Bermuda needs more long-term care options for drugs addicts and preventive education needs to continue targeting school-age children.

Preston Swan, the programming manager at Turning Point, a substance abuse treatment centre, made these observations as part of Alcohol and Addiction Month.

He has been with the centre, which offers intensive outpatient programme, a methadone maintenance programme and an inpatient detox unit, for four and half years and has been at the hospital for 19 years.

The majority of the patients that Turning Point has walking through its doors are heroin addicts, which account for about 138 of their 280 clients.

The patients must go through detox stage before they can be productive in the therapy portion of the treatment.

However, Turning Point only has eight beds available and each of these clients usually stays between seven and ten days for detox, according to Mr. Swan.

That's why he believes the way forward in stemming the addiction tide on the Island is to target children with education and a long-term facility on the Island.

He said: "They need to be supported. They need to change their friends, their whole lifestyle. Eight-five to 90 percent come in for heroin addiction. What's missing is the more long-term treatment.

"If you have the finances and have a problem you will go away. If you don't you have no choice you have to seek our services.

"If we can really emphasis to the school age I think we are going to be a little better off and treatment we are going to spend a lot less on treatment side.

"We go into schools and talk to students and we help others. The Department of National Drug Control (DNDC) has done a good job of getting the message out every year."

"We have to continue working more together in all the treatment facilities. If we can just continue to get that connection and build on that we would be better."

It's a call that has been heard in recent weeks including Rickeesha Binns, who is a reformed drug addict who entered a programme in the United States.

Ms. Binns, who is studying to be a counsellor, like Mr. Swan, believes that it could take far longer then the intense three-week programme offered by Turning Point to help drug addicts turn their lives around.

The problem, according to Mr. Swan, is that drug addiction is like a disease and once the drugs change the brain's chemistry the individual is caught in a cycle of needing that high beyond anything else.

It actually begins changing the individuals ability to feel pleasure because dopamine, which naturally induces a sense of happiness, is hijacked by the drugs, according to Mr. Swan.

"When they start drugs it's voluntary but it gets taken away from them because the disease progresses. It's not a moral issue for only people using drugs it's actually function change in the brain system," he said.

"There are catastrophic consequences to their behaviour, but that's not enough. The drive to use will go beyond everything. The high they get would be four times better.

"The damage done to your brain takes time to repair. Educationally, really anything less than 90 days. Statistically it goes down how long you will stay off."

But Turning Point, like other facilities on the Island, are doing their best to meet the needs of their clients even offering 24-hour access to someone who they can call for support.

There is also family education and family intervention, anger management, aftercare services, individual counselling, outpatient detox, drug testing and referrals to local and overseas' services, offered.

They are also under a strict confidentiality agreement, which means even if the Police phone looking for someone who is in Turning Point, the staff will not reveal that information.

Mr. Swan added: "We are doing what doing what we are doing now so that the next generation has a break. We want people to be successful and to get their lives back."