I am thrilled to release the first of our Recovery Voices Teasers, that of Dr. David McCartney, the Founder of Lothians and Edinburgh Abstinence Programme (LEAP).
I have known David since around 2007 and we continued to meet every time I was in Edinburgh, where my eldest daughter Annalie was doing her medical training in the early days. I loved visiting LEAP and spending time with the patients and staff. It was so good to be there last year, after a number of years away.
I edited my interview with David into a series of 15 films (totalling 76 minutes) which are posted on YouTube. These films cover the development of David’s drinking problem and an unsuccessful attempt at sobriety, the latter involving a medical approach focused on prescribing.
In crisis, he later called the Sick Doctors Trust Helpline and was told a doctor’s personal recovery story. That telephone call gave him hope and the opportunity to take his own journey to recovery. David talks about setting up LEAP and about facilitating recovery in the community.
Written summaries of the individual films can be found here.
Bio: David McCartney is an addiction doctor with a background in inner-city GP practice. In 2006, after having recovered from his own addiction, he achieved a Masters degree in Alcohol and Drug Studies and went on to found the Lothians & Edinburgh Abstinence Programme (LEAP)—a residential rehab in Lothian, Scotland, delivered by the NHS and partners.
David was part of a group which revised the UK’s ‘Orange Book’ national guidelines and has published several academic papers. For the last decade he has been part of advisory groups on drugs policy to the Scottish Government and currently chairs the Residential Rehabilitation Development Working Group for them. Check out David’s Recovery Review blog.
David and I in Edinburgh in January 2011.
