Researcher, historian, practitioner and recovery advocate William (Bill) L White has been the most prolific writer in the addiction recovery field. You only have to look at his website. The impact of his ideas, work and writings has been enormous. Here, I include links to a number of my blog posts that focus on Bill White’s writings.
Factors That Facilitate Addiction Recovery
March 14, 2023
Recovery is something done by the person with the substance use problem, not by a treatment practitioner or anyone else. Whilst there are a multitude of pathways to recovery, there are a number of key factors that facilitate recovery from serious substance use problems. (9,586 words) *
Factors that Facilitate Recovery (Short Version, 2013)
March 14, 2023
The importance of these factors has been demonstrated by listening to the narratives of recovering people about their journeys into and out of addiction (1,116 words). *
A Rendezvous With Hope: Bill White
March 14, 2023
Here’s one of my favourite posts from that prolific blogger William (Bill) White, addiction recovery advocate, writer, researcher and historian. Bill’s complete writings are now being hosted on a website run by Chestnut Health Systems in the US.
‘Through my early tenure in the addictions field, the question of readiness for treatment and recovery was thought to be a pain quotient. We then believed that people didn’t enter recovery until they had “hit bottom.” If a person did not show evidence of such pain-induced readiness, they were often refused admission to treatment. Then we recognized that the reason it took people so long to “hit bottom” was that they were protected from the painful consequences of their alcohol and other drug use by people we called “enablers.” We then set about teaching enablers to stop rescuing and protecting their beloved but addicted family members.
Vern Johnson then came along and convinced us we could raise the bottom through a process he called intervention. Staging such interventions within families and the workplace was something of a revolution that brought large numbers of culturally empowered people into recovery, including a former First Lady. All of these early philosophies and technologies relied on pain as a catalyst of addiction recovery, and that was the view I brought to my work as an evaluator of an innovative network of women’s treatment programs in the 1980s called Project SAFE.
My Journey: 4. Learning About Addiction Treatment – WGCADA Stories
March 13, 2023
Three stories from the treatment agency West Glamorgan Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse (WGCADA) in Swansea describe a medical student’s experiences during a day with community support worker Dave Watkins; a client’s experiences whilst interacting with Arrest Referral worker Becky Hancock, and a client’s experiences in the Primary treatment programme at WGCADA. (4,807 words)
In the previous part of My Journey, I described some of what I learnt, through a small group of practitioners (some of whom were in recovery) at the treatment agency WGCADA in Swansea. During my time at WGCADA, my colleagues and I wrote a number of stories, three of which I include here.
1. ’A Day in the Life of Dave’ by Annalie Clark
The first story is written by my daughter Annalie, after she finished her first year of medical training at the University of Edinburgh and worked as a volunteer for Wired In over a period of the summer. One of her projects involved following around WGCADA Community Support Worker Dave Watkins.
Dave’s role was to help WGCADA clients with every aspect of their lives that could interfere with progress on their recovery journey. He helped them gain recovery capital, the quantity and quality of internal and external resources that one can bring to bear on the initiation and maintenance of recovery. You can read more about recovery capital in Section 7 of my article Factors That Facilitate Addiction Recovery.
What facilitates recovery from mental health problems?: Scottish Recovery Network
March 4, 2023
It is important to note the close similarity in the nature of elements that underlie recovery from serious substance use problems and recovery from mental health problems.
An excellent 2007 paper published by the Scottish Recovery Network by Wendy Brown and Niki Kandirikirira, entitled Recovering Mental Health in Scotland: Report on Narrative Investigation of Mental Health Recovery, provides important insights into the latter. This research involved the recovery narratives of 64 individuals in Scotland who identified themselves as being in recovery or recovered from a long-term mental health problems. Here is what the authors write in the Executive Summary of the Report (NB. That I have broken up one long paragraph for ease of reading online]:
‘Across the stories consistent internal and external elements could be found. For a recovery journey to begin and continue to prosper, narrators accounts of their experiences suggest that six basic internal (individual and self controlled) elements were required (though not necessarily in this order and not necessarily seen in every case):
A Genesis of Hope: Dr. David McCartney
January 26, 2023
I hold Dr. David McCartney in my highest regard. He not only overcame his serious alcohol problem, but also set up Lothians and Edinburgh Abstinence Programme (LEAP), a programme that offers structured treatment based in the community using a blend of evidence-based interventions. The patient group in treatment operates as a therapeutic community. I used to love visiting LEAP in my Wired In days, interacting with staff and patients as described in my last blog post.
David is very knowledgeable about addiction and recovery, and posts content to the Recovery Review blog, as part of a community of recovery-oriented experts who write about recovery and related matters. In April 2021, he appeared in a podcast about his addiction and recovery.
‘Switching from doctor to patient was not an easy transition for me. My first attempt at recovery was medically assisted, but only got me so far. What I needed was something more profound: hope, healing and connection to other recovering people. In this podcast for the National Wellbeing Hub, Dr Claire Fyvie interviews me about my own experience of addiction and recovery – warts, wonder and all.’
Factors Facilitating Addiction Recovery
January 18, 2023
In my last blog post, The Nature of Addiction Recovery, I finished by saying that I would describe the key factors that facilitate recovery from addiction in today’s blog post. In fact, I’m going to summarise these factors and provide links to my relevant blog posts of 2022 which provide much more detail. The descriptions linked to have come from a chapter of my eBook Our Recovery Stories: Journeys from Drug and Alcohol Addiction.
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.
A Sense of Belonging: People recovering from addiction need to feel the acceptance, care and love of other people, and to be considered a person of value and worth.
(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.
‘Healing is in Our Stories’ by Deron Drumm RIP
December 27, 2022
Here’s an excellent article by the late Deron Drumm about the importance of Stories in helping people recover and change the mental health system which appeared on Mad in America. I first posted this article on this website in December 2014.
‘”It’s important that we share our experiences with other people. Your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else. When you tell your story, you free yourself and give other people permission to acknowledge their own story.” Iyanla Vanzant
I have spent a lot of time talking to politicians, media members and those working in the mental health system about the failings of the current method of viewing and treating emotional distress. I have come to the conversations armed with stats and outcomes about the bio-medical paradigm. I have found that the people I speak with do not doubt the facts conveyed. They seem to agree that the current state of affairs is not good. The difference is that I think the tragic outcomes demonstrate the failure of the current system. The folks I talk to tend to think things are so bad because “mental illness is just that serious.”
‘Peer recovery support: a bridge to hope and healing’ by Dr. David McCartney
November 29, 2022
I’ve just been reading another excellent post from Dr. David McCartney on the Recovery Review blog.
Good human relationships and social connections are potent protections against both physical and mental ill health. In an analysis [1] involving hundreds of thousands of people researchers looked to see to what extent social relationships influenced the risk of death. They found that those who had stronger relationships were 50% less likely to die early. Loneliness and social isolation have significant negative impacts. You want to live a long and healthy life? Get loads of friends.
In the same way, being connected to pro-recovery social networks improve outcomes in addiction treatment. For a variety of reasons, not least because of stigma, those suffering from substance use disorders are often relatively socially isolated. Guidelines consistently recommend connections to peer groups like mutual aid and LEROs [Lived Experience Recovery Organisations], though this has historically not been a priority for some services. For recovery from alcohol use disorders, being part of mutual aid has an impact at least as great as evidenced psychological therapies like cognitive behavioural therapy. [2]
‘None of them will ever get better’ by Dr David McCartney
February 15, 2022
I love Dr David McCartney’s blogs. He writes so well about issues that really matter. He’s also a great guy who cares passionately about addiction recovery and recovering people. And he’s someone I always enjoy visiting when I am in the UK. [Can’t wait until the next visit!] Anyway, here’s David’s latest post on the Recovery Review blog.
Therapeutic nihilism
“None of them will ever get better”, the addiction doctor said to me of her patients, “As soon as you accept that, this job gets easier.”
This caution was given to me in a packed MAT (medication assisted treatment) clinic during my visit to a different city from the one I work in now. This was many years ago and I was attempting to get an understanding of how their services worked. I don’t know exactly what was going on for that doctor, but it wasn’t good. (I surmise burnout, systemic issues, lack of resources and little experience of seeing recovery happen).
‘A Personal Story’ by Kerrie
November 4, 2021
This very moving Story was written for our Wired In To Recovery website in August 2011. I published it on Recovery Stories in August 2013.
‘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.
I learnt at a very young age to tell them nothing, as I knew if I told someone, for instance, that my sister and I had been left alone or had not eaten properly for a few days, that my parents would get in trouble. And I was fiercely loyal and very protective of them.
‘The Astonishing Power of Example’ by Peapod
November 2, 2021
Here is a post from one of my favourite bloggers on our online recovery community Wired In To Recovery, which dates back to April 2009.
‘Astonishment. That’s what I felt the first time I was taken to a mutual aid group meeting.
I was in treatment at the time in a residential centre. I was also neck deep in trouble. I had lost my job through my using. As part of the fallout from my own million megaton addiction detonation, I’d caused someone else to lose their job. The police were on my tail and I was massively in debt.
I didn’t particularly want to be in treatment, but I’d run out of alternatives. As the detox began to bite (and my god, the teeth were sharp), the permanent fog in my head began to clear. This was not a good thing.
‘My Recovery: A Seminar Opening Speech’ by Adam Brookes
October 13, 2021
It’s amazing to think that Adam Brookes and I have now been great friends for over ten years, although we’ve been on opposite sides of the world for much of that time. Not any more! Here is a blog concerning Adam that I wrote back in May 2013.
I first met Adam back in 2010 and he quickly became someone very important in my life, a really good friend. He was close to my partner Linda and to my three youngest children who were living with us at the time. I saw that Adam had that something special, that empathic and caring nature that helps people get better. I knew that he was going to help many people.
Adam spent a number of years living in the U.K., but now lives happily in New Zealand. Here is a five-minute speech that he gave to open the Fresh Start Recovery Seminar in Perth in July 2011. Wow, over ten years ago!
‘The Four Stages of Recovery’ by Mark Ragins
July 8, 2021
Here’s a blog I first posted back in May 2013, not long after this website first launched. Mark Ragins is a leading recovery figure in the mental health field. He was a pioneer in setting up MHA Village, a recovery community based in Los Angeles. His writings are well worth a read. Here is what Mark has to say about stages of recovery in an article entitled The Road to Recovery. What Mark says here is just as relevant to people recovering from addiction.
‘Recovery has four stages: (1) hope, (2) empowerment, (3) self-responsibility and (4) a meaningful role in life.
Research Shows the Dynamic Spread of Happiness in a Large Social Network
June 25, 2021
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.
‘A Journey Toward Recovery: From the Inside Out’ by Dale Walsh
June 21, 2021
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.
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