Their say
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“Libé” returns to meet the French who made the news in our columns to talk about the presidential election. Today, the director of an addictology center in the Loire, who is worried about a debate that revolves more around “excitement” than substantive problems.
A life close to drugs and its users is exhausting. As director of the Rimbaud center, Stéphane Riou knows something about it. He has been around drug users for thirty years and tries, as best he can, to get them out of their addiction. An arduous task for these prisoners of their addiction as for those who try to help them. However, when he talks about his job, there is no question of difficulty or fatigue. No passion either. A sense of accomplishment, perhaps. “I don’t feel like I’m going to work, it’s more than that.”
After school “far from being flamboyant”, Stéphane Riou decides to work in the social sector. A way to respond to the interest he has always had for what he defines today with precision: “The human mechanics of constructing life paths, positioning people, and the difficulties they develop.” After his first positions with people with mental illnesses, he turned to addictology. In 2003, after ten years in Paris, he tried to leave the capital and found this position as head of department at the Rimbaud association, which he took over ten years later.
“It’s the same from the far right to the far left”
Today, the center manages three care and risk prevention structures, including a therapeutic community. Beyond the public service mission that this represents, Stéphane Riou evokes the energy that drives him. “It comes from the valleys…