June 11, 2022 – Amson, retired after 25 years of working in the Yukon’s alcohol and drug treatment system, spoke with the News on May 20. He is disenchanted with the increasing institutionalization of a system that was once designed to support people in recovery.
In the mid 1980s, Amson sobered up in the Crossroads treatment centre, a non-profit started by a group of recovering alcoholics. Afterwards, he started working in the doublewide trailer that served as the Yukon’s detox centre in the 1980s, which housed 20 clients and had a homely, open-door approach. Then he worked as a counsellor in the residential treatment centre for 15 years.
Now with fewer beds, hard-nosed rules, and upper management disconnected from the people they are paid to help, he says, “It’s all about the government saving money and keeping street people off the streets.”
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