Pavia, 27 June 2024 – “It is obsolete to talk about addictions, today we must talk about discomfort because they are there acts of self-harm, anxiety and panic attacks, eating disorders. They are all consequences of discomfort.” Simone Feder, educator and psychologistcoordinator of the area Young people and community addictions Pavia youth homewhere he is responsible for therapeutic facilities on the occasion of World Drug Day invites us to shift our attention.
“The average age of the boys that comes knocking on our door it is getting lower and lower – adds Feder –, we have very young playersand they arrive in the community as early as 14 years old, while their level of physical, legal, social and health impairment rises dramatically. All this under the eyes of a system which, blind to the situation and deaf to its constant reminders, limits itself to noticing them only when the drama appears in the columns of crime news or some tabloid reportage”.
From 2020 to 2022, the patients followed by the Pavia addiction service increased going from 3,200 people followed (including in prisons), to 3,442 in 2022, of which 1,496 in Pavia alone. 30% have an alcohol problem (for 6.82% the addiction is primary), which is transversal to all Serd patients aged from 14 to 83. 75% are adults (from 30 to 59 years old or from 30 to 49 if they are prisoners), but there is 3.8% of adolescents and 15.5% of children up to 29 years old. Young people who often do not use just one substance, but a mix and change according to need.
“The problem today is not to prohibit, interdict, block, condemn the use, abuse or trafficking of substances – continues Simone Feder –. The logic of chasing the solution is never the winning one, especially if it involves taking burden of human frailty and the dangerous consequences linked to it. Today, young people, and their families, need different political and social choices, which decide to invest and bet on their potential, not simply pick up the pieces and try to glueing together worn-out and highly compromised situations. Being present with the right answers before the questions arise, this is the challenge that today as social workers, but first of all as men and women, we must choose to undertake. Otherwise we will always arrive too late.” .
