‘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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Needle Exchange

July 26, 2013 by

Needle Exchange tells the story of Spencer and Glenn, two best friends who helped each other swap their heroin habits with a passion for tattoos. Ink is their link, but their bond is tested when a new romantic relationship threatens the friendship.

Winner – Best Short Documentary, Galway Film Fleadh 2011

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The Power of Addiction and The Addiction of Power: Gabor Maté at TEDxRio+20

July 25, 2013 by

“I am not afraid of dying, I am more afraid of living” patient of Gabor Maté in Vancouver.

‘The question we must ask is, ‘Why are people afraid of life?’ If you want to understand addiction, you cannot ask what is wrong with the addiction, you have to look at what is right about it. In other words, what is the person getting from the addiction, what are they getting that they don’t otherwise have?

And what addicts get is relief from pain. What they get is a sense of peace, a sense of control, a sense of calmness. Very, very temporarily, and the question is, ‘Why are these qualities missing from their lives? What happened to them?’

Please check out Gabor Maté’s brilliant book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction.

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‘Keeping the monkey off your back: top five tools to sustain recovery’ by Peapod

July 24, 2013 by

P1011013“Just because you got the monkey off your back, doesn’t mean the circus has left town” George Carlin, comedian and author.

Getting sober and drug-free is hard enough for most of us, but staying that way is a challenge. The evidence is that many people coming out of abstinence-oriented treatment will relapse in the first year and most of them in the first few weeks. Recovery initiation, the start of the journey, is just that: a beginning. In the past, we’ve treated it like the main event and had little thought for what happens next.

The circus may not have left town, but there are ways to avoid ending up in a ringside seat and having that pesky monkey trouble you again. These things are the tools of recovery. There are plenty of them and we need to find the ones that work for us. Some however are more reliable than others according to the evidence we have. Here are my own top five tools:

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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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‘Social Inclusion and Recovery: A Model for Mental Health Practice’ by Julie Repper & Rachel Perkins

July 22, 2013 by

41F08WRN58L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_SX342_SY445_CR,0,0,342,445_SH20_OU02_I am very impressed by this book and highly recommend it for all people working in the mental health and addiction fields. It is informative, easy to read and considers a wide range of practical issues. It focuses on how we can best help people with mental health problems gain meaningful and satisfying lives.

I’ve written one blog based on material in this book – What is Recovery? – and more will appear shortly. Here is what appears on the book’s back cover:

‘The starting point of this book is the lived experience of mental health problems and recovery, articulated by many of those who have survived and thrived with mental health difficulties.

On the basis of the myriad individual journeys contained in their accounts, the book explores the day-to-day supportive and facilitative role of nurses and direct care staff as allies in the recovery process.

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‘Personal medicine, power statements and other disruptive innovations in healthcare technology’ by Pat Deegan

July 22, 2013 by

patdeegan_photoI’ve just found this exciting article by Pat Deegan which she wrote for the Scottish Recovery Network (SRN). In my humble opinion, Pat’s CommonGround approach will have an enormous impact in the mental health field.

The SRN writes: “Given her hugely influential writing and personal reflections, research interests and involvement in various policy and practice initiatives, Pat Deegan is arguably the single most influential person within the international recovery movement. Her work today is strongly focused on shared decision making approaches and here she describes how the CommonGround approach, which she has developed, has real potential to encourage systems change towards recovery.”

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Research on Spirituality and Recovery From Addiction

July 18, 2013 by

Robert Weathers PhD of California Southern University summarises two recent and authoritative research studies (from Harvard University and the University of Michigan) which focus on the crucial contribution of spiritual resources in the process of recovery from addiction, for example, in 12-Step programs.

I found this video to be very interesting. Robert also mentions the Buddhist Recovery network website which contains a number of resources and is well worth a look. This network was co-founded by the late G. Alan Marlatt, one of the all-time great researchers and clinicians in the addiction recovery field.

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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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‘Addiction: Problems behind the problem’ by Recovery Coach

July 16, 2013 by

P1010092I was pretending to be Superman when my mother’s frantic cries for help brought a sudden halt to my game. I ran towards the kitchen faster than a speeding bullet. But a Superman t-shirt with a bath towel tucked into the collar didn’t give me superhuman strength.

Peering just below the vinyl seat of our yellow kitchen chairs, my eyes widened as Dad pinned my mother to the cold linoleum floor. He was a large man, standing 6’1″, and Mum was 4’6″. The image seemed surreal, like a horror movie, and I stood frozen in fear.

There was an odor of carnage as Dad hovered over her. Maybe it was the mixture of sweat and testosterone rising from his green work shirt. Pure, unfiltered terror flooded my body and my heart beat so fast it seemed to smash against my ribs.

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A wonderful blog from a recovery ally

July 15, 2013 by

DSCF1611_2Please check out Jim’s blog. Jim is the executive director of a counseling center in the States that specialises in addiction, dual diagnosis, and trauma.

I quote from the introduction to this blog: “Every day he [Jim] works to bring people to a deeper understanding of themselves in order to help them find their way to a meaningful recovery. He has a wonderful perspective on what it takes to walk that path – and how patients and counselors can work together to accomplish lasting recovery.”

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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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‘Sharing our Experience, Strength and Hope, With our Friends Across the Pond’ by Phil and Sandy Valentine

July 11, 2013 by

phil-valentineI was looking through my blogs on Wired In To Recovery and came across one focusing on Phil and Sandy Valentine’s trip to the UK in late 2011. Thought I’d provide a link to the original source material on the CCAR website, an interview of this lovely couple by Bill White.

There are a lot of interesting points in this interview, but here are just a few as a taster.

Phil Valentine: Where recovery is concerned, anonymity and stigma still reign. People in recovery have worked in the treatment system for years, and their colleagues and co-workers (never mind the “service users”) don’t know they are in recovery. Personal recovery seems to be a taboo subject. And countrywide denial, particularly with alcoholism, prevails.

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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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‘Opiate detox: methadone or suboxone’ by Peapod

July 8, 2013 by

“Preparation is key. Getting ready and knowing what it’s going to be like will make it easier. The goal of a good detox is to help reduce unpleasant withdrawal symptoms and to keep things safe. Make sure you understand from your prescriber what’s going to happen.”

This is the third part of Peapod’s Guide to Recovery, a series of articles written by Wired In To Recovery’s most visited blogger.

‘I don’t like stand alone detoxes, mostly because they almost always fail to deliver. Relapse is the norm if all you are offered is detoxification. I’ve written about this before in Detoxification: the nuts and the bolts so won’t go over old ground, but I will say again that success depends on the stuff that goes on around the detox and in the days, weeks and months afterwards.

This rough guide is written for those of you (or your clients) who might be thinking about detoxification.

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Kevan’s Story (Short version): ‘He’s a loser and will never be any good’

July 5, 2013 by

stories-07Here’s a short version of Kevan’s Recovery Story. Please feel free to circulate.

‘I developed a fascination for alcohol at an early age (nine), but didn’t realise that it would rule my life for over twenty years. I drank throughout my teenage years as if it was a normal thing to do, often with building site work mates or colleagues from my judo squad. Sadly, the promise I showed in judo was never realised because I shattered my right knee. Whilst I gave up the sport, I continued drinking.

My first wife and I separated because she didn’t like my drinking. After the divorce, I spent most of the money I made from the house sale on booze. Some guys at work said that I needed help for a drinking problem, but I told them to get stuffed with their job. I was doing what all men were entitled to do. I now spent most of my time in the pub.

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‘A North Wales Perspective on Grass Roots Recovery’ by PM

July 4, 2013 by

The inaugural 'AGRO Road to Recovery around Wales trip' about to leave BangorBirth of a Recovery Organisation.
AGRO – what a strange acronym! It conjures up visions of difficult situations or awkward people. Perhaps those people that some services just don’t want to be involved with.

The truth is that AGRO stands for Anglesey and Gwynedd Recovery Organisation! A grassroots movement borne from the hopes and aspirations of a few dedicated workers in the field – all of whom are in recovery – and their wish to fulfil some of the principles that were coming across the Atlantic from already established movements such as Faces and Voices of Recovery.

The message we heard was loud! The message we heard was clear! Recovery is more than possible. It’s happening and it’s underway… NOW!

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“What is Recovery?” according to Stephanie Brown (Part 4)

July 3, 2013 by

P1010092In my last blog focusing on Stephanie Brown’s book A Place Called Self, I described two myths about recovery. In this blog, we look at the second myth: dependence is bad and recovery means you are no longer dependent.

‘… many women think recovery is moving from dependence to self-sufficiency. But there is no such thing as total self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is a partial condition.’

So what does Stephanie mean by this? She is emphasising that all of us are dependent in some way or other. We need other other people on whom we can depend. ‘No man (or woman) is an island.’

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‘Reflections on my AA experiences’ by Maddie

July 2, 2013 by

P1010174_3At my very first AA meeting, I was carried in by strangers who found me crying, shaking and rocking in the doorway. And I promise I am not exaggerating. Gosh, I had forgotten about that, an event that took place four or five years ago. 

I would pop in and out of AA for years before I was really desperate enough to let the rooms help me. I used to have to have a drink to get in the door, and I used to go with vodka in my bag. However, I just keep going back.

It’s hard to explain, but you are carried and held when you are in the rooms in those early days. Without AA and the people I have met there I would have busted on Friday night on my nine months birthday. I have been experiencing incredible stress because of the very long hours I have been working, the intensity of a new project, and a boss who is trying to make my project fail! At times, it’s been too much.

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