‘Heroin Addiction, a Mother’s Story’ by Kim

January 16, 2014 by

301116_1829390393379_1798948842_1202263_68985599_n-225x300It’s time I put up another blog from Veronica Valli and the following from Kim is special… and very moving.

‘Addiction doesn’t just affect the person using drugs it affects the whole family. I know because I lived through my daughter Kayela’s addiction to heroin.

We raise our children and its hard work, changing diapers and heating formula and lining up daycare, the first day of school and homework we don’t understand.

We care for them until they are ready to go off in the world and we can only hope that we did the right thing, made all the right choices.

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What Works in Treatment?: Sapphire’s Story, Part 1

October 31, 2013 by

rsz_img_2357Sapphire’s Story shows the importance of person-centered treatment. Things went well when Sapphire was intimately involved in decisions about her treatment, but poorly when professionals took sole control. We’ll look at various stages of Sapphire’s treatment career.

Sapphire was being prescribed methadone for her heroin addiction, but as the dose was not high enough she was suffering withdrawal symptoms. To counter the discomfort of this withdrawal, she was purchasing methadone on the street and using benzodiazepines. Then a problem arose from her urine sample:

‘When I was 25, my urine screening revealed that I was taking benzos and the CDT sent me to a shared care GP who was to prescribe my methadone and benzos. At my first appointment, I decided to be honest and tell the GP about the methadone I was buying, and how bad my benzo use had become.

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Anna’s Moment of Clarity

September 17, 2013 by

stories-02Anna’s brother had developed a heroin addiction and she was becoming overwhelmed by the whole situation.

In her Recovery Story, here’s the lead up to Anna’s Moment of Clarity:

‘After this incident in the city, I became unhealthily obsessed with finding out as much as I could about heroin, as well as trying to monitor my brother’s behaviour and uncover his lies. I read every book I could get my hands on, including a few books I’d had as a teenager – Go Ask Alice, Junky and H: Diary of a Heroin Addict.

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‘Stuck not broke’ by AntiHero79

July 27, 2013 by

IMG_1870Hello, as this is my first entry I’ll (try to) keep it short. I am two and a half years into my recovery. I’d love to say that it’s all plain sailing, but in fact has been the darkest and most confusing time of my life up to now.

“I always knew I was different”… Well it’s true, I did. Always felt apart, weird, somehow isolated from even my closest friends. I had a rough childhood, no doubt about it, and when I found drink and drugs it was like I was liberated.

My first round of addiction (to cannabis, from age 14 – 15) saw me walking round school in a virtual coma. In retrospect, it must’ve looked like there was something severely wrong with me. There was, I know now. As a nine year old, I was molested by a family ‘friend’. It was reported to the police but stopped there. Lack of evidence.

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Journeys into and out of Heroin Addiction, Part 3: Trying to Stop

July 17, 2013 by

IMG_2644The decision to stop using drugs is fundamental to the process of recovery from addiction. It is the initial part of the process by which people overcome a drug addiction.

However, whilst making the decision to quit is of great importance, it does not follow that the person will in fact stop using and maintain this abstinence for a prolonged period or indefinitely. There are a wide variety of factors that influence ‘stopping’ and ‘staying stopped’.

In looking at a person’s decision to stop using heroin, we must consider the external reality and circumstances of their life, as well as the internal thought processes that occur when they make the decision to stop.

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‘A Personal Story’ by Wee Willie Winkie

June 29, 2013 by

2007_0116walpole0097‘I’m 33 years old. I started taking drugs from ten years old and, apart from a three and a half year stint in the army, took them continuously right up to the age of 30. This included 11 years as a heroin addict.

During this time, I felt totally isolated and alone in the world, and completely worthless. After a few years I was desperate. I’d overdosed a couple of times and, at this point in my life, I’d have welcomed death with open arms. It never came, so I decided to help it along a bit.

Luckily, it didn’t work but at the time I just didn’t know what to do. Eventually, I decided that this was my life and to try make the best of it I could. I ended up living in the woods for a year. I could never see myself living in shop doorways.

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‘Never give up hope’ by Elizabeth Burton-Phillips

June 14, 2013 by

Never give up hope by Elizabeth Burton-PhillipsAnother of my favourite blogs from Wired In To Recovery, from December 2009.

“Like most grandparents, I can’t resist showing off pictures of my beautiful little grandson James, sitting with his adoring father Simon. But for me, the joy runs even more deeply than most, contrasting as it does with the devastation my family experienced almost six years ago.

At the age of 13, my son Simon and his twin brother Nick began experimenting with drugs by smoking cannabis. They sampled increasingly dangerous drugs over a period of 14 years, culminating in injecting heroin. One February day in 2004, after a huge drug-fuelled argument, Simon went to make peace with his brother and found that Nick had hanged himself.

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Susan’s Story, Part 3: ‘Missing Michael – A Story by Blog’

June 12, 2013 by

P1010995Susan lost her son Michael to a drug overdose on the 22nd January, 2010. I, for one, cannot begin to understand what someone must go through after such a loss.

However, I gained some appreciation from the Susan’s extraordinary writing in a blog she published on our online recovery community Wired In To Recovery. I was captivated and deeply moved by Susan’s writing, as were many other people in our community.

This is Part 3 of a slightly edited version of Sue’s blogs. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you have not seen them.

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Natalie’s Story: ‘I didn’t plan to be an addict’ (Part 1)

June 6, 2013 by

IMG_3464I first met ‘Natalie’ over 12 years ago when I lived in South Wales. I will never forget how she emphasised the importance of providing online support for people with substance use problems. She had been desperate to find helpful online information when she trying to overcome her drug problem.

Natalie has always been such an inspiration to people around her. Mind you, many people had to first get over the shock of finding that such a lovely lady had once been a heroin addict.

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The Personal Story of Kevan Manley

June 6, 2013 by

This is a short version of a 35 minute film focusing on Kevin’s recovery from drug addiction that we made a number of years ago. His mother Kerry talks about her experiences during Kevin’s 15 year history of problem drug use and his recovery.

The film was made for Wired In by Jonathan Kerr-Smith and Lucie James in and around Cardiff, South Wales.

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It’s not just about the drug

May 25, 2013 by

IMG_3429Why not check out my article on drug, set and setting? In this article, I describe how the effects of a drug depend on the interaction between the drug, the person (set) and the social context (setting) in which the drug is taken.

Similarly, these three factors influence both addiction and recovery from addiction. As I describe, this interaction has important implications for developing systems of care to help people recover from dug and alcohol addiction.

Please let me know what you think about It’s not just about the drug.

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‘Hope is the word that can free us from addiction’ by o2b3

May 24, 2013 by

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOne of the things I will be doing with this new website is to ‘bring back’ some of the classic blogs from Wired In To Recovery – this has been much requested!

People who know me will tell you that I always keep banging on about hope. Yes, hope is essential for recovery! Here’s a real powerful blog about hope which o2b3 submitted to Wired In To Recovery back in 2010.

‘I always thought that the word hope didnʼt apply to me! From where I come from I was never shown or given any hope. I was always put down and told, “Thereʼs no hope for you. You are no good. Youʼre bad, you are a liar. You are worthless and rotten to the core.”

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