REFLECTIVE INSIGHT #006 - THE CHEMICAL OR THE CAGE: WEAVING OUR PEOPLE BACK INTO THE LIGHT

A different story

A while ago, I was sitting in a workshop with people who work with addiction. I heard stories that did not fit the usual script we are given. We have been told for a hundred years that certain chemicals are like a hook that never lets go. But the data shows something else. Why does one person use a substance and walk away, while another loses everything to it?

The answer is not found in a lab, it is found in the Woven Universe. When a person is cut off from their land, their family, and their purpose, they are living in a state of disorder. This is what we see too often in Taitokerau.

The experiment

There was a famous study called Rat Park. Scientists found that rats kept in a lonely, empty cage would drink drugged water until they died. But rats in a park-with friends, space, and things to do-mostly ignored the drugs. The conclusion was simple: the opposite of addiction is not just staying clean, it is connection.

Our tūpuna called this connection whanaungatanga. It is a law of nature. When the cage of our society starts to break, people look for ways to dull the pain. The tragedy in the North is that we often try to fix this by using more force-arresting people and putting them in smaller cages. This just cuts the last threads of their connection to the world.

The heart of Ihu

Ihu (Yeshua's name in the Paipera Tapu) showed us that the way to heal someone is to bring them back into the fold. He did not look for reasons to exclude people, he looked for ways to reconnect them.

"What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?" (Matthew 18:12, NKJV)

"He aha tō koutou whakaaro? Mehemea he rau ngā hipi a tētahi tangata, ā ka kotiti tētahi, e kore rānei ia e whakarere i ngā mea e iwa tekau mā iwa ki runga i ngā maunga, ka haere ki te rapu i te mea i kotiti rā?" (Translated from the original Greek: ean genētai tini anthrōpō hekaton probata)

A model that works

We have a model working right now in the North called Te Ara Oranga. Instead of a war on drugs, it is a partnership between the police and health workers. When we stop seeing someone as a problem and start seeing them as a person in distress, everything changes.

The results are amazing. There is a huge reduction in crime, and for every dollar we spend on this connection, our community gets seven dollars back in value. That is not just being nice, it is a high-efficiency way to restore the life force of our people.

The cure is us

The fix is simple but big. We must stop punishing people for being lonely and start feeding the soil of connection. We need a community where no one is left out because of a mistake in their journey.

Look at your cousin or your neighbour. They are not broken, they are just disconnected. In our woven world, you are the medicine. Your respect and your refusal to write them off is what weaves the world back together. Wairua Tapu guides us to be weavers, not wardens.