The Struggle with Enforcing Addiction Treatment
Posted by CDR Help Desk on Aug 6, 2014 in Blog | 0 comments
Kristina lives in Surrey, BC and called us looking for a residential program to satisfy school requirements to show she is not an alcoholic.
However, Kristina did not want to go to treatment and was only doing this for external reasons (e.g. the school told her to). She said she didn’t really have money to pay for treatment and that she didn’t want to go onto welfare to have the government pay for it fully. She’s been trying to do it herself for 6 weeks, but doesn’t have much longer to get into a treatment program before she becomes ineligible for her school program.
We told Kristina the only programs that are going to take her right away are private programs that she would have to pay for. The minimum for these types of treatment is approximately $7,000.
Like everyone else trying to access public treatment, we told Kristina she would need to start the standard process of being referred into the closest residential programs, which, for her, was in Peardonville, BC and run by the FVHA (Fraser Valley Health Authority). Once in a referral office, we mentioned there was chance she could be referred to Pacifica in Vancouver and possibly a few other programs.
Other options we suggested, in the case she couldn’t secure residential treatment, was getting documentation showing she was registered in an outpatient program and therapy. If the school agreed, Kristina could set up a form that would document her attendance at peer-support meetings like AA, LifeRing, and SMART Recovery (e.g. a moderator would sign off on her attendance). This would show her school that as she was waiting to get into treatment that she was trying to use the resources available to her.
Even though we provided her resources, there are generally few positive outcomes in cases like these where the caller is not truly interested in addressing his or her substance issues. It is important for treatment and recovery to be a personal choice, not one externally motivated. Nevertheless, the exposure and involvement in treatment, outpatient programs, and our peer-support groups will still be beneficial to Kristina by providing resources for addressing her health that she may utilize at a later date when she decides it’s time for change. Recovery and change is a process, not something that happens overnight.
