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Addiction treatment a hot business in B.C. as thousands look for help

August 10th, 2010 · 10 Comments

For years I covered drug-addiction issues in the Downtown Eastside and people would inevitably talk about the lack of addiction treatment in the province. Other critics would also say that, out of Vancouver’s alleged Four Pillars approach to drugs, only one pillar was really getting funding: harm reduction.

That always puzzled me because a lot of money seemed to go to enforcement, in the millions every year spent on police doing nothing but drug busts and street patrols. Prevention, yes, I could see how that was underfunded for sure. But treatment — well, I just didn’t know. How much treatment was there really?

My story this month in BCBusiness is what I found when I went looking. It’s true that there’s a tight funnel when it comes to getting a provincially funded treatment bed. 

In my research, I found that according to national surveys, about three per cent of people in B.C. report having serious drug problems, which works out to more than 120,000 in the province.

Yet in a region like Fraser Health, for example, the biggest health authority in the province serving 1.2 million, meaning potentially 36,000 with drug problems, there are 155 residential treatment beds that can serve up to about 1,000 people a year. Not everyone needs a residential program — in fact, too many times people spend far too much money on a residential program that is not needed — and the province’s research is showing that walk-in treatment programs can be as effective as residential for many.

But 1,000 spots for 36,000 people still means enormous waiting lists for those who need the intensive boost of residential treatment.

That’s just on the government side, though. When it comes to what’s available if you have an employee-benefit program or a family willing to pay the bills, B.C. is swarming with addiction treatment. Only problem: no one has a definitive answer on which works and which one doesn’t.

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  • rf

    As someone who has had a first hand experience with an addict I have very strong feelings about the topic. I was fortunate enough to have financial resources available to make a researched choice of all the options available prior to an intervention of sorts (only to realize that the Orchard is basically a $500/day spa).

    I did my own time attending Al-Anon (almost everyday for 6 months) and getting my own head straight (what do you know?! I decided I didn’t want to marry someone with a drug problem! Go figure.)
    The contradiction in the family vs. society ‘how to deal with an addict’ presricption will never cease to amaze me.
    If it is someone close to you or a family member, the ‘book’ says to take care of yourself first. Do not enable them. Basically ‘cut them off’ as a consequence for their behavior (I know i’m generalizing…but it’s pretty close). No money, no shelter, don’t call me etc…

    But meanwhile, the bleeding hearts preach that we need to give these people homes. We need to give them free drugs. We need to feed them. It effectively (and again, I know i’m generalizing) enables them to continue being an addict. It replaces the support that the family has been told to take away.

    And I still can’t figure out who is right, if they are both right, or if they are all wrong.

    If it was up to me, I was spend the money on a “drug jail” of sorts. 1 year. Nice room. good food. Satellite TV. massages. hot tub. Fancy Westin showerheads. All the perks of a spa. BUT, total lockdown. 1 year, forced sobriety. Then let them decide what they want to do next. I don’t see how anyone who’s been messed up on drugs for years has any hope of making a rational decision within 30-60 days of treatment.
    1 year. Bone sober. 12 step meetings via Cisco teleprensence. Daily urine and drug tests.

    Expensive, but maybe we’d get some actual progress.

  • spartikus

    And I still can’t figure out who is right, if they are both right, or if they are all wrong.

    It’s probably best not to think of it as a single issue.

    One addict is a family’s problem. And perhaps “the book” is the right approach on this scale.

    But 10,000 addicts are society’s problem. The associated issues of crime, public health…etc…these are things that can’t be tough-loved away if civil order is to be maintained.

  • Better Yet . . .

    The bucket of money for Health care in BC is finite. So if we want to treat the self inflicted wound called drug addiction, please decide what current medical services should not be funded.

    Should we close:

    Cancer treatment services?
    Diabetic Care
    Senior Knee & Hip surgeries

    Please tell us what to cut so we can treat drug addicts.

  • IanS

    rf, I have also had some experience with a family member with addiction problems and I think I went through much the same process and reached much the same conclusion as you did.

    IMO, unless and until the addict decides they want to change, there’s nothing whatsoever that can be done for them. I’m all for providing treatment and assistance for those who really want to change, but, for the rest, I think the best we can hope for is managing and limiting the harm caused to society.

  • Dan Cooper

    @Better Yet…

    Diabetes is, in many cases, just as self-inflicted as addiction. (This last weekend I was at a family reunion where: 1 – my uncle was bemoaning the existence of diabetes, while sitting there fat and sedentary in his comfy chair; 2 – we went out to an all-you-can-eat buffet where a good half of the customers were beyond obese: parents, children and infants alike.) The same goes for many other diseases. If you want to blame adults for addictions they often developed as children and after terrible experiences, and just let them rot and die on their own if they can’t break the addiction, then should you not equally let children raised with bad eating habits just deal with their own diabetes, knee replacements (far more common for the overweight), heart disease and such?

    Or should we realise that it is in society’s interest not to leave people ill and suffering if it can be avoided; there may be a question of what the best way to do that is – as rf pointed out so well – but refusing people help when they ask for it is certainly not it.

  • Dan Cooper

    p.s. by “help when they ask for it,” I’m referring to treatment.

  • MB

    @ Better yet.

    Don’t take the funding from health care. Take it from well-financed enforcement. There may even be some money left over for Westin shower heads in the ensuites.

  • MB

    Thank you rf for telling your story.

    I have a relative from another province who was one step from the street throughout her 30s and early 40s. Her mother never refused to pick her up in the middle of the night from some god forsaken locale, nor did she refuse any request for help, financial or otherwise, knowing that some of it went to drugs. The mother died with a huge debt partially attributed to this one individual. Thankfully her life insurance paid it down.

    The individual’s boyfriend back then offered to put her in rehab at the treatment centre on Bowen Island, and paid tens of thousands over a year. That was devotion for you.

    This is a success story in that the individual came out of treatment with a nuturing, quiet environment and stayed sober to this day. She had every emotional reason to slip in recent years as her mother suffered greatly with ALS and then died, but the daughter pulled through, and is recognized for spending every day at the care facility helping her mother until the end.

    The only unsuccessful part of this story is that she left the boyfriend who paid for her treatment.

    As far as I know, there was very little public funding of her treatment, but I would certainly welcome more if this kind of treatment has a reasonable record of success. We have heard from many professionals about the cost to society of addiction: it’s very high, mostly because there is a remarkabe level of costly enforcement, but a remarkably low level of treatment.

    Perhaps the cost of addiction under the health care system would be a lot lower, and the treatment success rate higher. Who knows unless it’s tried? We know that leaving everything where it is now will only continue the tragedy and societal costs. And that is exactly where the current federal government wishes it to remain, for their own ideological reasons.

  • rf

    Bowen (The Orchard) got me for about $13,000. My take was that it would be a good place for someone with the means and desire to refresh and restart the battle, but maybe not the best place for a first trip to rehab. It’s just too soft.
    Of course….if Edgewood had an opening and called first I would have chosen it (I think they called about 2 weeks in). More walls, much tougher, more economically diverse group. My guess is that they get tougher cases but know how to lay down the tough love a little better. They are also more prepared to handle the people who don’t want to be there.

    But like most people who have been through this hell, we have figured out that we can’t change the past……..and most of us wouldn’t if we could. Things will be fine once you accept a lot of things and just worry about getting sane.

  • Megaphone

    Great story, Frances.