Fresh Start South Country (co-ed)

Fresh Start-South Country(FSSC) in Lethbridge Alberta was originally named Napi Lodge when it was established in 1976.

From there, the name changed from Napi Lodge to South Country in 1982. In 2020 a friendly acquisition between South Country in Lethbridge and Fresh Start Recovery Centre in Calgary emerged into what we know today as Fresh Start-South Country (FSSC).

The friendly Fresh Start Recovery Centre acquisition sought to combine Fresh Start’s programming and leadership with South Country’s history and facilities making for a recipe for successful long-term addiction recovery in Lethbridge.

FSSC treatment program follows the disease concept: We see addiction as an illness that is progressive and often fatal if untreated. This illness is a chronic brain disorder with many contributing factors.  The good news is that with treatment and a program of recovery, you can live a healthy, happy, and productive life. Recovery is real, attainable, and sustainable.

Our program includes daily individual and group counseling sessions throughout the course of the program. This is reinforced with enhanced recreational and therapeutic activities conducted in an atmosphere conducive to physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual growth  – Lethbridge location serves BOTH men and women.

We see many lives restored and families who have been brought together through this process.

Our nationally recognized treatment program offers an individual approach to recovery. There is no one size fits all treatment. Our 14-16-week program includes individual counseling, group facilitated treatment/healing, fitness, balanced nutritional meals and an opportunity to build and enhance recovery capital.

The peer support component of our program runs parallel to our core treatment model of integrated chronic care. We employ the 12 Step abstinence model of recovery as our base for treatment and this is supported within a bio-psycho-social model of therapy.

It is said that our recovery is based on the daily maintenance of our spiritual program. The 12-step model for addiction treatment and recovery is the program designed to help us achieve that daily maintenance. The steps are a step-by-step process that lays out a design for living life on life’s terms clean and sober.

Overall oversight will be delivered by The Fresh Start board of directors, Fresh Start Executive Director Stacey Petersen, and Director Operations Bruce Holstead while daily onsite Lethbridge operations will be managed by Tony Kokol in the acting role of Operations Manager. Mr. Kokol has been part of the Fresh Start Recovery Centre team and management for the past 10 years.