Alcohol is Canada’s biggest drug problem. So why aren’t people getting help?

But for six months at the start of 2026, his home was the Vancouver Island Therapeutic Community (VITC), a treatment centre for men in Nanaimo, B.C.

When Kawchuk, a writer and former TV producer, met with CBC’s Audio Documentary Unit during a visit to the treatment centre, he was wearing a blue, button-down shirt, his hair neatly coiffed. He said he often gets mistaken for a member of the staff.

But it was actually his second time at this facility and the fifth in-patient program he’s tried during his decades-long struggle with alcohol-use disorder.

Kawchuk has a long list of things he’s lost to alcohol over the years. He says he’s been fired from countless jobs; he’s lost a lot of money and trust. But he says the hardest part was losing his marriage and the opportunity to live full time with his daughters when they were growing up.