Blog

Recovery Stories Blog

Recovery Stories Weekly, Issue 5

July 4, 2021 by

In addition to my regular blog posts this week, I added three YouTube films to the Film section and four posts to the Healing Section of the website this week (one also appears as a blog post. Here are all the week’s new posts on the website:

Women: Drinking and Recovery by Dr David McCartney: David describes a research paper that examined 23 published studies focused on women’s pathways into dependence and then into recovery. Four major themes were identified.

Factors Facilitating Recovery: A Summary: Provides a summary for each of 11 factors and links to my earlier blog posts describing each of the factors. Taken from a chapter of my eBook Our Recovery Stories: Journeys from Drug and Alcohol Addiction.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog

Alcohol Dependence

July 3, 2021 by

Here is an article I first wrote as a Background Briefing for Drink and Drugs News (DDN), the leading UK magazine focused on drug and alcohol treatment, in February 2005.

‘There has been a considerable scientific effort over the past four decades in to identifying and understanding the core features of alcohol and drug dependence. This work really began in 1976 when the British psychiatrist Griffith Edwards and his American colleague Milton M. Gross collaborated to produce a formulation of what had previously been understood as ‘alcoholism’ – the alcohol dependence syndrome.

The alcohol dependence syndrome was seen as a cluster of seven elements that concur. It was argued that not all elements may be present in every case, but the picture is sufficiently regular and coherent to permit clinical recognition.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Learning About Addiction Treatment, Part 7

July 2, 2021 by

I continue my story about what I learnt about addiction recovery and treatment from Noreen Oliver, and her staff and clients, during my visits to the structured day care programme at BAC O’Connor back in 2004. (See here for my first blog post relating to these visits).

The majority of the clients at BAC O’Connor had severe and chaotic drug and/or alcohol use, a variety of other problems, including being homeless, and a strong engagement in criminal activities. Many referrals came from criminal justice services. The supported housing programme allowed BAC O’Connor to house and rehabilitate this particularly vulnerable population of clients.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Learning About Addiction Treatment, Part 6

July 1, 2021 by

I earlier began a series of blog posts (starting here) describing what I learnt about addiction, addiction recovery and addiction treatment after I had closed down my neuroscience laboratory in the early 2000s. I started visiting a local treatment agency, local treatment agency West Glamorgan Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse (WGCADA), in Swansea, South Wales. At the same time, I was conducting an evaluation of projects supported by the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Fund in Wales.

I continue this series of blog posts by describing what happened, and what I learnt, after I first visited the treatment agency BAC O’Connor in 2004. Here is the start of a new story, one where I saw recovery literally oozing out of the walls of a building.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , ,

On the Nature of Healing: Judy Atkinson

June 30, 2021 by

As some of you know, I was inspired to work in the healing trauma field in large part by Judy Atkinson’s wonderful book Trauma Trails: Recreating Song Lines – The Transgenerational Effects of Trauma in Indigenous Australia. Here is a short bio of Judy, taken from the We Al-li website:

‘Emeritus Professor Judy Atkinson is a Jiman (central west Queensland) and Bundjalung (northern New South Wales) woman, with Anglo-Celtic and German heritage.

Her academic contributions to the understanding of trauma related issues stemming from the violence of colonisation and the healing/recovery of Indigenous peoples from such trauma has won her the Carrick Neville Bonner Award in 2006 for her curriculum development and innovative teaching practice. In 2011 she was awarded the Fritz Redlick Memorial Award for Human Rights and Mental Health from the Harvard University program for refugee trauma.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog, Healing Tagged With: , , , ,

Factors Facilitating Recovery: A Summary

June 29, 2021 by

In a series of blog posts over the past eight weeks, I have described a variety of factors that facilitate the process of recovering from addiction. These descriptions have come from a chapter of my eBook Our Recovery Stories: Journeys from Drug and Alcohol Addiction. Here, I briefly summarise these factors and provide links to the relevant blog posts.

Hope: This hope is based on a sense that life can hold more for one than it currently does, and it inspires a desire and motivation to improve one’s lot in life and pursue recovery.

Empowerment: To move forward, recovering people need to have a sense of their own capability, their own power.

Self-Responsibility: Setting one’s own goals and pathways, taking one’s own risks, and learning one’s own lessons are essential parts of a recovery journey.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog

‘Women: Drinking and Recovery’ by Dr David McCartney

June 28, 2021 by

My good friend Michael Scott, of Michael’s Recovery Story, and I attended a Public Awareness Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in a Perth suburb today. I was asked to talk for five minutes about my recovery work over the years. I also described some of the factors that facilitate recovery.

We listened to a number of AA members share their stories and I have to say that I was blown away by the high quality of the shares. They were moving, inspirational and insightful. More women than men spoke. It was such a good meeting and I really enjoyed talking to people after the actual meeting ended.

Imagine my surprise when I got home to find that my good friend Dr David McCartney had just uploaded a blog post about women, drinking and recovery.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Recovery Stories Weekly, Issue 4

June 27, 2021 by

This week’s blog posts were some of my favourites from earlier times. I haven’t added anything else in other sections of the website, since I’ve been busy with other activities. Here are this week’s posts:

‘A Journey Towards Recovery: From the Inside Out’ by Dale Walsh: ‘Discovering and participating in this culture of healing has given me the hope and courage to travel the path of recovery. This is a culture of inclusion, hope, caring, and cooperation; of empowerment, equality, and humor; of dignity, respect, and trust.’

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog

How Trauma Flows Through the Generations

June 26, 2021 by

‘Our first generations were killed and imprisoned, and females sexually misused. Our second generations turned to alcohol or drugs as their cultural and spiritual identity was damaged; in our third generations we had spousal assault and societal trauma.

In our fourth generations the abuse moves from spousal abuse to child abuse or both. In the fifth generations, the cycle repeats as trauma begats violence, begats trauma. And in our sixth generations the grown children of the conquerors begin to live in fear of the grown children of the conquered.’ Judy Atkinson

The title of Judy Atkinson’s book is particularly well-chosen—trauma leaves trails across the generations. In the quote above, Judy briefly summarises the violence that has been experienced by Aboriginal people, violence that has produced trauma which has become cumulative and more complex across generations. This trauma has impacted upon individuals, families and communities.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , ,

Research Shows the Dynamic Spread of Happiness in a Large Social Network

June 25, 2021 by

I am continuing this week’s focus on some of my favourite blog posts from the earlier days of Recovery Stories and our online community Wired In To Recovery. I first wrote this blog not long after the launch of our online recovery community.

‘Last week, the British Medical Journal published a very interesting article on the dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network. This high quality research involved a longitudinal analysis over 20 years of participants in a long-term health study in America (the Framingham Heart Study, see at end of Blog for further details].

The research involved 12,067 individuals who were connected to someone else in this population at some point between 1971 and 2003. Researchers measured happiness by a questionnaire and conducted a complicated statistical analysis of the relationships between people in this large social network.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , ,

Treatment and Recovery Disconnection

June 24, 2021 by

William White describes how somewhere in the process of the professionalisation of addiction treatment in the US, treatment got disconnected from the larger more enduring process of long-term recovery.

He points out that we are recycling large numbers of people through repeated episodes of treatment. Their problems are so severe and recovery capital so low, there is little hope that brief episodes of treatment will be successful. We end up blaming them for failing to overcome their problems.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , ,

‘An Intervention Gone Wrong’ by Bill White

June 23, 2021 by

I first spotted an earlier version of this article on Bill White’s website in 2013. The article really made me laugh so I couldn’t resist posting it. Since then, Bill has posted this version of the little gem (in 2017), so I decided to post it.

‘The most famous and controversial treatment for addiction in the 19th century was Dr. Leslie Keeley’s Bichloride of Gold Cure.  Dr. Keeley franchised his cure procedures through more than 120 Keeley Institutes scattered across North America and Europe.  These Institutes became the preferred drying out institutions for the rich and famous in the 1890s. But the problem then (as today) was this: Even where there are financial resources to pay for such treatment, how can the afflicted person be convinced to enter such a treatment institution?

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , ,

‘Experiences of a Mother of Two Young Heroin Addicts’ by Mark

June 22, 2021 by

A very moving blog which first appeared on Wired In To Recovery (WITR) in May 2009. Mark blogged regularly on WITR until the community closed. I also published this on Recovery Stories in June 2013.

‘We found my 20 year old brother dead of an overdose. He had just kicked the habit so tolerance was low. He started a job and the first payday was his last. Mum wrote this after I got clean. Copy and use it anywhere it can be of use.’ Mark

‘What is it like being the mother of an addict? (Experiences of a Mother of Two Young Heroin Addicts)

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

‘A Journey Toward Recovery: From the Inside Out’ by Dale Walsh

June 21, 2021 by

I’ve been away visiting family this weekend and haven’t had a chance to prepare a new set of blog posts for this week. I therefore thought I would re-post some of my old favourites from the past this week, which will give me time to prepare new ones for next week. 

One of my favourite articles about recovery was written by Dale Walsh back in 1996 which really summed up what recovery and recovery principles mean to a person who has been suffering from mental health problems. I thought I would highlight some of the main points here. 

The Problem
‘For many years I believed in a traditional medical model. I had a disease. I was sick. I was told I was mentally ill, that I should learn to cope with my anxiety, my depression, my pain, and my panic. I never told anyone about the voices, but they were there, too. I was told I should change my expectations of myself and realize I would always have to live a very restricted life.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Recovery Stories Weekly, Issue 3

June 20, 2021 by

In addition to my regular blog posts this week, I added three posts to the Healing Section of the website this week (one also appears as a blog post). Here are all the week’s new posts:

Anna’s Moment of Clarity: Anna’s story highlights the need for family members to accept that they cannot take ownership of their loved one’s addiction. They are not responsible for the addiction and they cannot do recovery for their loved one.

Factors Facilitating Recovery: (Gaining) Recovery Capital: Recovery capital is the quantity and quality of internal and external resources that one can bring to bear on the initiation and maintenance of recovery. It includes personal, family/social and community factors.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog

Addiction and Psychological Pain

June 19, 2021 by

During the many years I spent working in the addiction and mental health field, first as a neuroscientist and later helping empower people to facilitate their recovery (healing), I rarely heard the word ‘trauma’ being used.

Few practitioners I met mentioned that the person with the substance use problem might be self-medicating to ameliorate psychological pain. And yet in society, there were plenty of people visiting their doctor and obtaining a prescription of benzodiazepines such as librium, which are highly addictive substances, or antidepressants, which also produce problems, to help them deal with unpleasant psychological states of anxiety or depression.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog, Healing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

‘What’s Wrong With You? Nothing. What Has Happened to You? Something.’ by Dr Michael Cornwall

June 18, 2021 by

I believe strongly in the words of this title. This blog first appeared on the Mad in America website and I posted it on this website in May 2014.

‘Licensed Mental Heath professionals are trained and are required to find out what is wrong with people.

Unfortunately, 90 percent of the people who could benefit from professional mental health services, in my opinion, are suffering from feeling something is wrong with them. They already feel bad about themselves, like they are failing in life. They often feel a lot of guilt, shame and self-loathing. They are often already judging themselves.

They may have been overwhelmed  by losses, by life events, or have not had their crucial needs met, or have been unloved, neglected, bullied, abused or mistreated by family and others. Because of what has happened to them, they may struggle to not identify themselves as someone who’s lot in life is to be rejected or harmed by others.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

‘Lost Connections’ by Johann Hari, Part 2

June 17, 2021 by

In my last blog, I described Johann Hari’s enthralling and inspirational book Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions. This has to be one of the most important books I have read in the mental health field since I first started working in this arena over 40 years ago.

Johann asks himself, given all his new knowledge garnered during his research for the book, what he would say to his teenage self just before he popped his first antidepressant drug—he took the drugs for 13 years—if he could go back in time.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

‘Lost Connections’ by Johann Hari

June 16, 2021 by

One of the most interesting books I have read on mental health is Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari. Johann points out that depression is NOT caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, as is argued by drug companies and many biologically-oriented psychiatrists and  doctors.

Moreover, there is little, if any, scientific evidence that ‘antidepressants’ alleviate depression. [Some credible scientists suggest they give a temporary relief to a minority of users.] Johann talks about social factors that cause depression and considers new socially-related ways of alleviating the problem.

Johann describes seven forms of disconnection that cause depression:

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Factors Facilitating Recovery: (Gaining) Recovery Capital

June 15, 2021 by

Here’s the last of the 11 factors facilitating recovery that I wrote about in my book Our Recovery Stories: Journeys from Drug and Alcohol Addiction. Just because it is last, does not mean it is the least important factor. In fact, it is one of the most important!

Recovery is better predicted by someone’s assets and strengths, rather than their ‘pathologies’, deficits and weaknesses. People can make progress by identifying and building on their personal assets and strengths. Interventions to facilitate recovery must focus on helping individuals build their recovery strengths, more often referred to as ‘recovery capital’. 

Recovery capital is the quantity and quality of internal and external resources that one can bring to bear on the initiation and maintenance of recovery [1]. It takes three main forms:

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , ,