Is Medication Assisted Treatment like the Hotel California?: David McCartney

When I worked in the addiction recovery field in the UK running Wired In, I was a strong advocate of harm reduction services, including medication-assisted treatment. However, I spoke out against a treatment system that locked people into a methadone maintenance programme that provided no other therapeutic options, and no opportunity for abstinence-based treatment if people wanted to move on from daily use of methadone. Many people on methadone maintenance programmes were not even made aware of other treatment options.

Here is an excellent recent post on Recovery Review which discusses this highly pertinent issue by one of my favourite bloggers, Dr David McCartney from Edinburgh.

‘The tragedy of Scotland’s drug-related death figures has been in my mind this last week or so. The media may have largely moved on, but those of us who work in the field of addiction, those of us who know individuals who have died and those of us with lived experience of addiction will not be able to do the same.

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‘Recovering From Psychiatry’ by Laura Delano

0-71Here is an excellent website from a very special lady. Please spend time exploring the website, including Laura’s amazing Story. Here’s what Laura has to say:

‘We search, and search, and search for answers to our emotional pain, until we realize they’ve been in us all along – not in psychiatric diagnoses, psychiatric textbooks, pill bottles, or the minds of the doctors we’ve surrendered ourselves to.  At least, this has been my experience.

What does it mean to “recover” from Psychiatry?  For me, it’s meant healing from the physical, emotional, cognitive, and existential trauma of psychiatric labels and psychotropic drugs, which has taken time, patience, acceptance, and unyielding determination. 

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‘4 year anniversary of withdrawal from psych drug cocktail: healing continues’ by Monica Cassani

yayCONGRATULATIONS Monica on your 4th Anniversary and your fantastic website.

Here is what Monica had to say on her blog:

‘Below is the post for the anniversary of the completion of the psychiatric drug withdrawal process I went through that I wrote for last year. Much of it remains relevant and true, so I thought I’d share it again.

I actually have had my best year since coming off drugs this last year. I started seeing improvements somewhat faster in the last year and am getting significantly physically stronger and healthier in general. Discovering the histamine intolerance a little over a year ago led to the most significant personal dietary change I’ve made.

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