Israel Cason was addicted to heroin for nearly 30 years. At times he lived in his car and spent time in jail. Cason decided one day to change his life. He moved to Philadelphia to get treatment. But Cason didn’t stop there, he decided to return to Baltimore and give back to the community.

A decade ago he founded I Can’t, We Can, a drug treatment center in the lower Park Heights neighborhood. Since then he has helped nearly 10,000 addicts overcome addiction, and has become a leading voice in the city’s battle against drugs.

Cason shared his philosophy on recovery, addiction, and spirituality with The Examiner.

You battled a 30-year addiction before you started treating drug addicts. What was the key to your recovery?

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Pain was my teacher. I learned through pain I had to change something. For thirty years I was a heroin addict. I tried methadone. I did everything. Pain kept telling me that it wasn’t working. Pain motivated me. Pain is a universal motivation.

Emotional pain, psychological pain, physical pain, I learned from pain. Every time I tried to change, the only thing I could find was instant gratification, a drug to get rid of the pain, and it created more pain. Finally, I started to learn from my pain, and feel it, that’s when my recovery began.

How did your own experience battling addiction help you treat others?

I had to find my purpose, which is saving lives and winning souls. It all started with finding my purpose. That’s what we teach people — to have an ongoing and active relationship with a source that gives life purpose. That is the point of recovery.

You do not advocate medical treatments like methadone and buprenorphine that blunt the cravings for heroin, focusing instead on total abstinence, why?

It is a substitute addiction, so you’re still addicted, and so you are still dependent on it. It helps but it doesn’t last.

Medications and substitute addictions may help lower the crime rate in the short term, but it has nothing to do with recovery. Recovery is spiritual. Finding your purpose in life is the purpose of recovery. If you’re addicted to another chemical, then you are dependent on the chemical and that becomes your purpose.

What would you say to someone that has an addiction problem?

Change the way you think. I know it is difficult, but anything in life worth doing is difficult.

We’re not willing to go through the pain to get to the ease. Most people want to avoid the difficulty to get to the ease. Instant gratification means long term pain, so you have to endure some pain up front if you want long term pleasure. You have to experience the pain to get to better, but in the end you have a purpose, and that is what makes life worth living.

sjanis@baltimoreexaminer.com