Some Small Hope for Addicts

Rob & Susie Ruttan are to be congratulated for their extraordinary work in bringing some new treatment resources for young addicts to B.C.

The Ruttans have been the moving force for many difficult years now behind a group of parents know as "From grief to Action."

While struggling with their own family melodramas and horrors of addictions, the group has consistently pleaded their case for treatment with governments at all levels.

Their efforts were finally rewarded.

Last week, they were able to announce that Portage, a residential treatment program that began in Quebec in 1973, will open a facility for 43 young addicts in Keremeos next year.

This is great news, indeed.

Portage is a long-term program and it works.

The provincial government will kick in $2.5 Million a year to operate the resource. This amounts to around $50,000 per person per annum, which is remarkably cheap. The reason, of course, i s that this is not a "medical" response filled with unnecessary and expensive doctors and nurses.

Like most good residential programs, Portage is run primarily by recovering addicts who know the score.

All of this is good news.

What would be much better news is that the province was providing $25 Million a year for 10 facilities like Portage for 430 people. Not only can we afford it, but we cannot afford NOT to spend this small amount of money.

It is also somewhat sad to see the Ruttans declaring in this morning's Letters to the Editor in the Sun that the young people whom they have been championing did not choose to become addicts.

We understand that these are grieving parents. We understand that they care.

But now their job is to "care" less, get out of the way and let the treatment people who truly understand the dynamics of addictions carry the ball.

The Portage people will make it very clear to their clients that they did, in fact, CHOOSE their addictions. Nobody else chose for them, and nobody else will choose sobriety for them. That concept is the very heart of recovery.