Pubdate: Mon, 26 Sep 2016
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2016 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Justine Hunter
Page: S1

FEW TREATMENT OPTIONS FOR YOUNG ADDICTS

Worried about their teenage daughter's drug use and signs of
depression, a Vancouver area couple began to secretly monitor her life
on social media. What they found propelled them into a desperate quest
to find medical treatment: Their daughter, unwilling to talk with
them, was openly discussing suicide, self-harm and an escalating
dependence on hard drugs with her friends.

"I'm alive because I'm too scared to kill myself," she text messaged
one day. Other texts revealed that she was stealing to pay back debts
to dealers and her casual embrace of dangerous party drugs. She wrote
that on one day, she did a "ton of e [ecstasy] and the next a bit of
mdma." The drugs may have numbed her depression in the short term, but
only made things worse. "Why is it so impossible to be happy?" she
posted to her network of peers.

Her father, who does not want his family identified, had no qualms
about spying: It was a matter of her safety.

"It was alarming. She averaged 400 texts a day. I got up early every
morning, spent one-and-a-half hours going through each and every one,
to make sure she was safe," said her father - call him Bill Smith. Now
in therapy, his daughter has agreed to let her parents share some of
her story to help raise awareness about the yawning gaps in care.

Unable to secure a treatment bed in British Columbia, the family ended
up placing their girl in a therapeutic boarding school in the central
United States. Nine months later, she is on the path to recovery, but
at a steep cost. The family is paying $12,000 each month for her
treatment, which is expected to carry on into next year.

How are they coping with the bills? "We're not," Mr. Smith said
bluntly. "It redefines things. But with no viable options here, we had
only one question: What is our daughter's life worth? Don't tell me
I've got to give up. There was no choice for us."

The province has declared a health emergency to respond to a
skyrocketing rate of overdose deaths - B.C. is expected to record the
highest number of fatal overdoses this year in nearly 30 years of
record-keeping, with nearly 500 lives lost in the first eight months
of the year. But the number of options available to treat
drug-addicted youth has not kept pace with the growing challenge. In
fact, beds have closed, and although new ones are on the way, B.C.
Health Minister Terry Lake agrees more needs to be done.

But the bed-count alone isn't the sum of the problem, Mr. Smith noted.
He and his wife, who both work, were consumed with the task of finding
mental-health and addictions services. They would be referred to
websites that were unnavigable. They were promised a treatment bed,
but then the facility closed. Their daughter was referred to another
treatment home, only to be turned away for more urgent cases.

Finding care in B.C. for youth with addictions has been a shattering
experience for another family. The names are changed, again, at the
family members' request. Their story begins when an active,
competitive 18-year-old boy suffered a painful injury during a sports
match three years ago. "John Brown" was handed a prescription for a
highly addictive narcotic, Percocet. By the time he worked his way
through the bottle of 100 pills, his young body was craving more. He
found heroin.

His mother struggled to get her oldest son help while trying to
protect her youngest child from the fallout. She owes thousands of
dollars in loans to pay for private rehab services that failed.

If he came home, John would steal and destroy things. The family was
falling apart from stress, and he ended up on the street.

"He was eating out of dumpsters," Mrs. Brown said. "He looks like a
bone rack."

A little more than a week ago, John called his mother. "He said, 'Mom,
I have to go to detox. I'm going to die on the streets.' " He found
his way into a detox facility, but that's just the start.

"I'm really scared," Mrs. Brown said. "There can't be even a day
between detox and rehab; he'll slip." She just learned a rehab bed
will be available on Monday, but even then she worries: If he makes it
through his 35 days of treatment, there is no guarantee that he'll get
the supportive housing he'll need to put his once-promising life back
on track.

Both families have underscored how difficult it is to navigate the
health-care system for addictions. It's not just a shortage of beds,
but there is no clear path to treatment.

They can't locate what services are available, what kind of funding
can be accessed, what qualifications the programs offer.

The Health Minister, Mr. Lake, said his government is investing in new
beds, more support and in critical research to help determine just how
to treat addiction.

He acknowledged that finding services is not easy and said he expects
improvements in the coming months.

"It's frustrating and frightening for families, and as a policymaker,
its frustrating for me too," he said. A key challenge is that there is
no standard model for addictions treatment.

"We are in the early days of understanding mental health and substance
use. … It feels like we haven't made that great leap forward."

Sue Hammell, the New Democratic Party critic for mental health and
addiction services, observed that the deadly path of fentanyl's rise
has been charted since 2013, but addiction services simply have not
kept up.

"We could have a more robust mental health and addictions system to
try to prevent the situation we have now," she said, referring to the
fact that the province now expects as many as 700 people to die this
year due to drug overdoses.

"This is like two big planes crashing every year at Vancouver
International Airport."

There should be an uproar, she said, but she suspects the stigma of
drug addiction has muted the response. It helps to remember these are
sons and daughters who need help.
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MAP posted-by: Matt