Alberta recovery community opens in southeast Calgary

Men struggling with addiction in the Calgary area now have a new place to pursue recovery.

Alberta’s fourth recovery community has opened in the city, and started welcoming clients earlier this month.

The southeast facility has 74 beds, with the capacity to serve up to 300 Albertans on their journey to recovery every year.

It will be operated by Last Door Recovery, which the province says was chosen after showing proficiency in delivering evidence-based addiction treatment programs.

$9 million went towards upgrading and renovating the vacant, government-owned facility to establish the community.

Recovery communities are a part of the province’s recovery model, which it says is recovery-oriented system of care built to address mental health and addiction.

The plan is to build 11 of the facilities — five of which will be in partnership with Indigenous communities — by 2027. So far, communities are operating in Lethbridge, Red Deer, and Gunn.

Once operational, Alberta says its 11 recovery communities will add more than 700 long-term addiction treatment beds, providing more than 2,000 people a year with the opportunity to pursue recovery.

Premier Danielle Smith says every Albertan who is struggling with addiction deserves to recover so they can lead a healthy, happy, and fulfilling life.

“Our government is proud to focus on that as we continue to expand recovery communities and the Alberta Recovery Model. When clients leave a recovery community, the goal is that each leaves drug-free, connected to community and ready to begin jobs or training,” she said.

The province says recovery communities focus on mental health and well-being, individual and group therapy, development of healthy habits and social skills, employment training and other supports that put clients on a pathway to success.

Alberta’s approach has been subject to criticism, namely its Compassionate Intervention Act, which would create a way for parents, guardians, health-care professionals, and police to request a treatment order for those who could harm themselves or others.

The province said in February that it would spend $180 million to build two, 150-bed, drug addiction treatment centres to support the anticipated influx of patients — one in Edmonton and one in Calgary. It will also open a new youth recovery centre in Alberta’s capital city next year.

Albertans struggling with opioid addiction can contact the Virtual Opioid Dependency Program (VODP) by calling 1-844-383-7688, seven days a week, from 6 a.m. to midnight daily. VODP provides same-day access to addiction medicine specialists. There is no waitlist.

Albertans experiencing non-opioid substance and behavioural addiction concerns can contact the Virtual Rapid Access Addiction Medicine at 1-844-383-7688 for rapid, low-barrier access to treatment.