DRUG REHAB ALBERTA

Alberta’s on crack!

Crack abuse has reached epidemic proportions in Alberta, and to top it all off, there are very few good, effective treatment centers to help manage the long demand of substance abusers seeking treatment.

I work as an intake counsellor for a private treatment centre in B.C. We get calls from all over the U.S. and Canada. Families looking to help their sons, daughters, moms, and dads get into treatment. Treatment that will not only give them clean time, but maybe, just maybe a fighting chance.

Most of the calls we get are for Crack, and Meth, but we do get calls for every addiction known to man.

WARNING! Fasten your seat belts, because you are about to be shocked.

Like I said, we get calls from all over the U.S. and Canada. And guess what? 42% of our call volume is coming out of Alberta. 42% folks!

Why? Bottom line is the oil money. I heard a statistic the other day that Alberta is now bigger than Texas when it comes to oil production. This is serious money folks.

So think about it. Oil rig workers, many of them in their early 20’s are getting pay checks between $10,000 and $20,000. They work long hours, weeks on end sometimes without a break, and then when they do get a few days off, what do they want to do? Blow their money!

And what’s the easiest way to blow money. That’s right, with Blow, Crack, Meth, Ecstacy, Mushrooms, Marijuana, and plenty of Booze. They get to live like rock stars for a few days and then get right back at it. Back on the lease, back working on the rig, back making 10K a month. And the cycle continues.

That’s until they hit rock bottom, and they do. When they hit rock bottom, they need treatment, and the only treatment that’s is readily available is the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, more commonly known as AADAC.

They get themselves on a waiting list, one that last 3 weeks before they can get a bed. Finally they get themselves into treatment, putter around a bit, spend some time in group therapy, maybe attend a meeting here or there, and 28 days later they think they are magically healed. What a joke!

Come on Alberta, wake up! Use this money wisely. Our Family members are killing themselves with death imbued cocktails of chemicals that do only one thing effectively, and that is kill them.

Alberta needs better treatment to treat the demand. If you get it right the first time, and actually heal these people, we can put them back into the work force and improve our economy with successful productive citizens. Not crack addicted Albertan’s.

Step up Alberta, spend the money, and put up proper treatment facilities, and do it now – before it’s too late!

Connor Allen, Certified Chemical Dependency Counsellor