Two years ago, Courtney Aubichon hit rock bottom. She was addicted to methamphetamines and alcohol, and her foster mom had just thrown her out of the house.
Aubichon, an aboriginal woman living in Edmonton, says she turned to drugs at age 14 as a way to deal with social anxiety. Over the next four years she lost her friends, her family, and her self-esteem to her addiction.
"I was basically dead inside," she says.
"I had nowhere to go."
A friend of hers suggested she try getting treatment at Poundmaker's Lodge near St. Albert. Aubichon said she went for it, initially not as a way to get sober, but as a way to get a roof over her head.
Now 20, Aubichon has finished her treatment course, has a job and is living clean.
"I just got my new apartment a month and a half ago," she says, and she's getting a degree as an addictions councillor at NorQuest College.
Last Friday, she spoke at the grand opening of Poundmaker's new outpatient office in downtown Edmonton – an opening made been made possible with the help of the Canadian Native Friendship Centre.
"Support is the number one reason why I am sober today," she says.
"Just having a place where you can come and let loose and have support and have people who care could really encourage sobriety and a better way of life."
Much needed, say experts
Poundmaker's used to have an Edmonton outreach office but closed it years ago due to budget cuts, says executive director Brad Cardinal. Many clients at Poundmaker's have called for the office's return as a way to get support once they left the treatment centre.
The idea for this new office started last year when Merle White, executive director at the Canadian Native Friendship Centre, noticed that he was getting a lot of clients that wanted addictions counselling but weren't comfortable with non-aboriginal treatment programs.
"They carry a lot of hurts from the past, and they can't be addressing that in an institutional type setting because that's where some of that hurt comes from," he says.
White called Cardinal last year to see if he wanted to start an outpatient clinic at the centre. That led to months of work and Friday's grand opening.
The new office is at the Canadian Native Friendship Centre at 11728-95 St. in Edmonton.
It's meant as a starting point for many potential clients of Poundmaker's, says Brad Cardinal, executive director of Poundmaker's Lodge Treatment Centres.
"You drop in, have a coffee, have a sit-down chat with a counsellor, and perhaps be referred to the 42-day (treatment) program."
Cardinal says the office will be open two days a week and feature social workers, therapists, psychologists and aboriginal elders. Staff will help people get referrals for treatment, access the food bank, and take part in cultural programs.
"We know that many of our people are suffering out there with addictions, and we need to be able to reach out our hand to them," Cardinal says.
"We know that it's going to save lives. We know it's going to create health and wellness for our aboriginal people."
This centre will provide people with much-needed support as they wait to enter treatment and after they complete it, Aubichon says.
Aubichon says Poundmaker's gave her the sense of hope she needed to go sober, and that she'd been clean for 478 days as of last Friday.
"It made me grow into the woman I was supposed to be."
The outpatient office is open Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Thursdays from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Call Poundmaker's at 780-458-1884 for details.
