proceeded to carry out his body, his head
hit the wall. My friend said that he was treated "just like any other addict."
Although dead, this man was considered to be not deserving of a body bag.
This story illustrated how addicts are considered to be disposable and less
than human. If this is how the addict - if this is how addicts are treated when
they are dead, how are addict - how are addicts treated when they are
alive? Is there a difference? If addicts are considered to be a population of
write-offs, would that not assert that we are already considered dead?
Earlier this week, former drunk, harm reduction worker, and dear friend
Patrick pointed out that "It's worthwhile to consider sobriety as a barrier to
accessibility for people dealing with addictions but not in a position to become
abstinent." This is significant because addicts exist the furthest on - a -
these addicts exist the furthest on the margins and are the most susceptible
to the violent consequences as a result of their substance use. When
considering sobriety as access - as accessibility, how can we create
communities of inclusion - not exclusion - to addicts who are not sober?
As an addict, I would not consider my sobriety to be radical. I am staying
sober for my life. I would consider it to be a point of privilege in my
marginalized experience. Additionally, I would consider drinking to be a
privilege for non-addicted people. A person who has a choice to drink, that
chooses not to drink in a context where the drinking - where the expectation
is to drink, is a form of radical sobriety.
To the non-addicted who have a choice to drink in this room: would you
consider this choice to be a privilege? If not, how come? If so, what do you
do with this privilege? Do you use your privilege to create communities of
exclusion or inclusion? Does your choice in drink promote unity among your
communities or does it create divisions? Does the culture of intoxication you
participate in work to create acces or barrier to those of us addicted?
To the addicted who are sober and participate in 12-step fellowships: do you
feel your compulsion to drink or use is really just your problem, or does
intoxication culture affect your addiction or alcoholism? It is important to note
that as addicts and alcoholics, we will always exist on the margins of normalcy,
no matter how clean or sober we get. This is important because with sobriety
comes the expectation of comformity to normative societal roles. Is this the way
- is this what you always wanted - to be normal? Aside from your participation
in 12-step fellowships, have you ever considered politicizing your sobriety?
Have you ever considered sobriety as resistance? Will you work to navigate
systems of normalcy, knowing you are different, or will you use your privilege
in sobriety to seek justice for marginalized communities?
To the addicted who are sober but who do not attend 12-step meetings; to
the addicted who use and have complex relationships with substances; to
the addicted who prefer harm reduction over abstinence; to the non-addicted
who have complicated relationships with substances related to experiences
of abuse or violence; to the non-addicted whose lifestyle choices do not
allow them to participate in normative drinking; to the folks who use medication
and substances to manage pain: your experiences disrupt normalcy. Please
continue to share your experiences as it works to challenge - challenge
imaginations of what addiction is and how intoxication culture affects everyone in
different ways. I would like to close with a quote from Nick
Riotfag: "Instead of being accountable to authority, I want us to be
actually accountable to each other.
A pretty important part - a pretty important part is that being able to come
together as radical communities and have conversations about how alcohol
and drugs impacts our work, our spaces, our relationships, and our unity,
and to figure out what sorts of agreements and boundaries makes sense for us."
Thank you.
[Applause]
(Clementine): Intoxication culture is a culture that defines a normal person as
a person who drinks and who drinks normally. Normal drinking
- normal drinking, often referred to as social drinking, is a broad range
of behaviours including drinking alcohol with a meal; getting drunk on the
weekends as a social activity; including alcohol as part of celebrations;
serving alcohol during social and professional events; and generally taking
it for granted that consuming alcohol is a normal part of adult life. Like all
categories positioned as normal, normal drinking is defined by what it
deems as abnormal. Intoxication culture needs addicts and alcoholics to
perform the role of abnormal in order to define itself as the norm.
Addicts and alcoholics are the shadow of intoxication culture. We define its
edges and boundaries. Our dysfunctional consumption renders the
consumption of intoxication culture functional.
In his paper "The Social Model of Disability", Tom Shakespeare explains
the difference between the social and individual models of disability. He
writes that the individual model "Defines disability in terms of individual
deficit" and the social model "Defines disability as a social creation - a
relationship between people with impairment and a disabling society." This
framework can be used to understand the construction of the alcoholic and
addict within intoxication culture. Through the individual mode, the alcoholic
and addict is understoof as someone who is unable to live up to the
standards of normal drinking set out by intoxication culture. There is
something wrong with the alcoholic and addict which make them unable to
drink normally. The social model moves the gaze from the alcoholic and
addict and turns it on intoxication culture itself. The social model asks us to
consider that intoxication culture produces a standard of alcohol consumption
and positions it as the norm. The pervasiveness and unquestoined role of
alcohol consumption in our lives creates barriers for those of us who cannot
or do not want to consume alcohol in a normal way. For those of
us who need to stay sober in order to stay alive, intoxication culture
can be incredibly alienating and inaccessible.
Intoxication culture is dependent on the alcoholic and addict to remain
normal. It needs an abject other through which to define itself. The other
through which it defines itself is not static, however. Just as what is
considered normal drinking shifts depending on the context, so is the
alcoholic and addict constructed in multiple ways. The construction of
the alcoholic and addict, and thus the treatment of the alcoholic and addict,
varies based on a number of factors. Alcoholism and addiction intersect in
various ways with other social categories such as race, sex, class, ability,
age, *** orientation, trans or cis identity, and so on. The construction of
the alcoholic and addict also varies based on the substances the alcoholic
or addict most commonly consume and the ways in which they consume
them. My focus today will be on the construction of the female alcoholic
and addict, which is always complicated by other intersecting social
positions. The narratives attached to the female alcoholic and addict's body
that I will be considering are: the perpetual *** availability of the female
alcoholic and addict's body, the female alcoholic and addict's body as a place
of inherent victimization, and the drunk or high woman as a transgressor of
gendered boundaries. I argue that intoxication culture constructs the female
addict and alcoholic in particular ways which produce and legitimize a culture
of *** violence and violence against women. I challenge all of us to
consider the ways that intoxication culture is complicit in a larger culture
of *** violence. Recently I came across the work of a local photographer
who takes pictures of drug-addicted, homeless, and street-involved people
in Toronto. The photographs offer a voyeuristic look into the world of
poverty and addiction from a safe and comfortable distance. They allow
non-addicts and housed, non-street- involved people to consume addiction
and homelessness. While the photographs are presented as a real and
uncensored view of addiction and street life they are, I argue, a
construction. Like all representations, they say more about the producer
and consumers of the images than they do about the people being photographed.
I will not be sharing these images with you today because I do not want to
further add to the exploitation of marginalized members of our communities
[faint applause] but I bring them up because I think they offer important
insight into the ways addiction is cons -- is constructed and
conceptualized. A full and complex analysis of these images would be
useful but is beyond the scope of the work we are doing here today. What I
would like to draw attention to is a striking and specific way that women are
presented in these pictures. In several of the photographs the women are
completely naked. None of the men are photographed this way. While I argue
that all of the images are constructions and not objective renditions of "truth",
I am struck by the specificity and the implications of this construction.
The street-involved and drug-addicted woman is presented as already
completely naked. Her body and her sexuality are on display, accessible
to the voyeuristic photographer and viewer. The already invasive camera
lens becomes even more invasive when it is turned on the body of a woman.
This representation of the female addict as sexually accessible is not
new. It is a commonly held belief that a drunk or high woman is at risk of,
or even asking for, *** assault. In an article entitled "How to Prevent
Date ***" on a website called "WikiHow", the first three suggestions
pertain to regulating alcohol use. They are: "Avoid becoming intoxicated
in public and at parties -- keep yourself to a 1 - 2 drink limit"; "Always keep
your eye on every bev - beverage you consume"; and "Once you lose sight
of your drink, do not consume it anymore." These suggestions are meant
to be helpful and they may reduce a woman's likelihood of being assaulted.
However, they also reinforce a culture of *** violence in which date ***
is presented as a naturally occurring threat, one that it is women's
responsibility to prevent by participating in intoxication culture in particular
ways. The subtext is that a woman should know better than to get drunk
in public. Simultaneously, intoxication culture calls for public alcohol use.
This contradiction turns a woman's intoxication into the reason for her
assault. In order to be considered normal within the framework of intoxication
culture she needs to be able to consume alcohol socially and publicly,
yet if she does so this can be cited as the reason if she is sexually assaulted.
The link between alcohol consumption and vulnerability to *** violence
is a gendered one. It is not implicit within intoxication culture that anyone
who is publicly intoxicated is at risk of *** violence; that risk is
relegated to women. In her paper "Too Drunk To Say No" Anneke Meyer
writes that "The premise of alcohol consumption producing vulnerability
is selectively applied. It is not applied to men, whose binge drinking is
seen to cause aggressive... behaviour". This disparity indicates that
intoxication culture is complicit with a -- with a larger culture of ***
violence against women. The connection between *** violence and
alcohol use is not, as it is commonly believed, that alcohol makes people
vulnerable to assault because of their impaired judgment and awareness.
Rather, intoxication culture produces a script in which female drunkenness
is read as female *** accessibility. Meyer explains that when "Being
part of a drinking culture becomes the equivalent of consenting to sex...
women are effectively held accountable for *** involving alcohol."
addict or alcohol - alcoholic woman is - who is frequently intoxicated
becomes inherently sexually accessible. These constructions legitimize violence
and remove the responsibility from the perpetrator, placing it
onto the woman's intoxicated body. Rather than the assault being about
the perpetrator's violence, it becomes about the victim's intoxication. This
makes *** violence against female addicts and alcoholics an apparently
natural phenomenon, something that happens to her because of
the type of woman that she is. According to Meyer "*** involving alcohol is
reconfigured as a problem of female binge drinking, rather than male ***."
*** violence is not the only form of violence against women condoned
by intoxication culture. Physical violence is also legitimized by intoxication
culture as a means of re-gendering drunk or high women who have
transgressed the gendered boundaries of a white passive femininity. I will
use an example from my own experience to illustrate this point. During
the period of my life when I was actively drinking I experienced many
violent assaults, both physical and ***. Once after I had been binge
drinking for several hours, I was riding the streetcar with a female friend
who was also very drunk. We were joking and laughing with each other in
a very loud and obnoxious way and we were taking up a lot of space.
The behaviour we were exhibiting is behaviour not uncommonly exhibited by
groups of young, drunk men. The streetcar was crowded. A young man
sitting near us told us to "Shut the *** up." We continued with our
behaviour. Soon, a group of men standing near the exit started yelling at
us to be quiet. The streetcar driver then came over the PA system
and announced that we were being asked to leave the streetcar. We
got up and walked towards the exit, continuing our loud and obnoxious
behaviour. I stood on the step, ready to exit the streetcar. When the door
opened, a man standing behind me picked me up by my waist and threw
me face first off the streetcar. I landed on the street, breaking my glasses.
I was physically hurt and emotionally shocked by the violent act.
A group of men standing on the street who witnessed me being thrown off
the streetcar began to yell at the man who had thrown me, shouting things
like "That's not cool! You don't hit a woman!" After I had picked up the
pieces of my glasses and was standing on the sidewalk, the men continued
talking to me and my friend, stating that they couldn't believe what they
had just witnessed. One of the men casually said to another, "You don't hit
a woman. That's not right. The only time I ever hit a woman is when she
was acting like a man." When he said those words I realized why I had
been thrown off the streetcar. I was acting like a man. My drunk,
obnoxious, loud behaviour contradicted my small, female, feminine body.
I realized that the men currently offering their support would probably not
be if they had seen the behaviour I was exhibiting prior to my attack.
Because alcohol and drugs lower inhibitions they can offer an opportunity
for a drunk or high woman to act in ways that break traditional gender
roles. Violence is seen as a legitimate way to reinstate order
by returning her to a state of passivity.
Intoxication culture is complicit in a culture of *** violence and
violence against women. Within the structure of intoxication culture
are narratives that position alcoholic and addict women as inherently
sexually accessible; drunk and high women as asking for assault;
intoxicated female bodies as the source and cause of violence;
and physical violence as a legitimate means of reinstating gendered
order. Intoxication culture is not a neutral and natural state of affairs in
which violence occurs because of certain people's inability to drink
properly. Rather, it is a system which promotes and legitimizes violence
by producing a paradoxical situation in which women are expected to
drink publicly and then are blamed for doing so. The alcoholic and addict
are borders which delineate the normal from the abnormal. The state of
being both female and an alcoholic or addict is positioned as the reason
for the violence that happens to female alcoholics and addicts. Binge
drinking, which often falls into the category of normal behaviour within
intoxication culture, can shift and become constructed as the failure of the
drinker and the cause of her assault. These narratives which are sewn into
the fabric of intoxication culture remove all responsibility for violence from
the perpetrator. Violence becomes natural and women are encouraged to
"drink responsibly", but of course are still encouraged to drink. It is a
"damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.
I am an alcoholic and an addict. I cannot safely consume drugs or alcohol
because I cannot control the amount that I consume. I am also a woman.
The intersection of my femaleness and my alcoholism has created a
narrative which states that I was not really assaulted when I was, and that
I was really asking for it when I was not. While I was actively drinking, my
life was dangerous and I was frequently assaulted. On top of the trauma
from being assaulted I also experienced the shame and guilt imposed upon
me from a culture that insists this violence was partially, if not entirely,
my fault. For a long time I continued to try to drink normally so that I could
feel included and welcomed in a culture that pervasively and uncritically
includes and insists upon alcohol use. I have been asked many times why
I can't just "drink normally" and I tortured myself for years, risking my life
many times in search of the answer. In "Disability Politics and Theory", A.J.
Withers suggests that the social model, while a definite improvement from
the individual model, is not enough. They write, "We put social meaning
onto people's bodies and minds. Impairment shifts depending on the
context that it is experienced is... There is no such thing as a biological
reality that creates impairment; impairment is socially constructed and
imposed upon us, just as disability is". They offer the radical model as an
alternative. "Radical disability politics", they write, "is grounded in the belief
that the systems that oppress us, not us, are fundamentally flawed". The
individual model says there is something wrong with me, that I am flawed
for being unable to consume alcohol normally. The social model says that
intoxication culture defines itself through abnormal drinkers like me, creating
a situation where my inability to drink is constructed as a failure. The
radical model says that intoxication culture is inherently flawed, that
defining normalcy through a standard of alcohol consumption is oppressive.
Now that I am sober and in recovery I still regularly have to be in
environments where alcohol is served and where people are getting drunk.
If I want to go to a music or art show, a social event, out to dinner, or even
ride the subway on a Friday night, I have to be around intoxication because
I am living in an intoxication culture. This can be difficult for me because I
need to not drink in order to stay alive and I am committed to staying alive
[laughter from audience]. For those of you who are not addicts or
alcoholics, for those of you who are not positioned as sexually accessible
if you drink, for those of you who do not see a problem with the fact that
the vast majority of social event - events include alcohol, I am asking you
to turn on your critical analysis. For those of you who are alcoholics and
addicts, in recovery or actively using, for those of you who have been told
you don't consume alcohol "normally", for those of you who are positioned
as at risk for assault if you get drunk or high, I am inviting you to politicize
your experience. I am asking all of us to look at and think deeply about
the role that alcohol and drug consumption play in our lives and the way
this impacts alcoholics, addicts and so-called normal drinkers. I am asking
all of us to consider the ways that intoxication culture promotes a culture
of *** violence and for all of us to take responsibility for that, instead
of simply telling women to "drink responsibly". I am asking us to stop
taking intoxication culture for granted and to imagine that things could
be different. I am calling for radical sobriety as an alternative to intoxication
culture. Radical sobriety does not mean that none of us should use drugs
or alcohol. It does mean that we complicate, problematize, and question
our relationships to substances and our culturally produced standards of
alcohol use. Radical sobriety means a dedication to implementing sober
spaces in our communities; it means interrogating intoxication culture for
its role as an oppressive system and it means that we do this together.
Thank you.
[Applause]
(Amy): [Inaudible speech from an audience member] Hi.
So for the next fifteen minutes or so, I will be discussing the idea of
"intoxication culture" as a colonizing tool that has, over time, been used
to hail certain bodies into nation statehood, citizenship, and patriotism,
while damning others to be left in the margins. Also, I aim to look at how
this relationship between alcohol, drugs, nationalism, and colonization is
structured through space. I will be engaging with these ideas through a
lens that is critical of colonialism.
My work is drawn upon the research I have done in areas of colonialism,
law, race, and space theory. I mainly draw upon the work of Sherene
Razack and Nick Riotfag, in tandem with the ideas and theories of
Judith Halberstam as they relate to identity and space construction.
(Interpreter): Can I ask you to slow down?
(Amy): I'm sorry, I get s-- I speak really fast when I'm nervous. I'm so sorry.
Bear with me. No, I know. Okay.
(Interpreter): It's not a criticism, I just need you to slow down, that's all.
(Amy): Yeah, absolutely. Do you want me to repeat anything?
(Interpreter): Yeah, the last -- the authors, go back to the two --
(Amy): Just the authors?
(Interpreter): Names, back to that sentence, beginning of the [inaudible].
Thank you very much.
(Amy): No problem, sorry about that.
(Interpreter): No, no problem.
(Amy): My work is drawn upon the research I have done in areas of
colonialism, law, race, and space theory. I mainly draw upon the work
of Sherene Razack and Nick Riotfag, in tandem with the ideas of - and
theories of Judith Halberstam as they relate to identity and space construction.
So the position with which I approach my research is that of a white
cis-gender, *** woman from a low-income background. I also come
from a background of alcohol and drug -- drug abuse and am myself a
recovering addict and alcoholic. As I am merely presenting my thoughts
and ideas and the research I have done on this topic, I can only share
from this position of experience and research.
[Whispered] Slow down!
(Amy): I am so bad -- [inaudible]
(Interpreter): Just, no you know what, just if you slow down a bit, I'm
sorry. Thank you.
(Amy): No no, I - no problem.
(Interpreter): Thank you.
(Amy): So, the main questions of my research are: how does colonialism
speak to and construct the addict and a culture of intoxication? How is
this produced in time and space, and how does intoxication culture
continue to oppress certain populations, while rewarding others?
First, what is intoxication culture and why is it important for the
discussion of race and space construction?
I first came across this idea in Nick Riotfag's anarchist zine "Towards a
Less *** Up World". This specific issue is titled "Sobriety and
Anarchist Struggle". I consider intoxication culture to be a culture in which
intoxication is not only normalized but also expect - expected. For the
purposes of my research, I understand intoxication culture to be a culture
within which spaces have been constructed in order to normalize the
capitalistic enterprise of inebriation, pushing those who do not wish --
sorry -- pushing those who do not wish to engage in such a transaction
to the margins of intelligibility.
I express that the idea of intoxication culture is important to the conversation
of race as it relates to alcohol consumption and space construction,
because I take the position that intoxication culture is in itself a tool of white
supremacy. I argue that this tool aims to encourage the passivity of
racialized communities and individuals. I argue that it does so while
constructing spaces that structure the relationships with alcohol and
drugs within oppressed communities and racialized individuals
as something "abnormal". Is that better? Okay.
Nick Riotfag addresses the prevalence of addiction within oppressed
communities. He discusses drug and alcohol use in Black communities,
Indigenous communities, and *** communities. Nick Riotfag also
acknowledges the role the state has played in the development of a
dependent relationship between oppressed communities and drugs,
such as the CIA involvement in the introduction of crack in
urban black communities in the United States.
As the -- as an example of a form of resistance, that I would argue
positions sobriety as a tool of decolonization, the Black Liberation
Movement rectified policies of prohibition within their communities; The
Zapatista societies of Mexico are dry communities; Indigenous communities
across Turtle Island ban alcohol -- ban and still do ban alcohol from their
communities and reserves as a form of identity reclamation and culture
regeneration. Riotfag quotes Frederick Douglass as stating, "When a
slave was drunk, the slaveholder had no fear that he would plan an insurrection;
no fear that he would escape to the north. It is the sober, thinking slave
who was dangerous, and needed the vigilance of his master to keep him
slave". As I have stated, I think it is important to acknowledge these
relationships and their utility for state rule and citizen pacification. For the
purposes of my research, I have sought answers to questions that pertain
to citizenship and patriotic rhetoric which, I argue, has been instrumental in
the development of relationships of dependence and the introduction of
drugs and alcohol into oppressed communities. What I find of interest here
is the spaces in which the relationship oppressed communities have had
with substances has encouraged a relationship of dependence, addiction,
and a larger societal stigmatization. Similarly, I have noticed that the
rhetoric of recovery follows a similar nationalistic, white supremacist,
capitalist discourse (which I unfortunately do not have time to go into
today). Drawing from this, I plan to discuss racial categories and identity
as a system that deciphers who can access nation, land and citizenship,
and how this interacts with alcohol, drugs, and recovery.
Razack states that race and space are constructed through "Racial and
spatial boundaries, as to keep the colonized in their place, which is to
be out of place". Razack is stating that the ways in which spaces are
constructed specifically in our North American -
(Geoff): Louder, sorry.
(Amy): Louder?
(Geoff): [inaudible]
(Amy): That's okay!
(Audience member/interpreter): Oh, sorry!
(Amy): - White supremacist culture, is to reduce the visibility of racialized
individuals and communities while selling the idea of assimilation to
these communities through various means. I would argue that one of
these means is the "proper method of intoxication and substance usage".
The construction of a -- I'm sorry -- the construction of a proper method
of intoxication creates a binarism that constructs an improper method of
usage, as Geoff has stated earlier in the presentation. As Razack argues
that the prospects of white supremacy are reliant on the construction of
space in racialized terms, I will, in tandem, argue that "improper usage"
or "improper inebriation'" within oppressed communities is seen as a
complication for nation statehood and as a threat and problem for white
supremacy. Sherene Razack considers the relationship between alcohol
policies and land settlement in British Colombia in her book, Race, Space
and the Law. In Chapter two Razack states that process -- that the
process of colonizing British Columbia was contingent on the strict
enforcement of liquor laws. The liquor laws enforced by white settler
government dictated who could drink, where, and with whom. As Razack
sugge-- suggests, "the regulation of liquor was about space".
As such, alcohol was once only available to citizens of the Canadian state,
not inclusive of Indigenous folks, before -- this is before the differentiation
of the status and non-status Indian came into existence. It was also
available only to those citizens who could reproduce state nationalism
through a heterosexual discourse. It has been evident through my research
that colonialism plays an important role in the est-- in the establishment
and normalization of heterosexuality. Upon discussing this with my
colleague, Clementine, she summed it up as such: "If you control who
drinks together, you control who ***". At first, I laughed at this thought
but then realized its truth and profundity. The relationship that alcohol,
colonialism and race have is such to continue a white statehood through
heterosexual procreation. It is space construction that ensures the
continuation of a "pure" white race which would continue the
legacy of the nation state.
(Geoff): Amy, we're gonna give you this one instead because it'll be better.
(Amy): Okay! Is it on?
(Geoff): It's on.
(Amy): This is -- oh, that's a lot better. Okay. So what I find interesting
about this relationship is that [inaudible comment from interpreter/audience]
-- Thank you. So what I find interesting about this relationship is that the
consumption and purchasing of liquor was once only available to white,
heterosexual - the white, heterosexual patriot subject. So where white
settlers were once the only ones allowed to purchase and
drink alcohol, Indigenous folks and people of colour were not
allowed to by legislative rule.
(Geoff): Slow.
(Amy): We can see these attitudes still prevalent in the marketing of certain
alcoholic products, such as Geoff mentioned earlier in his presentation with
a product such as Molson Canadian. Upon watching a commercial for
the product, it is almost impossible to not recognize the nationalistic rhetoric
prevalent in much of the company's marketing, where Canadian pride is
built on the consumption of this beverage, and once having purchased
and drank this product, you are able to claim "I am Canadian".
We can see this nationalist discourse manifest in certain spaces
constructed for the purposes of buying and consuming alcohol. For example,
I want you to imagine yourself walking down King Street on a Friday
night. The bars are full, and everyone is trying to get laid. Who do you
see? Who is in the bars? How old are they? What colour is their skin?
What is their gender representation? Now, how about if you imagine
yourself walking by Queen West and Bathurst at any given time of day or
night... Who do you see? How or what are they drinking? Are they using drugs
in a public space? Are they racialized or are they white? Spaces such as
these are constructed with invisible borders that are dictated by race as constructed
by white supremacy. In her research, Razack focuses on the illegality of alcohol
consumption for Native folks which defined a racial boundary that was
integral to the heterosexual policing of Native folks in British Columbia;
the Native identity was constructed as a non-heterosexual, non-white
"other" who threatened the white, Eurocentric compilation of nationalistic
identity. This, in turn, was concretized as heavily policed liquor laws and
laws pertaining to interracial sex relations.
As Razack notes in her work, liquor laws and the construction of spaces
and borders are also very much about sex. They are about the mixing of
cultures, an idea that reiterates eugenic ideas. It is through the colonization
of space that race can be managed, heterosexuality solidified, and the
"legacy of white Canadian statehood" continued.
This nationalistic consumption and intoxicat- intoxication is undoubtedly
reified through systems of white supremacy. I would argue that, as Geoff
stated earlier in the presentation, that the ideology of "othering" is used for
people to identify as addicted or non-addicted people. The idea of "othering",
as David Goldberg states, is used for white supremacy, constructs itself
by conceptualizing order anew, and then by reproducing spatial confinement
and separation in these "renewed terms". If we apply this idea to the
construct of the addict, we can see this as it relates to spatial construction in
urban areas. I think it's important that we question how these spaces have
come to exist, and through which processes can these invisible borders,
tied up in race, addiction, and discrimination, begin to be dismantled?
In her article, Razack discusses the legalization of alcohol for Indigenous
folks in Canada and the "problem of drunken Indianness" -- or, sorry, the
"problem of Indian drunkenness", excuse me - the state was then presented
with. This was faced with policies that once again outlawed the sale of
alcohol to Indigenous folks. The anxiety of the white Canadian state faced
in regards to the "problem of the drunken Indian" related to their desire to
build and reform a respectable white society, as the pervasiveness of
alcoholism and addiction in communities deeply affected and destroyed by
colonialism presented a problem to the sustaining of this patriotic imaginative.
I would like to briefly use an example -- I would like to briefly use an
example that I have come across in my research. In 2001 John Stackhouse,
a journalist for The Globe and Mail, published an article called "Welcome
to the -- Welcome to Harlem on the Prairies". The article as discussed by
Craig Proulx, a Metis professor of Anthropology at McMaster University,
claims to be written to empower Aboriginal folks who live in this "Harlem
on the prairies", while asking the reader to be the judge of the plausible --
of the plausibility of peaceful Aboriginal-- Settler relations. Instead, what
I find that Stackhouse does is utilize what I have discussed here, white
supremacist discourse and rhetorics of nationalism and racism, to
construct both the identities of racialized folks who he silences, and the
white authoritarian settler who he puts on a pedestal. Pictures that
accompany this article are those of "drunk Indians being carried into
police cars" and, of course, "concerned white police officers looking on"
and doing their duty for the nation state by sweeping the streets of this
Canadian Harlem clean of the problem of race integration in the pursuit
of maintaining borders constructed around race, alcohol consumption,
and drug consumption. In the article, the only racialized folks who are
given voice are those who work directly for the government through
judicial services. Upon investigating this relationship, Proulx quotes
Jeanne Guillemin in saying "Since the police and other keepers of the
peace in urban and reservation areas have the same values as rulers
of American society, they perceive public inebriation as an ultimate
degradation, a fall from civilization. They judge Indians who drink publicly
even more harshly than the individual white, because Indians as a group
seem to have been born uncivilized with no shame about their categorical
degradation". I urge all you to read the article "Welcome to Harlem on
the Prairies" by John Stackhouse and draw your own conclusions about
what is being said and what is being reified.
The privilege of those who are able to drink in certain spaces, such as
at bars on weekends and Friday ni-- and Friday nights, over lunch
with the buddies, or with mimosas at brunch with the girls are constructed
upon their relationship within racial borders that dictate who is not allowed
to access this privilege. It is this privileged relationship to alcohol and
drugs that is a large part of the patriotic imagination, which boasts
"proper consumption" as a nationalistic duty.
The statement I wish to close with is this: Given the nature of our culture
as one of intoxication and seeing the connections that intoxication has
with colonialism and racism, how can we work together towards a
community and a society that operates in a framework of accessibility?
This means an accessibility for racialized folks, status and non-status
Natives, immigrants, *** folks, the addicted and non-addicted alike.
I'd like to ask what this means for you personally. Does this mean you
interrogate your own relationship with substances and alcohol? Does it
mean you are more conscientious of the spaces in which you drink?
Or does it mean that you work with your community to make events
dry, alcohol-free, and accessible for all?
To interrogate intoxication culture we must truly investigate the ways in
which intoxication, alcohol, and drugs have shaped our lives and
experiences, as well as it has work - how it has worked to construct
ideas, identities and the spaces associated with those identities. It has
become evident to me, through my research, that to interrogate intoxication
culture is to interrogate a deep-rooted racist, nationalistic, and colonial
discourse. If we truly want to create a culture of accessibility, then we must
redefine our relationship with that which aims to render us incapacitated
to do so, both individually and collectively. Thank you.
[Applause]
(James): Well I'd just like to thank all our presenters tonight -- today,
rather -- it was an excellent presentation from you all. Let's have another
round of applause for everybody.
[Applause]
(Geoff): [Inaudible]
(James): Okay, so we have thirty minutes left for questions, so I'd just
like to invite the audience to pose their questions and I'll
hand the mic out to those who need it. Quinto will help out [inaudible]
(Audience member): Thank you. Okay. First of all, wow -- fantastic
presentations, and I'm so glad to see it -- hear it -- because I think, yeah,
it's too long in coming, too long we have talked about addiction only from
the medical model of disability and not looked at the social construction.
This is actually really the first time I've heard that talked about which... is
kind of a sad statement. I suppose I wanted to get your thoughts -- get
your reactions to -- situ-- the idea of situating -- you - you guys have
looked at intoxication culture in a very specific context with drugs and alcohol,
but I would want to throw out the idea -- throw out there into the floor -- the idea
of in fact broadening the notion of intoxication culture to think about
intoxicating -- consumerism as intoxication culture. I mean, is -- is not
the whole point of advertising to convince us that -- that -- that we need
substances -- things -- shopping -- you know, purchasing -- to make us
happy, to fulfill us, and in fact to instill in us the constant need to consume,
whether it's drugs or alcohol or, you know, DVDs or, you know, tech
gadgets, or whatever. And don't get me wrong, I love tech gadgets, but
you know? So I'm... I'm... I'm thinking -- the one thing I sort of didn't
hear -- someone did mention capitalism -- I'm glad someone said the
"C word", but, you know, to -- to talk about that larger context of
consumerism in fact pushing a - an intoxication culture and I think
your -- our -- our last speaker, I'm sorry I'm awful with names,
was *** on about it being a - a way of sort of trying to get us all to
not all [inaudible] to be able to think clearly about our
-- about our oppression. So I wanted to get your reactions to that.
[Inaudible]
(Amy): I guess I'll start with that one, thank you, I think that's a great
question and I would absolutely agree. You said broadening this idea
of intoxication culture to include consumerism in a capitalist culture and
I would absolutely agree. I think that that's totally what it is; I think it's
used for pacification, right, kind of as I stated in the presentation.
Does anybody else want to add to that?
That's kind of all I've got right now.
(Geoff): I guess I [inaudible] that, like I agree with your -- your thoughts,
and there is a culture of normative addictive consumerism, like,
that's what it is, right? And I think that it's -- what I've been thinking about
recently is, like, when we think about that idea there and we think about
the addictive consumerism, of like, I guess like, a lot of the part
of the world, and also what sort of implication does that have on,
like, the "real addict" in quotations? Like, talking about, like,
whatever, how many people identify, but how does that,
like, work together with each other?
(Interpreter): There's a question from the floor and to people
in the room who aren't aware, the person asking the question is deaf
and the voice you're hearing is that of the interpreter, so. So my
question is in two parts: my question -- the first part of my question is --
I - I want to ask the panelists -- I want to ask their view on -- so I
wanted to ask you about the use of prescription drugs and radical
society -- radical sobriety -- and the other -- [video cuts off].