Understanding addicts the first key to helping them recover, says expert
By Lethbridge Herald on June 28, 2025.
Alexandra Noad
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
People dealing with addiction need a lot of care and support, and sometimes that includes a shove in the right direction, says an expert in the subject.
Chasen Miko, interim operations manager for Fresh Start Recovery, spoke to the Southern Alberta Council of Public Affairs Thursday about chalwlenges people with addiction face and how best to support them.
When asked about his stance on Alberta’s proposed Compassionate Intervention Act, Miko noted that each year Fresh Start Recovery has 200 people on the wait list and often by the time they are able to reach out the person is no longer interested.
The Fresh Start organization is a nationally recognized leader in addiction recovery that runs the South Country Treatment Centre in Lethbridge and another centre in Calgary.
The choices people make in active addiction often have severe consequences to not just the individual, but also to their loved ones and family members and often these choices are due to chemical imbalances in the brain.
“The unfortunate reality is that people have lost the capacity to make sound decisions sometimes,” said Miko. “There’s imbalances within the brain chemistry that create difficulties in assessing their needs.”
He added that, while Fresh Start Recovery is a voluntary, about 90 per cent of the participants are mandated in one way or another, whether by family telling them they will cut the person off if they don’t get help, or they are facing losing their job.
Miko also noted that he sees lower participation with these individuals, however most of the time there is a shift halfway through where they get an “aha” moment.
“At least 80 per cent, if not more, of the individuals that are mandated in some way or another, they have a (psychological) shift halfway through the program,” said Miko. “They start to work on daily living activities, we start to talk with them about how doing this can affect your life for change and we almost get that “aha” moment when we work with them”
Shortly after his answer, there was a rebuttal question by an audience member who pointed out in the Mental Health Act, there is an option to appeal the decision, which is often made by a psychiatrist. But the Compassionate Intervention Act doesn’t have clear guidelines as to who makes the decisions.
Fresh Start receives 55 per cent of its funding through government agencies, with the remaining amount being fundraised. With the Lethbridge location being out of town, Miko said it can be difficult to receive grants, even though a lot of their clientele return to the city after graduating the program.
Being outside city limits also creates a barrier for clients to be able to access the centre, as there are no bus routes that go to the facility.
Fresh Start has an intensive 14-to-16-week program with each day beginning at 7 a.m. and ending at 11 p.m. During the day residents have meditations, group work, fitness hours, and then recreation activities after dinner.
Miko said while it is an intensive program, especially for those who have lived on the street for some time, by the time they are ready to leave, they are scared because of the structure they are used to.
With an 83 per cent success rate, Fresh Start has about 400 members in their alumni association, which provides support to those in the program and others who have graduated, including hosting laser tag nights, super bowl parties, fishing and many other activities.
Each month they also host a “birthday” party to connect with graduates of the program and once they hit their one-year milestone, the participant is given a plaque and at five and 10 years a jersey is hung in the rafters.
Miko noted that addiction can affect anyone at any age, but with the right supports they can get back on track and stay there.
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Some very good points made and I like the 83% success rate . . . have you tracked that after 2 years or 3 years? Sometimes when you have people with severe addictions that have caused mental health issues to compound the addiction, it takes about 2 years drug free for their brain to recover to a point they can have a better chance of not relapsing.
I am very skeptical with short term programs, and ones that I studied with similar results that remained long term were 18-24 months in the US, but that was from detox, to treatment dealing with ACES, PTSD and other trauma which impacted an addict, to relapse training, upgrading and job placement, with much of the latter not in a treatment center, but in public residence, monitored by volunteer people who they could check in with daily and if needed they could direct them to a counselor to re-enforce their recovery.
I have seen some of your people part way through the recovery, and see changes in them, positive changes as they take back their lifes from addiction.
I do believe there is a place for the Compassionate Intervention Act in Alberta and know it will save lives. Families were devastated, as they watched their son or daughter slowly kill themselves in a lifestyle only demons could invent. It is sad society has continued to enable addicts instead of focusing on effective treatment programs.
BC has lost all common sense in dealing with this crisis!
If someone were killing the high number of people with a gun or drunk driving the issues would have been addressed years ago, and billions of dollars have been blown enabling and encouraging addicts instead of getting them into treatment.
BC is handing out the very drug that got many addicted from doctors precribing it to them, then cutting them off, so they went to street opioids, but now BC will give anyone opioids for free after taking an interview, including your 10 year old, and they will not tell the parents!
Insanity!
We need more treatment beds which have effective treatment programs!
I appreciate your dedication to healing addicts and ending the carnage on our streets! There was a total of 52,544 apparent opioid toxicity deaths reported between January 2016 and December 2024 in Canada and that is just from opioids! We can do better!