WORKING THE OILPATCH BREEDS IDEAL CONDITIONS FOR DRUG, ALCOHOL ABUSE

Isolation, Good Pay and Boredom, Spur Addictions

Even when living in the remote work camps of northern Alberta, Ken was
never far from his next fix. If cocaine wasn't used inside his camp of
3,000 oil workers in the outskirts of Fort McMurray, it lingered just
outside in the pockets of the drug dealers who prowled outside the
gates like predators.

"I could get it quicker than I could get a pizza," said Ken, not his
real name.

What began as a flirtation with alcohol and cocaine when he first
moved out to the Fort McMurray area at age 17 slowly grew into a
full-blown addiction. By his late 20s, the young welder was engaging
in whirlwind cocaine binges that lasted days.

As with many of his fellow workers, the mix of isolation, boredom and
high wages created the right conditions for the perfect storm of
substance abuse.

"You're away from your kids, you're away from everything. It's just 10
times harder to cope," he said.

"It wasn't the camps that were the problem, it's the accessibility.
You made your choice of what you do with it." As Alberta's petroleum
industry moves through a period of unprecedented growth, northern
communities are finding themselves increasingly swamped by cases of
alcoholism and drug abuse.

Some experts suggest the problem has reached epidemic proportions,
forcing police detachments, social services and oil companies to come
up with new approaches.

"It is happening so rapidly that for municipalities and for the
provincial government, the challenge has been keeping up with it,"
said Dan Dibbelt of the Northern Alberta Development Council.

Alberta's per capita average consumption of alcoholic beverages is
nine litres a year -- or about 524 bottles of beer a year for each
Albertan 15 or older. The national average is 7.9 litres, according to
a Canadian Addiction survey from 2004.

Commissioned in part by Health Canada, the survey, which questioned
more than 2,400 Albertans, was the third national survey in less than
five years to examine drug and alcohol use across Canada.

The survey found that, from 1994 to 2004, the province's consumption
average increased by 1.5 litres.

Drug use isn't far behind, with marijuana, crack cocaine and crystal
meth problems reported in many oil communities.

And wherever substance abuse has soared, crime has inevitably
followed.

An unreleased development council study found that crime levels in
communities such as Grande Prairie, Slave Lake, Cold Lake and Fort
McMurray are now much higher than the provincial norm. Fort McMurray,
for example, has an overall crime rate five times the provincial average.

Some experts, such as the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission's
Barry Andres, chalk up the problem to a "wild west frontier mentality"
that sees people embrace a work hard, play harder outlook.

But other insiders say Alberta's skyrocketing substance abuse points
to a growing disconnect between a city's transient workers and the
local community.

In some hydrocarbon towns, transients working in the oil and gas
sector more than double the permanent population.

"These people are not committed to their community," said Dibbelt. "You
don't see these people involved in things like soccer, you don't see those
people sitting on committees or councils, or things like that." John
Parkins, co-author of Beyond Boredom: Contributing Factors to Substance
Abuse in Hinton, said the increasing prevalence of drug and alcohol abuse is
connected to an increasing sense of isolation coming from the community's
oil workers.

Hinton has a mobile population ranging between 5,000 and 9,000 people,
almost double the size of its permanent residents.

"The people we talked to were definitely aware that this has been part
of their community for a long time," he said. "For many communities
like Hinton, the boom has simply exacerbated the conditions that are
already prevalent within these communities." On the front lines of
this ongoing battle are substance abuse treatment centres, many of
which report a dramatic increase in clients.

Andres said AADAC is treating twice as many patients as it did 10
years earlier. The Fort McMurray office has seen a 25 per cent
increase in the number of clients since January 2006.

With social services increasingly swamped, the Alberta government,
police and oil companies have had to take a bigger role in the fight
against addiction.

This June, AADAC teamed up with the RCMP and several petroleum
companies to create the Drug and Alcohol Council for Safe Workplaces.
The council monitors the safety hazards of having intoxicated
employees in the workplace with a focus on finding help for those with
addictions.

"The companies are being very proactive," says Barb Robbins, manager
of AADAC's Grande Prairie office. "We've been consulted by a number of
them asking to review their alcohol and drug policy, or they will
consult with us with the other things they should be putting in
place." Most of the biggest companies now conduct drug tests before
hiring, as well as after any workplace accident. If they fear an
employee has an addiction, many require the worker to go a treatment
facility for assessment.

But some experts say some of the problems are now evolving past the
current solutions.

"We're now seeing less assessments being requested by employers
because given the job opportunities that people have, they can quit
one job and not necessarily have to follow through on those employer
recommendations," Robbins said.

For Edmonton resident Dianne Vawter, who saw two of her own family
members go through drug addictions, the feelings of isolation can
spread far beyond the camps of Fort McMurray.

"When they were going through it, for me, it was confusion,
depression, fear," Vawter said. "I didn't know what was going on . . .
it was every family's worst nightmare." Vawter convinced her family to
get help after months of research and grappling with her own depression.

As a result of her own experience, Vawter created Crave Life-Drug
Free, a drug rehab placement and intervention agency for families
desperate to find help for loved ones.

"I am just a mother trying to help other families who are trying to
paddle their way through this maze and get help for their kids," she
said.

"A lot of people don't realize that there is hope and there is help
out there." Her program is now spreading into places like Fort
McMurray, where Vawter believes help is needed most.

For Ken, the camps are now a distant memory.

Drug free for more than two years, he is back on the job working as a
contractor in Fort Saskatchewan.

He said he became clean after going through an innovative treatment
program that addresses the biophysical and biochemical imbalances from
addiction through a unique sauna program.

"I didn't quite lose everything, but I almost did." He believes more
unconventional programs like this are required if the oil companies
are going to get a handle on the troubling trend.

"No matter what you do to try and seclude drugs from being in a camp,
or any where in any town . . . there are people that will get it in,"
Ken said.

"There's too many people doing it, too many people selling it."