Alcohol Rehab Alberta

The Hope for Alcohol Rehab for Albertans

The legal minimum age for drinking alcohol in Alberta, as in Manitoba and Quebec, is 18 years old. Alcohol is Alberta's most popular drug, according to Alberta Health Services.

Alberta is home to the Edmonton Oilers, and the Calgary Stampede with a hard working, hard drinking culture that goes back to pioneer days. Retails liquor sales were privatized in Alberta, by early 1994, leading to a greater density of outlets, longer hours of liquor availability, and higher prices, averaging an 8.5% increase in liquor prices between 1993 and 1996. (Source article)

Alberta Alcohol Statistics

Alcohol is the most abused drug in Alberta

Alcohol abuse and addiction continues to increase in Alberta. The responsibility for management of liquor sales and social harms caused by alcohol abuse, is shared between the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission, and Alberta Health Services. Despite increased regulation of alcohol drinking in 2008, limiting happy hours, and imposing minimum pricing, and higher pricing for high alcohol beers in 2010, statistics for Alberta show that per capita, alcohol drinking is on the rise.

A Canadian alcohol addiction survey of 2004, presents statistics for an average rate of alcohol consumption in Canada at 7.9 liters per year. These Health Canada alcoholism statistics for Alberta show an above national average consumption of alcohol, at 9 liters of pure alcohol per year - the equivalent of 524 bottles of beer for each Albertan over the age of 15 years.

Drinking Starts at a Young Age

Alcoholism statistics for Alberta in the 2004 Health Canada survey show that nearly half of Alberta drinkers, start drinking below the minimum age for alcohol drinking, and around 10% of the population admitted to regular, heavy drinking - consistently with statistics for Canada, around 92% of the general population have drunk alcohol during their life.

Dangerous Levels of Alcohol Drinking

With around 10% of the Alberta population admitting to dangerous levels of alcohol drinking, and many others at risk, alcohol facts are that frequent, heavy users of alcohol are at risk of alcoholism, and will suffer from alcohol symptoms.

Alberta Health Services, in a report dated 2005, calls the issue of alcoholism in Alberta - The Forgotten Problem.

Alberta provides early intervention and treatment for Albertans, by way of alcohol abuse help, with limited success. The relapse rate is high, whether the aim of the treatment is to provide total abstinence or controlled drinking. Alcohol facts support the conclusion that in any given population of alcohol drinkers, some will drink to excess, and a percentage will become alcoholic.

Results from the 2004 Health Canada survey show alcoholism statistics for Alberta in which the vast majority (over 85%) of Albertans see alcohol abuse as a serious problem in Alberta, and felt that problems related to alcohol abuse were increasing in their province.

The Alberta Health Services report of 2005, states that brief interventions, targeted towards individuals with alcohol dependence or addiction, brought about improved behavior an drinking habits, particularly in the first few months after the intervention, and lasting for up to a year. There is no compelling evidence that information sessions about alcohol abuse in schools is effective to reduce substance abuse or alcohol abuse in children of school age. Similarly, there is no evidence to suggest that current workplace initiatives to bring about alcohol abuse awareness assist in the reduction of alcoholism and alcohol symptoms causing problems in the workplace.

Whereas individual treatment plans are seen to be effective, in preference to wider scope community based initiatives, the efficacy of the individual treatment options would appear to have a high relapse rate. Current treatment options and initiatives clearly are not working to reduce the problem of alcoholism in Alberta, community perception is that alcoholism in Alberta is an increasing social problem.

The Issues Beneath Alcoholism

The most important thing to realize, when dealing with alcoholism, is that it is not alcohol drinking that causes alcoholism, nor is alcoholism a disease. Alcoholism is one of many kinds of obsessive, compulsive behaviors that people enact to relieve themselves from feelings of extreme emotional stress and tension.

Triggers for alcohol abuse will be unique to the individual drinker. An alcoholic who lacks a capacity to behave independently of life's triggers, will be condemned to spend the rest of his life either avoiding alcohol triggers, while suffering intense cravings, or simply giving in and relapsing into compulsive alcohol drinking in response to alcohol triggers.

In fact a reference to alcohol triggers misses a vital point. Alcohol triggers don't induce directly compulsive alcohol drinking. Alcohol triggers generate in an alcoholic intense emotional feelings, that the alcoholic perceives as being anxiety producing or depressing.

A Solution that Became a Problem

The alcoholic has previously learned that alcohol drinking relieves the emotional pain. Faced with a trigger, the advanced alcoholic reaches out for the bottle so instinctively and quickly, that he might not feel or experience the painful emotions that are associated with the trigger. The alcoholic alleviates his pain in the instant that it is born by reflexively thinking about, or taking alcohol by way of immediate relief.

Narconon Can Help Break the Vicious Cycle

Comprehensive alcohol & drug rehab centers, such as Narconon Program, Canada have for over forty years used alcohol treatment methods that have been proven to work - with some early participants in the Narconon program who have been free of alcohol and drug abuse for over forty years.

The Narconon treatment method for alcohol abuse uses a detox program that is completely drug-free, safe and natural, together with a series of courses that enable the alcoholic to liberate himself completely from dependence on alcohol by resolving what it is about their alcohol triggers that causes emotional pain. An alcoholic is enabled to build a new life for himself without the use of any toxic substance, based on the highly effective Narconon treatment program.

Narconon Program invites all people from Alberta to use the highly effective and proven Narconon method for complete alcohol addiction recovery.