Drug and alcohol addicts from Barnet's minority ethnic groups are living with their afflictions rather than seeking help. BEENA NADEEM investigates

Minority ethnic communities are not being reached by the very drug and alcohol services set up to help them in Barnet.

Taboos, tight-knit communities, denial and peer pressure play a part in this failure, but the experts themselves have also been found wanting.

Asian women in Barnet are especially unlikely to seek help, according to Neena Patel, mental health development worker at Barnet Asian Women's Association, Friern Park, North Finchley.

The pressures that these young women suffer can often lead to drug dependency. What's worse is that they rarely seek help, shamed into silence by a family and a community who do not talk about drugs, let alone suffer addiction and admit to needing help.

"Alcohol is a big problem with young Asian women triggered by depression and mental illness," says Mrs Patel.

"Many Asians do not see mental problems and drug and alcohol abuse as an illness that needs to be treated like any other illness."

There's a stigma attached to seeking help from other Asian women. "They may feel that the information that they give will get back to people in their community," she adds.

Along with the fear of stepping forward and seeking help, there is also a dangerous type of home-prescribed help.

"They may send them home to Bangladesh, for example, where those sorts of drugs are freely available," Mrs Patel says. Home detoxification, consisting of locking their children up inside without any support', is also very common in Barnet.

"We need to talk to Asian communities, go to mosques and temples," she says. "We need to educate the religious leaders that, in reality, it does happen to members of their community."

According to drug and alcohol service The Crossing, in High Road, East Finchley, users accessing its culturally appropriate services' are still few and far between.

Figures for 2004 to 2005 show that 70 per cent of attendants were white and British, and 24 per cent were non-white British what manager Darren Woodward describes as still a very white service'. Mr Woodward believes these figures show that many drug addicts from minority communities are not getting help.

"Most people do not seek help because they do not want to be seen to be walking into a drug and alcohol service," he says. "There is a fear of prejudice."

According to Nimi Hirani, The Crossing's ethnic minority worker, other issues are also preventing new waves of immigrants from finding help.

"The fear is that their community will be seen as problematic and, as a result, may encounter open racism," she says.

For a couple of users who did access services though The Crossing, the additional pressures they faced with family and community all added to the difficulties of talking about their addiction.

Sri Lankan Kaushal Zoysa (not his real name), from Barnet, looks younger than his 31 years. By the time he was 12, he smoked and was drinking heavily. When he was just 23, he was a heroin addict.

At that time, he was working, holding down a job at a record shop, playing in a successful band and taking heroin as a pastime in his bedroom.

"My family didn't know," he says. "The band were signed up by a label, but I was using more and more drugs.

"I was depressed, very suicidal. I was a solitary user."

Eventually, when it began destroying his career, his life and his ability to pursue the music he loved, he knew he had to get off it.

With the help of his GP, The Crossing and various detox programmes, he reduced his intake and decided to tell his parents.

"I was trying to tell my parents, but just could not physically get the words out," he says.

"They were shocked and my mum was really upset and blamed herself. My dad became angry. They didn't want anyone to know because of the shame. But they came to the family counselling on Thursdays every week and that was really positive.

"When I was growing up, I was under a lot of pressure. I took drugs, I was depressed, but you can't talk about issues and feelings like this in Asian families.

"It's always about stiff upper lips and getting on with it. They don't talk about feelings"

Shadie Chanramani (not his real name), from Finchley, is part of a small community of Janes, a small Asian religion, in the UK. "I was sick of the hypocrisy," he says. "They would go to family weddings and drink, although you're not supposed to. At least I was open about it."

"I was smoking heroin around £80 a day at the time," he says, wiping the sweat from his brow.

And he had the money to pay for it. But when the money tailed off, he started to inject it and the habit dropped to £40 a day.

"I thought I was in control of it, but once I realised I wasn't, I came here to The Crossing," he says.

"I got a good education, did well in school, wasn't damaged in anyway, went to university, and didn't suffer any life traumas."

It was on a trip to the hippie holiday destination Goa when he first came into contact with heroin. "I was smoking nothing more than cannabis in those days, but wanted to explore the party scene in Goa," he recalls. "I wanted to try LSD."

But in Goa he met four men from Cornwall who had come there specifically to do heroin.

"I was curious," he admits. "They offered me some. It made me feel sick at first, then I thought, This is quite nice, actually'.

"I had an idea it was addictive, but it took a while for it to become addictive. After India, I thought I wouldn't touch it again. But I did."

When his father found him slumped unconscious, his secret was out, and he decided to seek help at The Crossing.

"When they calmed down, The Crossing explained to them that it wasn't their fault," he says.

He has all but kicked his habit, and uses heroin just once a week alongside methadone.

But he has paid a heavy price: he has lost his friend to an overdose and his job, and his brother doesn't speak to him.

The ease with which heroin is available makes the habit more difficult to kick. "Just ask any homeless person, and you'll be able to find a dealer," he says.

"I didn't score locally. I didn't want dealers to know I lived in Finchley, but it's easy to get hold of in Barnet. I could get it within five minutes.

"There's also a lot of alcohol addiction. But it's not talked about because it brings shame on family."

Something that needs to change.

The Crossing at Turning Point, Barnet Community Drug and Alcohol Service, 82 High Road, East Finchley. Telephone 020 8815 1800.

Barnet Asian Women's Association, 1 Friern Park, North Finchley. Telephone 020 8446 9897.