In Monday’s blog post, I described how James Deakin, Founder of North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC), was incredibly intimidated by academics at one time. He got over that and today he is working with a number of us academics—in my case, a former academic.
James believes that both people with lived experience, and academics, have a role to play in the recovery field. For individuals on their recovery journey, storytelling is more relevant, but academic research is needed to influence funders and drive policy change.
James says that the upside of people with lived experience is that they are able to support people much more effectively, compassionately, and in a quicker manner. The downside of it is that ‘we’re also an ex-bunch of addicts and alcoholics, and it’s really easy to discount what we say, and what we think, and what we stand for, and what we advocate.’
Here is the section ‘Overcoming Stigma’ in my article 
Here’s another great blog from one of my favourite psychiatrists, 
Here is a powerful 
Ellie’s Recovery Story is from the excellent 
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.
In my last blog post, 
Here’s another excellent post from one of my favourite bloggers, David McCartney from Edinburgh in Scotland. It’s on a topic which is close to my heart—tackling stigma. Here is what David wrote on the 
My good friend Michael Scott, of 
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. 
Continuing to look back at my career in the addiction recovery field and what I have learnt. After reading the excellent book Beating the Dragon: The Recovery from Dependent Drug Use by James McIntosh and Neil McKeganey in 2003, I made the decision to start a research programme involving qualitative analysis of interviews. The first piece of research, which focused on the effects of substance use problems on the family, was conducted by Gemma Salter, a third year undergraduate. Gemma was awarded the prize for the project of the year in my Psychology department.
This is eighth post in this particular Series, which comes from my book 
I met Mike Blanche in around 2003 and he was the first person to help me understand the impact of a person’s substance use problem on family members. Mike was an inspiring figure who had played a key role in the setting up of 
When I developed Wired In and worked in the addiction recovery field, I was living in South Wales. When my daughter Annalie was in medical school in Edinburgh, I used to fly up from Cardiff to visit her. I soon came to love Edinburgh. That positive feeling for the city increased greatly when I met Dr David McCartney.
