ADDICTION A BATTLE FOUGHT IN TRENCHES

There comes, during the war, the intense momentary satisfaction, the
euphoria even, of having reached the top of the mountain.

But the wise, dedicated, case-hardened warriors involved directly know that
there must always be another descent into the valleys where the battles are
really lost and won.

That's the way it is living and fighting in the trenches of reality.

"We know people are going to die. They are dying already. Our job is to
bring as many as possible back and save them," says Dr. Dean Vause.

He is talking Friday just hours after he, his staff and devoted supporters
at the Alberta Adolescent Recovery Centre (AARC) in Calgary scaled
incredible heights at a formal Thursday evening gala.

Amid much deserved fanfare, with government help and astounding generosity
from philanthropic Calgarians, AARC announced that it had hit the
$5-million mark in its quest to raise $8 million to double the capacity of
its premises in the city -- and more importantly help twice as many young
people and their families being afflicted, tortured, and all too often
destroyed by the scourge of drug and alcohol addiction.

Vause, AARC's executive director, makes no apology whatsoever for his
frequent use of the battlefield analogy.

Nor should he.

Young people are indeed dying out there and there are other victims too.

It was back in January that we first personally heard him use the
battlefield theme.

On a bitterly cold winter's afternoon, from a corridor in a packed Airdrie
funeral home, we heard of the case of a woman sadly and fatally well-versed
in the rituals and residues of addiction.

Grandmother Jean Stauffer, though a non-addict herself, was apparently
steeped in a history of family addictions -- and throughout the years had
fought the good fight against loved ones' addictions and had dedicatedly
supported them in their fight to first gain then retain sobriety.

But she had died in the cause -- murdered in her own home.

Tragically a young relative with a "history" faces charges in her death.

At her memorial service, Vause, who had come to know her through her
involuntary ties with addiction and her devotion to her afflicted loved
ones, was the lead eulogist.

Vause said Stauffer had died on the "battlefield" of addiction.

"There are casualties . . . and there's a heavy price to be paid in the war
against this disease," he said.

He should know.

Thirty-two victimized families at a time, Vause and his staff work to first
control and then halt the hopeless and helpless downward spiral of young
people who have become addicted to drugs and alcohol.

As he puts it, AARC moves in, basically, when all else appears to have
failed and families have all but given up, to interject between "the young
people and their love for drugs or alcohol."

The youngsters see the substances as the only solace to all that is wrong
in their lives.

"Well, we don't pretend to have all the answers, but we have the
solutions," says Vause.

AARC, like many such agencies, has a good track record.

In their case, they claim an 80 per cent success rate. That's about 25
families out of every 32-family batch. Double the centre's capacity, and
that would be around 50 families blessed out of 60.

That is why the likes of the province's $2 million, Flames owner Alan
Markin's personal $1 million donation and AARC chairwoman Ann McCaig's
personal $500,000 donation, among many others, are so vital.

AARC (phone 253-5250) will get the remaining $3 million it needs
eventually. But bear this in mind.

Kids are dying right now.

So the sooner AARC can achieve its expansion goals the better.

To a city like Calgary, $3 million is virtually nothing.

So, privately and corporately, dig deep. The sooner the doubled-capacity
centre is up and running, the sooner that more young casualties will be
rescued alive from the battlefield of addiction.