A tough love camping trip
June 15, 2006
By MINDELLE JACOBS
A new non-profit group hopes to help
recovering youth addicts stay off drugs by taking them deep into the
bush for an intense 10-day backcountry exercise.
Call it tough love, camping-style.
The Wilderness Youth Challenge Program involves six days of training
in first aid, bear awareness and basic survival techniques and four
days of solo camping.
"We want them to back-burner their
addiction. We want them to move it aside for 10 days," says camping
enthusiast Lee Eskdale, who designed the program.
"While we're out there, the focus is
on body management, self-awareness, (and) life beyond the 7-Eleven."
Eskdale, who has worked with
marginalized people, including street youth, for years, says
recovering addicts are particularly at risk of falling back into
drug use after they've completed detox and are waiting for a
treatment bed.
"That honeymoon period is when they
will typically ... relapse," he explains.
"The first thing the family does is
lock them out because they screwed up and did drugs again. Well,
what do they do? Right away, they're into this whole culture of
petty crime."
Eskdale and his colleagues running
the wilderness exercise hope to minimize the relapse rate by getting
at-risk kids away from temptation.
Organizers anticipate taking the
first group of 12 boys camping by the end of July. (Girls aren't
accepted at this time because there are no female staff.)
The excursion will be staged out of
the Crescent Falls provincial recreation area near Nordegg, about
330 km southwest of Edmonton.
Two staffers - experienced outfitters
- will be with the kids in the bush and a third will remain in the
home camp in the park's public camping area. A couple of volunteers
are needed at the home camp to help with transportation. (Call
460-0440 for details.)
Eskdale, 50, hopes to clinch two
grants to fund the $32,000 initiative. Almost $20,000 is required
for camping equipment and the rest is needed to cover insurance,
food and other necessities.
The group has set up a registry at
Campers Village on 170 Street, where supporters can either buy an
item off the list for the program or donate money for equipment
purchases. Donations are tax-deductible.
"These kids are happy to detox. You'd
be amazed how many of them are anxious to get into treatment," says
Eskdale.
"The catch-22 is it's great to have a
program built (but) is there going to be a bed there when the kid
comes out of the bush?
"The bottom line is we can't manage
the program without followup treatment."
But Eskdale's dream of scooping up
at-risk kids, building up their self-esteem in the wilderness and
getting them into treatment immediately afterwards may be difficult
to realize.
The Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse
Commission will assess people any time, and if counsellors recommend
residential treatment, an admission date is planned.
But there is no guarantee that kids
who've completed Eskdale's wilderness program will be seamlessly
transferred to treatment beds right away, says AADAC spokesman Korey
Cherneski.
Nevertheless, Eskdale feels compelled
to do something to help drug-addicted kids.
"All of this effort and initiative is
based on doing one thing - that's simply to strengthen their resolve
to complete their treatment," he says.
If the kids are backpacking and
tenting in the wilderness instead of hanging out with drug-using
pals, they have a better chance of staying clean, he says.
"It's an out-of-the-box venture."
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