It’s good to be back writing for my ‘Recovery Stories’ blog after such a long time away. I plan to post on the blog at least every weekday, as there is plenty that I want to cover. I’ve already loaded up over 40 blog posts ready to save me some time in the future. My old blog posts are still available.
You will see the website contains other sections: Stories, Articles, Film, Resources, Healing, Book and About. I’ll be adding to each of these sections, and hope over time to also build two educational sections focused on recovery and on the healing of intergenerational trauma.
One of my aims with Recovery Stories is to help create positive social change through activating and ‘arming’ people at a grassroots level. I am convinced that real positive social change comes from the ground up through people cultivating the grassroots—it doesn’t come from politicians.
There is an urgent need to improve the way that society helps people overcome substance use and other problems—we can do so much better than we do. I was ‘banging on’ about this matter when I was running Wired In from 2000-2012 and the same needs saying today.
In fact, it is even more important today. We cannot go back to what life was like before the pandemic. We have to create what the inspirational educationist Sir Ken Robinson R.I.P. calls a ‘new normal’ (please see video below). There is so much high quality information that is available—and often not referred to—which can help us improve the way we help people overcome addiction, mental health problems and trauma.
I, for one, aim to use my passion and knowledge to help educate people, empower and connect them, and hopefully facilitate grassroots activism in a positive way so that it starts to create positive social change. I’ll be focusing more on recovery from addiction in the coming couple of months, but will provide more and more content about recovery from mental health problems over time.
Of course, providing information and educational is just one element of what is needed. The information and education has to reach the people who can utilise it in a positive way. I hope some of you will be able to help in this regard by telling colleagues and friends about the website and sharing on social media what you consider to be important content. Thank you.
In his final public speech, Sir Ken Robinson joined The Call to Unite to invite us all to imagine a new normal, and to understand how we can create a world that values the diversity of each individual’s unique gifts and talents.
