Stop polarizing the debate. It took both harm reduction and drug treatment to save me

This story is part of a series called The Way Out: Addiction in Alberta. Join the discussion, or read more about the series here. It is the opinion of Calgary resident Chris McBain. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

I don't vote conservative. But I deeply appreciate what the UCP government has done for recovery.

They opened more beds with free treatment and, in 2021, it saved my life. I'm a former injection drug user. Treatment gave me the chance to get off the street and on my feet again and make a fresh start with my life.

But harm reduction also saved my life.

When I was at my most vulnerable, volunteers with a needle distribution service in Edmonton gave me hope, and helped me navigate the complex road to recovery.

Without harm reduction I wouldn't have found the path to life.

There's a lot of anger and rhetoric around this today. Policy makers, advocates and many others are polarizing recovery versus harm reduction. But they're not mutually exclusive. They're both essential.

For the past four years, Marshall Smith — the premier's chief of staff and a former cocaine user himself — has been leading an effort to invest heavily in new treatment options while leaving supervised consumption sites in limbo and scaling back access to alternative treatments.

But I believe his problem is consensus bias — what happens when people see their own choices and assume their situation and experience is common. Smith was able to recover with treatment, so he assumes others can.

But drug treatment centres don't address the poverty, homelessness, lack of education or deep-rooted trauma that make recovery much more complicated for many. An employee at a treatment centre with a diploma in addictions isn't equipped to help someone recover from the trauma of rape, or a lifetime of fighting homophobia and extreme poverty.

The other reality no one is talking about is the efficacy of treatment. 

In 2017, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction surveyed 855 people who had gone into treatment. They found 58 per cent did not complete the program, and of those who did complete it, nearly half returned to substance use.

Because if you can't get a job due to a criminal record, or therapy to address trauma, then how are you supposed to build a life worth staying sober for?

When the UCP government says harm reduction doesn't work, it points to B.C. But B.C.'s model is failing because there isn't a mass pouring of resources into mental health, housing and food security.