A SOBERING PLACE, BUT IT'S NOT CHEAP

NANAIMO - There's a wall of names just outside the front door of Nanaimo's
Edgewood addiction treatment centre. At first glance, it appears to be a
list of donors who have helped fund the Island's only private residential
addiction program, which will reach its 10th birthday this month.

A second look is sobering. It's the "memory wall," the list of some
Edgewood alumni who later died of complications from their drug and alcohol
addictions. There's space for more names.

At best, it's a poor advertisement for a centre touted as being on par with
California's famed Betty Ford Clinic. Edgewood isn't cheap. It's $180 a day
for the rehab program with the later halfway-house program costing $75.
Most stays at the for-profit Edgewood stretch well into the 50-day range,
pushing the total bill into five figures.

For that kind of money, addicts -- and far more likely their families --
might expect to live happily ever after. But that's not the nature of the
disease for both the alcoholic and drug addict.

At best, Edgewood can instill only self-awareness and psychological tools
to withstand the urge to keep consuming.

Many who show up at Edgewood feel hopeless, according to executive director
Lorne Hildebrand, 47, a gregarious and cherubic-looking man. He has a
business background. But eight years after his arrival, he sounds more the
social scientist when elaborating on the inevitable and irreversible
changes in an addicted brain.

"I don't believe I can stop using," they say on arrival, setting the bar
that much higher for Edgewood.

The bleak memory wall seems like another reason to run the other way for
those who would rather be anywhere else -- likely with a bottle or a line
of coke.

"It helps to break down their defences," says Hildebrand, explaining the
wall's prominence. Some arrivals are indifferent about whether they live or
die; others refuse to even recognize that a death card hides in their life
deck. The wall is proof the card can turn up early.

As well, the memory wall reminds staff -- about 100 ranging from custodians
to cooks, counsellors and a full-time psychiatrist -- that they deal with
life and death daily.

In 10 years, roughly 6,700 men and women have come for treatment. The
centre now has 80 treatment beds with another 45 in its neighbouring
halfway house program. Edgewood's involvement doesn't stop at the exit
door. It stays in contact for the first year.

One year's abstinence is the benchmark for success. Roughly 75 per cent of
alumni make it. It's this figure that lifts its reputation well beyond
Vancouver Island.

Unlike most residential rehab programs, an Edgewood stay is open-ended. It
takes as long as it takes, says Hildebrand. This is at odds with the 28-day
standard in the residential rehab sector. Inexplicably, this entrenched
figure was established in the U.S. by what private insurers were prepared
to underwrite.

The 30,000-square-foot building set back on two hectares in a Nanaimo
residential neighbourhood looks like a community college.

No one seems to be a refugee from big-city drug and booze ghettos. It's an
attractive facility abuzz with activity. Patients are kept busy from 8 a.m.
to 8 p.m.

To a degree, Edgewood fits the popular image of a residential rehab
facility as perpetuated by Hollywood. This notion makes it difficult for
publicly-funded day programs to measure up in the minds of addicts and
their families.

People think rehab means going away somewhere, says the Vancouver Island
Health Authority's Gwen Ewan, co-ordinator of South Island addiction
community services. VIHA no longer supports residential treatment, leaving
some abusers complaining they can't get into rehab programs.

But they can, says Ewan, albeit day programs that don't readily conform to
the popular ideal. There are about 15 day programs available through VIHA
in the Capital Region with at least that many again spread throughout the
Island.

VIHA dropped residential program funding when demonstrable results were not
in proportion to their high costs. Day programs provide the best service
for the least amount of money, says Ewan.

VIHA does have hospital beds for medically compromised addicts (the
pregnant or elderly) as well as support-recovery beds in private homes for
addicts without local ties. It operates residential detox programs in
Nanaimo and Victoria. But Ewan concedes there's a need for more beds in
these drying-out facilities.

Pulling an addict back from the precipice with detox is only part of
treatment, she says. It's not an end in itself.

Unique among private facilities, Edgewood has its own detox program
allowing patients, at the most crucial time, to move directly into
individualized treatment. Yet, philosophically, Edgewood is not prepared to
take the overflow from the public system, believing government support will
mean government interference.

But Edgewood doesn't shun government dollars entirely. Both the Department
of National Defence and the RCMP have sent employees there.

Surprisingly, employers prove more influential than families in instigating
treatment, says Hildebrand. Often families have allowed addictions to
flourish by continually readjusting their acceptance. But employers have
economic clout.

"If you have a built-in or instinctual need to use, you're going to need a
paycheque," says Hildebrand. "The alternative to treatment means no job.''

It was largely corporate support -- particularly from the forestry sector
- -- that encouraged Jane Ferguson to start the facility in Nanaimo similar
to those she operated in the U.S. (Ferguson died last summer in a plane
crash. Alberta heirs now own the profitable Edgewood.)

Despite the hefty treatment costs, Hildebrand believes employers receive
value for their investment. Many patients hold high-level jobs. What it
would cost to replace them exceeds the Edgewood bill.

Addiction research, according to Hildebrand, lags well behind addiction's
cost to society. U.S. statistics claim one in 10 people suffers from an
addiction. More readily grasped is the amount of addiction-sparked crime
and accidents.

"If it wasn't for drugs and alcohol, there'd be fewer lawyers and courts,"
quips Victoria criminal lawyer Tom Morino, whose clientele generally can't
afford Edgewood.

Workplace safety is also jeopardized by alcohol and drug use. Hildebrand
cites one accident that led to a well-publicized industrial inquiry.
Various recommendations were put forth, but none touched on the real cause.
The individual responsible ended up at Edgewood when he revealed what the
inquiry missed.

"He was stoned on coke," says Hildebrand.

SIDEBAR

'IN THE BACK OF MY HEAD, I KNEW I DIDN'T DRINK QUITE LIKE OTHER PEOPLE'

The white fluffball at her feet is her "recovery dog."

"She celebrates sobriety with me," says Pam, 49, anticipating the next
question as she delivers the punch line: "She used to steal my scotch."

At one time in Pam's life, there was a lot of scotch for little Charli to
lap up. But that ended three years ago. Recovery was a harder sell for Pam
than Charli. The little dog never lost its will to live.

Pam's an entertaining woman, but her humour has a self-deprecating edge. At
times, the twinkle in her eyes seems forced, as though suppressing a
sadness as she reminisces what brought her to Edgewood three years earlier.

Pam's love affair with scotch stretched over nearly 30 years. Theirs was
not a healthy relationship, something she wouldn't then admit openly.

"In the back of my head, I knew I didn't drink quite like other people. I
had the blackouts to prove it," says Pam, a well-coiffed and manicured
business woman in a pistachio pantsuit and open-toed sandals. She wears a
chunky bracelet on one arm and a similar-styled watch on the other. Around
her neck is a chain centred by the word "Edgewood."

It's her talisman, a reminder of where she pulled her life out of the
bottle. She spent 65 days in treatment there, more than twice the 28 days
advocated by most other residential addiction treatment centres. She
remembers what she was like at 28 days. It was not someone ready to go it
alone.

"This was the first time in my life I felt safe. I was protected from myself."

In 2000, the final stretch to Edgewood, her "downward spiral" began in
Montreal. Her husband had died. He was a "health freak" so his death from
cancer struck her as "beyond belief."

The logistics of being on her own weighed heavily. They had run a business
together. It proved difficult to sell.

In the fall of 2000, Pam and Charli headed west to Nanaimo. She had friends
there. One soon became alarmed by Pam's drinking. "I woke up and drank
until I passed out every day. I woke up angry I hadn't died in my sleep."

The concerned friend tipped off Pam's Toronto parents. They were ready when
Pam phoned in July. She had been nabbed for impaired driving. It proved to
be the turning point.

"I had that moment of clarity when I realized my life was out of control,"
she says. Two days later, she was inside Edgewood. Her parents paid the
shot -- $180 a day. After her discharge, her dad told her: "You get one
kick at the can, kiddo. You got the tools. Make it work."

In hindsight, it would have been easier had she gone into Edgewood's
halfway house program rather than directly home after treatment.
Immediately, she rearranged her living room because it had been her
"drinking spot." She kept her day-timer filled to avoid the isolation so
conducive to drinking.

"I have a disease that requires maintenance." she says.

Nanaimo has dozens of Alcoholic Anonymous groups to attend. She volunteers
at Nanaimo's detox centre.

"It takes me back where I was not so long ago," she explains before
elaborating on its cautionary impact. "I see myself in slippers and robe,
barely able to hold my head up.

"That's not a place I want to go back to.'' She doubts her body could now
medically endure active alcoholism.

"I probably don't have another recovery in me," she says, seated with
Charli across from Edgewood's outdoor Memory Wall, which lists the names of
alumni known to have died.

"I have three friends up there," she says. The fact that hers isn't among
them underscores Edgewood's reputation as "the House of Miracles."

"I should be dead," she offers as her personal miracle.