‘The Work of Recovery’ by Bill White

August 27, 2013 by

employmentI missed this very important recent posting on Bill White’s website which is well worth reading.

‘Research on addiction recovery is quite scant compared to the volumes of research on addiction-related pathologies and clinical interventions. Additionally, some of the most important research on addiction recovery is buried in academic journals, rarely if ever read by the people who need it most – addiction treatment professionals and people needing, seeking or in recovery.  Such is the case of studies on the role of work in addiction recovery.  

In 2011, Dieter Henkel of the Institute for Addiction Research at the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt, Germany, conducted a comprehensive review of international studies on the relationship between substance use and employment that was published in Current Drug Abuse Reviews (4, 4-27).  Henkel drew the following conclusions from his review of more than 130 scientific studies:

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Support for You – One Woman’s Story

August 12, 2013 by

Louise C. runs a successful family business in Scotland that employs 90 people.

But she very nearly lost all of this, and her life, due to chronic alcoholism. Louise thanks her family for getting her into treatment. She remembers the day her family dropped her off at Castle Craig: “It took three men to drop me at the door of Castle Craig.”

She admits that “the best thing to do with alcoholics is to gang up on them and give them no option but to try treatment and face up to their addiction.” Once that is done, “you’re half-way there.”

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‘A Personal Story’ by Kerrie

August 10, 2013 by

IMG_3429This very moving Story was written for Wired In To Recovery in August 2011.

‘Hi, my name is Kerrie. I am 37 years old. Both my parents died as a result of heroin addiction. My mum when I was 8 years old and she was 28, and my dad when I was 15 and he was 43.

I grew up in the madness of their addiction; needless to say we were a very dysfunctional family. I don’t remember my parents ever getting any real support. The only people involved with our family were the police and social services.

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‘A Day With Dave’ by Annalie Clark

July 29, 2013 by

My lovely daughter Annalie heads back to the UK tomorrow, having spent a year here in Perth working as a doctor (along with her boyfriend Max) in the emergency department of  a local hospital. I will miss them both greatly, but I’ve had such a special year with them.

Here’s an article that Annalie wrote in the summer of 2005, when she had just finished her first year of medical training at the University of Edinburgh. It appeared in a June edition of Drink and Drugs News. The article is about Dave Watkins who used to be a top-class support worker at a treatment centre in Swansea.

What is striking about this article is that Dave’s role resembles what I envisage a recovery support worker (or recovery coach) would be doing today. Annalie highlights Dave’s extensive contacts within, and knowledge of, the local community, which helps the lives of the people with whom he works. In the video above, you can see one of the magic tricks that Dave used to engage the people he was working with.

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‘Addictions Expert, Veronica Callanan Speaks on TV’

July 24, 2013 by

“I was born feeling different. I just felt uncomfortable in my own skin. I felt that the whole world was behind a glass screen and I was one side. I just couldn’t figure it out…”

How often have I have words similar to these from people who went on to use drugs and/or alcohol to help them deal with these feelings… and then developed a substance use problem. I’ll be talking about the role of disconnection in addiction in later blogs.

Veronica goes on to describe her recovery and provides a message of hope for people affected by alcohol dependence. Please check out her website, there’s some good stuff on there.

 

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Roland Lamb interview: “The Struggle Continues, The Victory is Certain”

July 12, 2013 by

P1010948Last year, I blogged about Bill White’s interview with Roland Lamb, one of the key players in helping transform the behavioural healhcare system in Philadelphia to a system based on recovery. This system is concerned with both mental health and addiction, and is a $1 billion system caring for over 100,000 people.

I’ve combined my four blogs into one, which highlights key parts of this very interesting interview. There is a lot we can learn from the Philadelphia in transforming our own behavioural health are systems.

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‘What a surprise. I don’t know everything!’ by Peapod

July 9, 2013 by

2007_0118walpole0094Life got a bit easier for me in early recovery when I let go of my need-to-know-and-understand-everything mentality.

My background and training before I came to work in addiction treatment was scientific. I had to break the world down into understandable components and had a fairly rigid and cognitive world view. In many ways I was trapped in my head. Science can explain everything and if it can’t be explained, I’m not interested.

Well, science didn’t help me particularly with my addiction when it arrived and I certainly tried to understand it. Do you know there are over 40 theories of addiction? It’s likely when there are so many that we won’t really ever agree completely on what’s going on. The funny thing is that I’m okay with that today.

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Arthur C. Evans Honored for Addiction Recovery Work

July 9, 2013 by

arthur-evansFound this excellent article in the Philadelphia Tribune. Well done Arthur and and his colleagues who have helped make his Award possible. What they have achieved in Philadelphia in terms of developing a recovery-based care system is an example to us all.

‘Arthur C. Evans, Ph.D. Philadelphia Commissioner of the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS) has been recognized for his strides in promoting recovery from addiction.

Faces & Voices of Recovery honored Evans with the Lisa Mojer-Torres Award at the America Honors Recovery event held on June 26 in Washington, D.C. America Honors Recovery highlights the extraordinary contributions of the country’s most influential recovery community leaders and organizations and is sponsored with Caron Treatment Centers.

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‘Sue: A Personal Story’ by Sue Murphy

June 28, 2013 by

2007_0118walpole0076“I was, what you were once described as in the 70s, ‘a problem child’. So to me, looking back, it was inevitable I ended up an addict.

My first love was LSD after postnatal depression. Not an excuse, just how it was. LSD was the only thing that made me feel alive. Until ecstasy. Wow, good days and they were until all the garbage arrived.

Skip many years, many tablets, many lines later and I found heroin. Or should I say it found me? It kept me enslaved for 15 years along with crack.

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Active ingredients within the processes of successful addiction treatment and recovery

June 13, 2013 by

IMG_3699“For nearly five decades, Rudy Moos, PhD, has been one of the giants of modern addiction research. I believe he has, more than any other research scientist, focused on questions of the greatest import to addiction counselors and the individuals and families they serve. His published studies have dramatically expanded our knowledge of addiction treatment and the processes of long-term addiction recovery.” William L White

That is one hell of an introduction to Rudolf Moos, in my humble opinion one of the great addiction researchers of our time. Bill White’s comments come at the beginning of a very interesting interview he conducted with Rudolf in 2011.

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‘The user as expert’ by Peapod

June 11, 2013 by

IMG_2817Another blog on WITR from April 2009.

‘When I went to look for help for my addiction, I ended up in the care of an addiction specialist. He was good at his job. He knew all about addiction.

He was impressive in terms of assessment and he knew about methadone and antidepressants and other prescribing options. His team inspired confidence in terms of their knowlege of addiction.

Unfortunately, it turned out they didn’t know much about recovery. The specialist advised against mutual aid and dissuaded me from professional counselling.

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Natalie’s Story: ‘I didn’t plan to be an addict’ (Part 2)

June 7, 2013 by

IMG_3468I 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.

We left Natalie in Part 1 of this Story in the pre-treatment part of a 12-step treatment programme.

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Special Award for Philadelphia’s Dr. Arthur C. Evans

June 7, 2013 by

IMG_4834Here’s some wonderful news from Faces & Voice of America:

‘Philadelphia’s Behavioral Health Commissioner Dr. Arthur C. Evans to receive Lisa Mojer-Torres Award

Faces & Voices of Recovery and Caron Treatment Centers invite you to join us at an evening reception recognizing the outstanding contribution of Dr. Arthur C. Evans, Commissioner of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility.

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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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Reflections on recovery – From seven years ago

June 6, 2013 by

2007_0116walpole0008This is from the website Articles section. Thought you should see how I was thinking seven years ago:

‘This article comprises two articles I wrote seven years ago for Drink and Drugs News (DDN) in the UK – with a few small changes and additions (including headings).

The original two articles focused on the writing of William L. White and colleagues in the US. I thought it was interesting to look back and see what I was writing at that time.

1. Problems with our treatment system
“Something got lost on our way to becoming professionals – maybe our heart. I feel like I’m working in a system today that cares more about a progress note signed by the right color of ink than whether my clients are really making progress toward recovery.

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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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Untangling the elements involved in treatment

June 5, 2013 by

P4061087Here’s a summary of a piece of research that Lucie James and I conducted some years ago. I am very proud of this piece of work and it certainly opened my eyes to the importance of gaining a sense of belonging in the recovery journey.   

‘To understand how treatment helps people overcome substance use problems, it is essential to understand the elements that operate in the treatment process, and how they might interact to facilitate behavioural change and a person’s path to recovery from addiction.

Lucie James and I set out to gain initial insights into these issues by using a qualitative analysis of the views and experiences of clients on the RAPt treatment programme in one male and one female prison in the UK.

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Hep C – The Facts

June 5, 2013 by

My good friend Michael Scott loves this film from David McCollom’s DMC Media and Lancashire Drug and Alcohol Action Team.

The film informs and educates individuals who have Hepatitis C and are thinking of interferon treatment. Two people from Lancashire share their experiences of  treatment and how they got through it. The film is just over 24 minutes long. Enjoy!

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The future of treatment

June 5, 2013 by

P4071117The following quote is taken from one of my favourite books, Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America by William L White.

‘During the past 150 years, “treatment” in the addictions field has been viewed as something that occurs within an institution – a medical, psychological, and spiritual sanctuary isolated from the community at large.

In the future, this locus will be moved from the institution to the community itself. Treatment will be viewed as something that happens in indigenous networks of recovering people that exist within the broader community.

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People affected by a loved one’s addiction

May 31, 2013 by

Not enough attention has been focused on the difficulties experienced by loved ones and friends of people with a substance use problem. That’s wrong.

I’ve probably made the same mistake during my blogs this week. So here’s a film from David McCollom, a young man in recovery who is doing some great film work on recovery in the UK.

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