Coral Harbour (Jan 10/07) - Health-care workers in Coral Harbour began looking at addictions in a whole new way after spending a week with addictions worker Jan Miller of Kingston, Ont., this past month.

Acting nurse in charge at the Coral Harbour health centre, Judy Burns, said Canadian North and Calm Air worked together to fly Miller to the community.

She said Miller spent her week in the community facilitating daily workshops with health-centre staff, agency workers and students.

She also delivered a day- long professional-development workshop for teachers, and worked with nurses in Rankin Inlet via TeleHealth conferencing.

"In her work in the south, Miller is well known for taking on clients who the traditional systems have given up on and turning their lives around," said Burns.

"Her philosophy is that everybody has something inside them on which you can start building or rebuilding their broken lives.

"Nobody is unfixable, and there is hope for everybody.

"It all starts with positive beliefs and supportive friendships."

Miller's techniques helped the Coral Harbour health workers to look at their own attitudes towards addictions, including shame, blame and judgement.

Burns said the workers began to better understand that addictions start as a solution to a problem.

She said while an addiction appears to work, at first, by taking away the feelings associated with a problem, eventually, the supposed solution becomes the actual problem.

"Many traditional approaches focus on the problem, which is the addiction, instead of the reason behind the addiction", said Burns.

"As one participant put it, 'Why does everyone ask about my drinking, but no one asks about my thirst?'"

Miller referred to her time in Coral as an amazing week full of new experiences.

"I found Coral a caring, welcoming and friendly community," said Miller.

"People were generous in giving of their time, and open to learning more about my ideas on building healthy, respectful communities.

"It's been an honour to be a guest in such a hopeful community."