What Rescue Cats Can Teach Us About Harm Reduction

Meow unto others.

You know what really annoys me?

Anyone who has been hanging out here for even a short period of time knows that many things really annoy me, but one that I haven’t talked much about here is as follows:

People who say hateful, misinformed and stigmatizing things about people who use drugs that happen to be illegal. (I had a more tart way of putting that, but this is a public post so I’m being vaguely nice.)

Contrary to popular belief, most people who use any drug don’t get “addicted.” Most people who use prescription opioids don’t develop a problem, most people who drink alcohol don’t develop a problem. There is tons of evidence for this that I could link to but I don’t feel like running it down at the moment. Carl Hart has a lot of good stuff on this.

But even those who do develop a problem are not less than or different from anyone else. A combination of genetics, environment and circumstance can land anyone there.

Differences start to emerge in how people are treated when they use various substances. A good example is how white kids who used cannabis used to get just a slap on the wrist, while black kids or adults who used cannabis would go to jail. People who drink alcohol to excess, even take the chance of getting in their cars and murdering someone, tend to get away with it, while people who never hurt anyone else can get arrested and have their lives ruined because they do a drug that is illegal. It’s the criminalization, not the drug, that causes the harm.

If you take the judgment out of looking at substance use problems and simply ask, “What works? What helps people?” it is possible to have a far more productive conversation.

I have learned about how harm reduction really works from many things, but one of the clearest examples is working with rescue cats.

For a year and a half now I’ve volunteered with Project MEOW (Make Every One Wanted.) We rescue cats off the street, get them all the medical care they need including spaying or neutering, and feed them, love them up, socialize them and get them into foster homes and furrever homes. We used to be more of a Trap, Neuter and Release, but these days almost all the cats we find are friendly cats who were obviously someone’s pet. They want to be your cat. They want to go home.

I am always amazed at how loving and cuddly these cats can be, even after being abandoned, sick and injured and living on the streets of West Philly. Many of them will walk out of their cages right onto my shoulder. Last week, a sweet muted calico put her arms around my neck and gave me kisses. They have been through so much yet they can still love and trust.

There are some who don’t love and trust immediately though. Some are very scared. Sometimes they act aggressive and bite or scratch. We have to be calm and earn their trust. Most of them go on to be loving house cats. Some need medication, just like some people do.

Yelling at a cat never works. Whether it’s a rescue or a regular house cat, if you scream at a cat, you will just scare her. Hitting a cat is even worse. You should never strike a cat. They will not understand any connection with anything they might have done. They will only know that you hurt them.

Confining a cat doesn’t work either. Locking a cat in a room alone, especially with no window and nowhere soft to sleep, is like putting a human in a jail cell. It can be hard to deal with some behaviors, but things like peeing outside the box almost always have a medical cause. A cat never means to do the wrong thing. They are sick or upset or don’t understand what’s going on. They need a clean box, a good window, a soft place to sleep and lie down, and LOVE! Lots of LOVE! They need to play. They need to be petted.

I have watched terrified, angry cats become complete lovebugs in just a few weeks of care and cuddles from Project MEOW volunteers. “Cage rage” is a thing, and think how you would feel if you were in a small space. We have gotten very large kitty condo-like spaces for the cats thanks to the tireless efforts of our chief volunteer (we are all-volunteer) and our generous donors. But at times cats who are recovering from surgery or just came in are in smaller spaces, and while they still have room to sleep and move around, that can be stressful. We get them into bigger apartments in the shelter and then into either our house of cats (seriously, we have a house) and then fosters or purrmanent homes as fast as we can.

When I was suffering from severe trauma, I was a lot like a cat in a trap. I was so scared and angry that I could barely recognize kindness. I went through some bad experiences that made me worse instead of better, and I got to experience first hand how threats, punishment and depriving a person of autonomy don’t work. They may work in the short term, or appear to work, but they don’t last. They make people worse.

We do not blame the rescue cats for being on the street. It doesn’t matter why the cats come to us: we feed them all they want (think: seconds and thirds of wet food!) and love and cuddle them at their comfort level no matter what. We love the grizzly old cats and we love the young ones. We love them all. We help them get new lives where they can be treated with the care and respect they deserve.

I purrsonally like my cats and my humans on the older side. I love the old boys who have obviously seen a fight or two in their day. They can really purr once they get to know you.

A Zen teacher of mine once said, “If you saw a kitten starving and injured, you would feed it and take care of it. You wouldn’t ask if it deserved love and kindness.”

No, you wouldn’t ask, unless you are a terrible person who would not be be of my subscribers. Even if you aren’t a cat person, you would want to get the kitten help.

The more that cats are loved and their needs are met, the more loving they become. The same is true of people. But yell at a cat, harm a cat, lock a cat up, hit a cat, and you will have a traumatized monster on your hands.

My good friend Ken Anderson learned harm reduction from working in needle exchange. He tells me how all you say is, “Thank you for using clean needles.” No judgment, no pressure to get into “treatment.” “Treatment” as such is still usually total crap, Twelve Step religion and withholding of the medications that actually do help. Or making the conditions under which you can get them so bad that it’s not worth it. Check out my friend Ethan’s article on their experience in a methadone clinic here.

I’ve been thinking about the horror of methadone clinics a lot lately. Even though I’ve never been involved in one, I have been in situations where I was denied the medication I needed for truly arbitrary reasons. I was put at great medical risk, in a hospital, because they wouldn’t give me my legally prescribed, never abused benzodiazepines. I should have had a seizure, but I didn’t. But I probably have permanent cognitive damage from being withdrawn way, way too fast. You’re supposed to taper for maybe three to six months. I was forced to taper in three days. My own doctors were furious.

I’ve been in situations where I had to “play the game” at tremendous cost to my own sense of self in order to get my basic needs met. I have also been so mistreated (including once almost literally killed) within the medical system that I avoid medical care even when I need it. So while I have never used opioids, I feel quite a bit of kinship with those who get trapped in the methadone clinic system or whose medication that they need to be normal and live their lives is stigmatized and restricted. Check out this article about a man who was denied his law license because he was on buprenorphine, the very legal gold-standard treatment for opioid use disorder.

When a cat comes in to Project MEOW, they are often scared, bedraggled, starving, and in desperate need of medical care. We do not judge the cat or ask questions. We get them what they need. Sometimes they are so much better after just a week or two that you can’t recognize the cat. Then we see pictures of them in their foster homes or purrmanent homes. Is that the same cat? we ask. Same cat. Different set of circumstances.

Shouldn’t people have the same chance to live the happy lives they deserve, no matter what they’ve been through?

This little baby was scared and skinny when I found her. Now she is the panther princess of my life. It took a long time for both of us to heal from severe PTSD, and we can both be a little quick to bite at times (one of us more literally than the other - I actually do not bite other people, even if they ask me to.)