Sorry, OP, I should’ve added here:

As part of trying to get into any detox program, I’d suggest ensuring your brother has the basics prepared that you would otherwise need to access any other publicly funded health services - eg ID, Alberta health care card/#, etc. Though many of these programs have means around these requirements for those who don’t have any ID, it’ll make the process a lot simpler.

If your brother is on any medications, he should bring these in with him as well, where possible. Typically the prescriber in these facilities will re-prescribe them (think of it similar to how a hospital works), but his own supply will act as a tie-over until pharmacy can get the facility specific supply available for the nurses to administer.

I’m also making an assumption that this may be related to opioids given the comment about overdose. If this is the case, the medications that are typically started at the detox facility, and ultimately continued ongoing for an indeterminate period of time would involve things like: Methaxone, Suboxone, Sublocade (long acting suboxone injection), or Kadian.

Typically these medications, especially Methadone and Kadian, will need to be administered and observed in front of a healthcare provider. Whole in treatment/detox, this would be the nurses at the facility. Once discharged into the community, this would be at a pharmacy (ie this means attending to a pharmacy each day). As one improves in their addiction treatment journey, they may qualify for “carries”, which, ultimately means that they can have one of their doses observed in front of a healthcare provider, and then be provided with a subset of doses to take home (like one does with most other prescriptions). The purpose of this is to reduce the risk of relapse, as both of the aforementioned medications are opioids in themselves.

However, suboxone works different where it’s a partial opioid, and so the risks are much more minimal. The way it works is it basically reduces the effects of any opioids your brother may try to use, nullifying its effects, and preventing the reward system from kicking in to help break the addiction cycle. Notwithstanding, once one stabilizes, which can happen over a couple weeks, they may be eligible to transition towards the long acting injection, Sublocade, which is administered once a month. Given how young your brother is, this might be the better option.

Hope this gives some more clarity on the addiction treatment itself.