WAIT FOR TREATMENT 'STRESSFUL': MOTHER OF TEEN ADDICT

Important To 'Strike While The Iron's Hot' And Build Centre

Five years ago, Shawna Savoie was waiting to have her 15-year-old son
admitted to a residential treatment centre for his continuing use of
cocaine, alcohol and marijuana.

The wait scared her badly. She lived with the constant worry that her
son would run off, would overdose, would change his mind about getting
treatment.

Times haven't changed much, she says now. Tyler Grandy, her son, is
now clean and sober, but he had to wait a long time to get treatment,
just as young people in Ottawa still have to wait.

As institutions debate the possible locations for a drug treatment
centre in Eastern Ontario, Savoie wants people to know that waiting is
dangerous.

"Having to wait for (her son) to get residential treatment, when it
was decided that it was probably the best resource for him, was
extremely stressful," she said in an interview.

"The biggest concern for these kids suffering from substance abuse ...
is the momentum and the motivation. It can change so quickly because
the drugs take over again.

"You want to strike while the iron's hot. You want to strike when
they're on board with it, because they might have lucid moments, times
when they're clear enough to realize, 'I have a problem and I need
help,' and they ask for it. Those times are few and far between with
an addict, especially with someone young who's struggling with just
growing up as a teenager."

When Tyler was 15, he and his family waited from January until May to
get him a place at the Compass Residential Youth Program, a Manitoba
treatment centre that offers an eight-week program.

During the wait he was sporadically at school, getting counselling
about once a week -- "an interim solution to keep his head above water
and keep him motivated."

Treatment didn't work. He was using drugs again the day he came home,
his mother says. And she thinks the long wait was part of the reason:
"It just allowed him to be more immersed in the drugs."

In early 2008, he re-entered a residential treatment centre -- this
time at the Alwood Treatment Centre in Carleton Place. It was a
four-month stay, and he has been drug- and alcohol-free since. He's at
Algonquin College; his mother says he's happier, though recovery is a
constant struggle that none of the family can take for granted.

But again, there was a delay of about five months before he could get
a place in the centre.

Savoie recalls the frustration and fear clearly, feeling "just very
scared that he's not going to be of the mindset when it comes time to
be able to go."

Today she belongs to support groups for parents of teenagers with drug
problems.

"All those parents are dealing with the exact same things, and their
concern is waiting for treatment," she said.

They worry that the child may run away or have an overdose while
waiting for treatment. "It's kind of sad, actually.

She says that she feels "blessed" that her son was helped. "It's just
unfortunate that we had to wait so long."

Drug-Treatment Facts

- - Ottawa has five programs for youths with addictions, none of them
residential. The nearest residential facility for anglophones is in
Thunder Bay. Seventeen per cent of its 2005 patients were from the
Ottawa area.

- - Alwood Treatment Centre has 14 beds. It takes about 60 youths a
year, out of 125 referrals, and gets about five calls a day from
youths and families seeking help. The average wait time is three to
four months.

It is the only long-term residential treatment centre in Ontario for
16- to 22-year-olds.

- - A new youth treatment centre in Ottawa proper would expect to get
300 referrals a year.

Source: Proposal for residential addiction treatment programs for youth,
May 2007.