Lax rules make addictions ‘treatment’ a fertile ground for scammers

published on July 24, 2018 by Daphne Bramham in Vancouver Sun

Even before William Griffith Wilson co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, his physician explained that addiction isn’t a moral failing, it is a medical condition.

Yet, even though most of us know people in recovery, suffering from addictions or someone who has died in the current fentanyl overdose epidemic, addiction remains a largely unspoken illness.

It’s possible that the success of AA — a society that values privacy, where surnames are not used, and where strangers seek out others like them not by asking directly about AA but by asking whether anyone is a friend of Bill W. — has paradoxically contributed to the silence.

Regardless, people suffering from addictions have long been ignored by Canada’s health system. Evan Wood, the head of the B.C. Centre on Substance Use, blames a lack of leadership and governance, a failure to properly educate health care providers, and inadequate funding.