(rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

faith-based addictions treatment

Planning continues for Red Deer Dream Centre

Sep 12, 2019 | 4:45 PM

One of the people behind the Red Deer Dream Centre – a proposed 49-day treatment facility – hopes the community will recognize how badly the project needs to happen.

The proposed centre is described as a faith-based organization, committed to alternative treatment options for alcohol and drug addiction in Central Alberta.

Wes Giesbrecht and his team held an open house this week at the former Lotus nightclub (4618 50 Ave.) where they plan to offer a program giving former drug users the confidence and skillset to integrate back into society in a healthy way.

Part of the open house’s focus was to clear up some perceptions about what the facility will and won’t be.

“It’s not a mat program, it’s not an injection site, it’s not a safe consumption site, it’s not a needle program, it’s not a soup kitchen. It’s recovery,” Giesbrecht says.

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“When clients come to us, they are detoxed for three days, then they come into the dream centre and spend seven weeks in an intensive program to rehabilitate and bring them freedom so they can start living a different way, and while you’re there, you’re there.”

While money for capital and operating is a hurdle, Giesbrecht says that isn’t their biggest concern right now.

“It’s the population downtown, especially the business owners, who have their backs up. What we’re seeing is that it’s all painted with the same brush, so if you’re in recovery, you’re part of the safe injection site (overdose prevention site),” he states. “There are certain aspects of the injection facility that I had no idea how bad we actually need something like that for the present circumstances. It (the OPS) is not the answer, but it will help mitigate the chaos. It’s like putting a Band-Aid on a bleeding artery.”

Giesbrecht described comments he heard at Tuesday’s supervised consumption town hall as ‘venomous,’ specifically one suggesting it would be a good idea to lock up a store’s life-saving naloxone kit even if someone is overdosing.

Meantime, the provincial government has announced they will fund 4000 new treatment spaces over the next four years. Giesbrecht says they will look into possible taking advantage of that money for their facility.

“The reality is that every one of the people at the (supervised consumption) symposium the other night, I heard very clearly from a lot of them about recovery. Even ones that were totally uncalled for, the heartbeat is that they’re hurt, the heartbeat is the city has been floundering for the last couple years and we haven’t had the right approach, but I feel like this is,” he says.

“Sobriety is not the opposite of addiction, community is, so when we can get these individuals back into community … they can eventually be part of the system that helped them recover and they can start helping others.”

The City’s Municipal Planning Commission will consider approving the Red Deer Dream Centre application on Oct. 2.