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It appears that one of the most contentious issues discussed here and across the wider recovery community in UK is about whose Recovery is the most valid.
Often the conversation heard is, “I’m abstinent”, or something that has recently cropped up (and I think is more worrying) is the phrase, “I’m in Real Recovery”. There is an implication that other peoples Recovery is less valid.
So, I have a question to anyone who describes themselves as being in “Real Recovery”. Why do you think that you and your pathway/programme is more valid than anyone else’s?
I wonder if the people that use this type of language need to spend a bit of time reflecting on why they feel their Recovery is more valid.
Hey Carl – how was the tuna in Tunisia?
You know what, I find myself getting heartily p****d off with this endless bickering about who has the top trump. Much like yourself I imagine.
In active addiction is played an endless game of comparing myself with others, “Well I don’t drink as much as X, Y or Z” and much good it did me.
Recovery, for me, is not about comparison. It is about doing the best I can each day to live a worthwhile and productive life. Some days I reckon I do pretty well, other days I am a bit rubbish to be honest.
What unites people in recovery is the desire to be free from the shackles of an unproductive relationship with substances in order to have a productive relationship with themselves and the wider world. That will obviously mean different things to different people.
And that should be celebrated.
I wonder if some of this is a confused expression of matching problem severity and recovery capital to different pathways? For example, someone with very high problem severity and very low recovery capital may find that they fit better with one pathway than another. Same for people with low problem severity and high recovery capital. I also think that we may be getting to that stage of maturity where people are starting to really think seriously at their own situation and attempting to genuninely “own” and understand their condition. I have heard many AA,NA and CA circuit speakers talk about people for whom drugs and drink were never the problem rather they were the solution. The problem only came when the substances stopped working (see Mark Johnson’s talk elsewhere). So, if when you use substances “the lights go on” and your skin now seems to fit and your irritability, restlessness and discontent is eased then you may be treating a problem with very high severity (in Jungian terms – a spiritual search for meaning?). Conversely you may use substances simply because you like them and you prefer being intoxicated to being sober you may like them so much that you use to the point of physical dependency (in AA Big Book and other 12 step terms) this doesnt mean you are an “addict”. If youre not an “addict” then you dont need 12 step mutual aid because that is a recovery programme for “addicts”. So, maybe, people who say they are in “real recovery” mean they see themselves as a “real addict” or “real alcoholic” who is in recovery?
I really do agree with Michaela but does the question simply not come back to what are you recovering from? If you are just recovering from a bad habit then are you really in recovery? If you have become physically dependent and can go to your treatment provider to get help, cut back, drink from a smaller glass and then start to skip an evening, you are just getting treatment are you not? Addiction is an illness – you recover from an illness don’t you?
I like what Mark has to say about maturity, recovery capital etc, but I feel Carl would be talking about what he sees and hears on on the shop floor (correct me if i’m wrong Carl).
I’m afraid we see it all too often. People in the Treatment system saying they are in Recovery, because the Treatment provider has told them they are in recovery. Those of us who know recovery from addiction, know full well they are not in recovery, wont get recovery and perhaps are not ready for recovery, or just don’t know the difference. I get wound up by our treatment provider claiming to do recovery, sure they are a part of the process, but when they put someone forward for detox after stabilising them on 40ml methadone after being on five bags within 3 weeks and seem surprised when there is a relapse – it gives “real” recovery organisations a bad name. Why would that person select another “recovery” option when for them, recovery is no better than treatment? This is when you may hear the term “real recovery”
Just an observation.
Hi Carl – you put this very well and unsurprisingly I agree with you 100% on this. The biggest threat to the recovery movement is differences of opinion becoming fissures, becoming splits. A phrase like ‘real recovery’ is inherently divisive for the reason you explain.
If recovery is individual there has to be allowances for different views about what it means.
Justanumber, I think you make good points – but do remember that a large number of people are committed to recovery who do not think of addiction as a disease. There is no benefit in making that another point of division.
Also, treatment providers vary in their commitment to recovery – but it gets us into deep water to try and divide the world into ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ recovery organisations. The same organisation that pushed someone through detox too quick (possibly in response to pressure to ‘get more people into recovery’) might be doing good work elsewhere.
I guess I don’t see recovery and treatment as two different things – for people who need treatment they are two sides of the same coin.
Take care everyone..
Richard
The relationship between treatment and recovery is evolving alongside our understanding of both. For example, From the 10/11 annual stats it looks like treatment services are getting much better at helping those who do need treatment to recover. Analysis of NDTMS data shows that over the last six years (2005/06 – 2010/11), 28% have completed their treatment and not needed further treatment, which is more than 70,000 individuals who have got their lives back on track. While almost one-third overcame addiction, one-third dropped out of treatment, and just over one-third are still being treated (although not continuously – they may have left and returned several times). It could be that amongst those who have dropped out are also people “recovering“or “recovered”. Just this week I have met people on sub-optimal doses of methadone (e.g. on 8 mls for over a year etc) some of these people are dropping out of treatment and going into recovery often doing self imposed “90 meetings in 90 days”. We are going through a very challenging time. Recovery in the UK is evolving and it is complex in so many ways. Understanding recovery in the UK at the moment IS rocket science. It is easy to agree with Richard’s view of the relationship between treatment and recovery but there are many who wouldnt agree. Why? Because treatment alone (without any reference to recovery) can still deliver benefits to communities in terms of crime reduction and prevention of BBV transmission. So, why isnt there a clear consensus? Why doesnt evryone agree with Richard? I think this short 7 minute film makes for fascinating viewing in this context:
http://vimeo.com/25979052 whils
I think it’s extermely divise and doesn’t really help anyone, for someone to claim that one method of recovery is ‘better’ than another.
Different things suit different people at different stages of their recovery journey.
People who would say “I’m in real recovery”, would seem to suggest that they are somehow better than other people, or have recovered ‘better’ and perhaps need to get their ego in check??!
Until drug treatment as a whole realises that it’s different strokes for different folks, we aren’t going to get anywhere very fast!
Hi Mark
I think you agree with my point that there are large numbers of people who don’t see addiction as a disease – so presume you are pushing back on my suggestion that for people who need treatment, recovery is the other side of the same coin”.
Please note the first half of this – I am not saying that treatment and recovery are the same thing or that treatment is a pre-requisite for recovery.
Indeed, a very large number of people, as many as 50% of people who experience addictions recover without any contact with treatment services, without going to Fellowships, SMART or any other formal support structures. Their existing social (or recovery) capital is sufficient and often they never look back.
My point is that for people who do go to treatment, recovery should not be something separate, which treatment does not contribute to.
You are right that some treatment (especially historically) paid very little attention to what we now think of as recovery, so perhaps I should be clearer that recovery and treatment should be the two sides of the same coin for people in treatment.
Given how important treatment services are to many people, bashing them as intrinsically unable to contribute to recovery is in my view damaging to the recovery movement.
Treatment services that try to embrace and engage with the recovery agenda should receive fullsome encouragement and praise – especially from the NTA. Damming them all because some are lagards won’t serve the recovery community well at all.
This is a ‘both – and’ with peer led services, peer led meetings, recovery communities, service user groups and many other forms and groups also having a vital role.
Both have a role, both are important in different ways to different people at different times.
Take care
R
Oh, btw Mark I thought the video excellent (thank you for this) though it seems to support the idea we should embrace an approach which seeks buy in and innovation from as wide a range of stakeholders as possible – which would include treatment.
Addictions are ‘top right’ in the model and no single model or ideology will ever provide an adequate response. Discover the power of choice ;)
R
@Mark
Hi. Good to see you back on here after months on the road (hope it’s not quite like the Cormac McCarthy novel out there yet).
“some of these people are dropping out of treatment and going into recovery”.
I think there’s a problem in the way the terms treatment and recovery are deployed. Treatment has both an objective and subjective dimension (“I take methadone” and “I am in treatment”).
Recovery is purely a subjective state (“I am in recovery”). It is often conflated with the term abstinence, and in my opinion they are not the same. One doesn’t leave treatment and “go” into recovery as if one is leaving one room and going into another. If treatment is doing anything it should be delivering that objective bit in a recovery-oriented way that respects the choices and wishes of the individual, and helps them achieve their optimal quality of life. If that choice is about abstinence, that is what should be supported.
There are different levels of recovery-orientation: the individual themself; the worker; the service; and the system.
In any system under any configuration there will be a volume of people maturing into living drug free and sober lives as engaged citizens. The volumes and proportion will be determined by macro-social and economic factors in my opinion (I am a fully paid-up member of the Spirit Level thesis).
But there is likley to be more within localities where services hold up visible peer role models; actively promote mutual aid; offer computer-assisted self-help (for the socially phobic, for example); have support groups for carers and loved ones; use visual care plans (for the less word-able, for example); have strength-based assessment and care planning systems; have a skilled, compassionate, and recovery-savvy worforce; and crucially, have a full menu of referral options including subtitute medication maintenance/IAPT and PSIs/dual diagnosis/family support/detox and rehab/ETE etc etc.
I know that some (many ?) people will not agree with my view that recovery is not the same as abstinence and I respect that.
Regards
Simon
P.S. The ‘Real Recovery’ phenomenon reminds me of the ‘Levels of Oppression’ cul-de-sac debate I remember from the political scene in the 80s (“as a white, heterosexual, able-bodied, man your experience is less authentic and therefore less meaningful than mine”).
Richard, I do agree that there are large numbers of people who don’t see addiction as a disease. As it happens, I don’t see addiction as a disease. I also recognise the numbers of people who achieve ‘natural recovery’. I have been on the road working directly with those treatment services that are embracing and engaging with the recovery agenda. Not only have they received fulsome encouragement and praise but I have also done some direct training with them myself. The problem arises when treatment services start to make claims that they can do LONG TERM recovery. The treatment contribution to recovery includes both professional engagement and peer support, so that successful clients overcome their dependency and do not return. I have heard some treatment people saying things like “If it’s OK to go to NA for 20 years, why isn’t it OK to be in treatment for 20 years?” I have been working on recovery initiatives designed to get the best fit (for the recovery agenda) into Treatment at one end and Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) at the other. With regard to the fit with ABCD I have been spending quite a bit of time with colleagues in the UK Recovery Federation. You can sketch out a map or continuum of our terrain with treatment at one end and ABCD at the other. Some elements are closer to one end than the other. For example, Wired In and SMART Recovery UK are superb resources that sit close to treatment. Obviously, this is in part because Wired In and SMART Recovery UK rely on the treatment sector for funding. The 12 Step fellowships, and people in long term recovery, aligned with the UKRF, are edging closer to ABCD which may take them further away from treatment. Each movement opens up new opportunities and challenges. The 12 step fellowships do not rely on anyone for anything. But, we are now seeing the emergence of assertive 12 Step linkage programmes that can be commissioned to operate in a similar way to SMART Recovery UK. The UKRF are defining and occupying a position from which they can make the best contribution. There are roles here for everyone but this is a complex picture. In fact, compared to having harm reduction as the organising principle, this recovery business IS rocket science. That’s why I think the Complexity and the Stacey Diagram http://vimeo.com/25979052 is so useful.
Hi Mark,
Well what can I say. You appear to have identified what you see as a vision for the future. And all power to your elbow.
However, I think it is fair to say that I disagree with some of your analysis – not least that the Fellowships are aligned with the UKRF? When precisely did that happen?
I must also, unsurprisingly, take issue with your description of Wired In as if it is some sort of adjunct to treatment. Wired In to Recovery is a community of people who I feel would take issue in being described as some sort of homogenous whole.
Hi Mark
“For example, Wired In and SMART Recovery UK are superb resources that sit close to treatment. Obviously, this is in part because Wired In and SMART Recovery UK rely on the treatment sector for funding.”
Wow… I don’t think that represents SMART Recovery fairly at all.
Most SMART Recovery meetings are peer led mutual aid and have very little direct relation ship with treatment.
That we also have a partnership scheme with treatment does not lessen our commitment to peer led meetings.
We work in partnership because it works as a way of spreading peer led mutual aid. We also do it because it helps increase the recovery focus of treatment services. If we had an alternative funding stream we would still be involved in partnership with treatment providers because it is the right thing to do.
So using your analogy, SMART Recovery has something to offer right through the spectrum you describe – it is not fair for you to paint SMART as in some fundamental way sitting ‘just’ alongside treatment.
You seem to be suggesting that ‘real recovery’ is the 12 step / UKRF / ABCD model you are describing… in which case where do people in long term recovery through SMART Recovery (and building local recovery communities of many flavours) fit within your vision?
The analysis still seems very divisive to me.
Think we need to sit down and talk this through some more!
Many regards
Richard
Any vision for the future is very much a work in progress as it is complexity that is reigning at the moment. We are heading into completely uncharted waters. As many know, I think in pictures so the printed word is not the best for describing what I am seeing around me. When I say “aligned” I mean as in being nearer than. Carl asked a question. I think that the answer and the question are indicative of complexity. OK, let’s try a jigsaw. Imagine you unwrap a present next week and it contains the “UK Recovery Movement” jigsaw. What I am trying to do (what WE are trying to do) is put the jigsaw together. I’m saying that I think the ‘Wired In’ piece fits here and the ‘SMART Recovery UK’ bit here, ‘UKRF’ there, ‘Fellowships’ there, ‘Tier 3 Treatment’ there and so on. When you attempt this others say “NO, that doesn’t go there!” Of course, this isn’t a jigsaw of the UK. We can’t get the map out and say “see, I told you that’s where Rutland fits!” We are constructing our jigsaw by putting together bits that have only just been made and others that have been lost behind the couch.
Hi Mark
I think that is a good analogy, and within that analogy you are putting SMART in a certain place in the jigsaw that is reductive and partial. As you might expect, I kind of have a problem with that, given your role!
The ‘how does treatment contribute to recovery’ is also a piece of the jigsaw and yes it is very complex. There are of course competing narratives (we are in the top right hand corner of the sand-bar) but some might be very damaging to the recovery movement.
I am worried that your narrative construction is a spectrum with treatment at one end (with SMART nestled against it) and “real recovery” happening somewhere else further along that spectrum. If this is the case, I think this truly misunderstands SMART Recovery and is not a helpful narrative to encourage treatment providers to make the changes we all want to see. It is also unlikely to be a popular view with other recovery groups that work across the length of your spectrum.
As I have said before, I think this is a divisive road to try and take the recovery movement down.
R
Richard,
What does your jigsaw look like?
That we think about what supports recovery and what recovery means from the moment a ‘street user’ (for example) walks into a needle exchange – to when they are five or more years abstinent.
That is of course just an illustrative example (and I’m not making abstinence the issue here), but I think you see my wider point. If some people can’t see how it is possible to ‘DO’ recovery in a needle exchange we need to find others who have sufficient commitment and imagination to do so.
That is not really a SMART Recovery example, but needless to say I think mutual aid (or in some cases, elements of mutual aid) can be encouraged throughout treatment and available as a support structure for as long as people need it.
My concern about your version of the jigsaw is that it lacks ambition!
By this I mean that there are a wider range of opportunities to create a greater recovery focus than your vision seems to allow. I know this is a very bold thing to say, considering the massive and positive impact you are having on the recovery movement, but there is so much more you could achieve if you would get rid of that damn bridge!
Regards – Richard
Richard,
We need bold. Bland isnt going to get us anywhere. There is a big prize on offer if we get this thing right. Lets keep the dialogue going and thanks for being bold.
I have always thought Mark, for the most part, has been given a difficult task in his role as National Strategic Recovery Lead. There will be great joy as he sees people getting well, commissioners and providers who are passionate about recovery working to a positive and hopeful agenda, and I’m sure he has learnt a lot in the last 12 months about what is out there and what is working well. There will even be those (I’ve heard them) who see his role, dashing around the country, speaking at every occasion he is asked to (despite maybe sometimes feeling like he would just like his desk and have five minutes of peace sometimes) as one long pleasure cruise, without any accountability
However, I think he was also tasked with something quite challenging, almost a quest to find the Scarlet Pimpernel, so to speak. Recovery – what is it? Recovery – where is it? Recovery – how can we harness the knowledge and practice into something strategic and structural?
Well, we all know just from this site that we all have different views of what recovery means – it’s elusive, it’s personal, it’s having a service one day defined as harm reduction, and the next day the workers are being re-titled Recovery Coaches etc., it’s ‘you’re in recovery if you say you are’, it’s abstinent from this, but not that, no it isn’t, yes it is, no it isn’t, yes it is ….
Considering, ‘where is it’? We all know it is everywhere – in the crack-houses of active users, in the treatment centres, in the rehab services, in the ULO’s, in the PCTS/LA, in the rooms of many a fellowship or SMART meeting, churches, homes, banks, factories, schools, on the WWW, quite simply everywhere. PIR are represented across the whole community, from those still actively using, who want to change but either don’t know how, or do not get the opportunity or exposure to the possibilities of recovery. From those who are now commissioners, or bank managers, or school teachers, with many years in recovery, either with or without going anywhere near a treatment provider. Then even if the dogged Holmes, sorry Mark, were to find some of these locations on his travels, he is then tasked with encouraging many of them to speak out, share their experience and put themselves up for public scrutiny. Well, we all know (again from this site) how difficult some people find disclosure – risking family, work and lifestyles to tick a box for the NTA? No thanks; I’d rather stick wasps up my backside….
Mark would have to be Sherlock Holmes to find all the examples out there, but assuming he has built some kind of recovery map, as fragile and subjective as that might be, he is then asked to look at this map in a strategic and structural way. Hmm…… how does one harness something that is not fixed, something that is subjective, something that there is still a massive resistance to, something that may require resources to develop that just don’t exist?
My final question is not rhetorical, but is the reality that WE, not just Mark are facing.
I can only speak from my own experience and that of the community I work in. Having read the comments, I have tried to think about them in terms of what is happening on the ground in our patch. I did used to identify with the theory of the bridge that Mark references in his presentations, but this caused me some concern. Our community is just that – a community of people who are at different stages of their personal recovery journeys – from active user on the streets who we provide basic support to, to people who have multiple years of recovery, giving back to the community. We are seen by some as a ULO, not too far removed from the conventional service user group of the last decade, and we engage with other SUGs at many levels. We are seen by others as a professional service provision of structured recovery programmes, a therapeutic sober-lining home, and an active participant in the infrastructure of our DAAT partnership, contributing to the contentious NDTMS system. We are also seen by the community of mutual aid as a venue for their meetings, and most of our PIR attend some or all of these facilities, without anyone questioning who is in recovery, or defining themselves by degrees of recovery. We have CROs who have never been near any of our treatment systems, who have elected to disclosure after many years of recovery, to help the community to develop more choices for active users, and to stand up without fear to celebrate recovery.
If I were to use the bridge analogy, I would say we were the bridge – a community, a provider, a visible pathway from active using to active participation – no time limits, but, in the spirit of the ABCD model, there is an air of optimism in our community, people aren’t coerced to get a move on along the path. They see it, and they want it for themselves. They see people willing to pass on their experience and they take the steps with others alongside them.
This community exists for itself and the networks and paths have been walked. Some of the challenges about defining recovery, can treatment do recovery, where will the funds come from, who do we answer to, are irrelevant. They are being surpassed by the growth of PIRs evolving from the grassroots, through the community being indigenous and being integrated beyond formal system, labels, and structures.
For the wider world, the providers, the NTA, Mark Gilman, politicians et al. can this be harnessed and analysed in some theoretical and systematic way? I’m not sure. But that’s the point. Surely the most beneficial communities are those that are allowed to grow, breath, have the freedom to be as imaginative, creative, and supportive as the community wants. Our nanny-state mentality, our co-dependency, our entitlement culture have all contributed to the stagnated and mistrusting situation we find ourselves in. Trust our PIRs to make their own pathways, to make their own decisions, to build their own communities.
For Mark – walk alongside them, offer them the soil to plant the seeds, then step back and watch the view. I know it will be a pretty good landscape.
Note: This is a personal blog and represents my views only.
Would we make more progress by taking things forward with geography or themes? There will always need to be some kind of matrix but the recovery movement/community is probably in a position to say that, for example, in Geographical area X, a focus on Theme Y would move recovery forward fastest? The geography contains 149 local authourity areas (these could be aligned in bigger footprints) and the Themes include; Successful Completions, Implementation of recommendations set out in the RODT report, Reducing representations to treatment, Better links between treatment and mutual aid, Developing Recovery Champions, Review of people coming through DIP and/or A&E on a very regular basis (“frequent flyers”), Workforce workshops. Thoughts?
That’s all well and good, but an independent vehicle such as UKRF (and sub-groups of this), could only provide some of the information/gaps that you are aiming to address. The rest, as they say, would be up to the beauraucrats.
Thanks Mark.. I think your list of points of intervention is very good and might I suggest reflects a broader vision of recovery.. that recovery focus is needed alongside, within and beyond treatment.
Whole system change is needed and this means change throughout the spectrum; it is important not to diminish the role of those movements and groups that work across the spectrum, or early in the journey, out of some ideological position that ‘real’ recovery only exists elsewhere.
Maybe I need to stress that in making this argument I am not in any way minimising the importance of recovery communities (whether 12step, SMART and all the other community assets) for people who are well into long term recovery. My point is that we cannot give them such primacy in our thinking that vital support earlier in the spectrum is diminished or excluded.
Regards
Richard
I was referred here from Tom Horvath in San Diego. I think the word recovery means to get back. I don’t think there is much recovering after a few years. I was trapped in AA for too many years. I left last year and attended Smart and got alot of help from it. There are many anti 12 step blogs but I am looking to talk with intelligent people who are using Smart tools to heal with.
Wow some great replies to my post. I will have to come back to this after work tonight. Wiredin Rocks
@Richard, I didn’t say Addiction was a disease. I used the word illness.
@Justanumber – I do apologise, you are right.
I currently don’t have time to read all the comments, but I MUST simply add my voice to say that I think if anyone see’s their personal journey as ‘real’ recovery (therefore making anything not the same not-real), then that is a very damaging standpoint. I’ve never heard it said, but will challenge anyone who claims it. Shocking. Such attitudes and views don’t help our community of brothers and sisters one bit, and anyway it was what I did that was REAL recovery! ;)
Information
WHAT IS NA?
Who is an Addict?
How it Works
12 Step of Narcotics Anonymous
The Twelve Traditions of NA
Drug Abuse Signs and Symptoms
Online Treatment Center Locator
Who is an Addict?Most of us do not have to think twice about this question. We know! Our whole life and thinking was centered in drugs in one form or another—the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more. We lived to use and used to live. Very simply, an addict is a man or woman whose life is controlled by drugs. We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions, and death.
What is the Narcotics Anonymous program?
NA is a nonprofit fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs had become a major problem. We are recovering addicts who meet regularly to help each other stay clean. This is a program of complete abstinence from all drugs. There is only one requirement for membership, the desire to stop using. We suggest that you keep an open mind and give yourself a break. Our program is a set of principles written so simply that we can follow them in our daily lives. The most important thing about them is that they work.
There are no strings attached to NA. We are not affiliated with any other organizations, we have no initiation fees or dues, no pledges to sign, no promises to make to anyone. We are not connected with any political, religious, or law enforcement groups, and are under no surveillance at any time. Anyone may join us, regardless of age, race, sexual identity, creed, religion, or lack of religion.
We are not interested in what or how much you used or who your connections were, what you have done in the past, how much or how little you have, but only in what you want to do about your problem and how we can help. The newcomer is the most important person at any meeting, because we can only keep what we have by giving it away. We have learned from our group experience that those who keep coming to our meetings regularly stay clean.
Why are we here?
Before coming to the Fellowship of NA, we could not manage our own lives. We could not live and enjoy life as other people do. We had to have something different and we thought we had found it in drugs. We placed their use ahead of the welfare of our families, our wives, husbands, and our children. We had to have drugs at all costs. We did many people great harm, but most of all we harmed ourselves. Through our inability to accept personal responsibilities we were actually creating our own problems. We seemed to be incapable of facing life on its own terms.
Most of us realized that in our addiction we were slowly committing suicide, but addiction is such a cunning enemy of life that we had lost the power to do anything about it. Many of us ended up in jail, or sought help through medicine, religion, and psychiatry. None of these methods was sufficient for us. Our disease always resurfaced or continued to progress until, in desperation, we sought help from each other in Narcotics Anonymous.
After coming to NA we realized we were sick people. We suffered from a disease from which there is no known cure. It can, however, be arrested at some point, and recovery is then possible.
Reprinted from the White Booklet, Narcotics Anonymous
This is NA Fellowship-approved literature.
Copyright © 1976, 1986 by
Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
All rights reserved
Here is the fellowships take on it! If the cap doesn’t fit no one is forcing anyone to wear it…informed choice.
I walk in my shoes (subjective) others experiences (objective) are theirs to will. addict and addicted I feel are not the same, dependant and dependancy also, treatment and treated also, real and unreal, so i am asking are people arguing here that being prescribed is not the same as being dependant, and that there is no difference between an addict and addicted. mmmm well i geuss i must have been brainwashed and living a lie for the last 20 years. I have to say that I have been away and thought about this place and given it some time to explore my relationship with these bloggs and i feel that i am not really clear at all about what the symantics and the rhetoric is trying to bring together…. I…Me….For Myself am an Addict….who…chooses to abstain….nothing else but treatment and the fellowship gave me…I mean me!!! any real chance…for me it works…and for many, many others also……I tried everything and couldn’t get it….that’s my story. Obviously and naturally there are many who see it differently…that’s the point isn’t it? that each story is like a compass drawing in the relatedness to which one is authenticly drawn, that speaks of the here and now and that serves to relay the answers for the journey at that time……..Only Change is Certain!!!!! We are all okay and we are all exactly where we are meant to be….. a rainbow would not be a rainbow if it was all one colour.
Mark I think using language and descriptions of addiction severity from US in 1930s is not relevant for UK in 2011.
We are a largely secular and diverse nation and the old fashioned language used by the middle class religious founders of 12 step in US misses so many people out the equation, myself included.
I did not have a spiritual gap in my life as I am an atheist, so if we accept the principle “many pathways all valid and worthy of celebration”
We risk missing lots of PIR out of the party.
Surely the underlying principle of CHOICE is still important, we can learn lots from US but I think we can use our own language and text as it represents and recognises us all, not just a large minority.
A very merry christmas and a happy new year to all.
I was browsing the internet and came across this letter from the home office where they talk about “FULL” recovery. 80% of FULL recovery means Abstinence, total Abstinence. So perhaps Real Recovery is 80% abstinence because you can touch it, feel it and spend it.
My local Treatment Provider must be struggling to work out what 80% of a smaller glass looks like :-)
Just an observation.
http://www.drugscope.org.uk/Resources/Drugscope/Documents/PDF/Policy/Recovery_Partnership_letter.pdf
This was a response from the Home Office to this:
http://www.drugscope.org.uk/Resources/Drugscope/Documents/PDF/Policy/RecoveryPartnershipIMG_Presentation.pdf
Yes guys i am gonna quote Phil Valentine…..
When the Recoveree decides He/She is in Recovery.
The terminology confused me for a while the top and bottom of the moral i live by is who am i to judge anothers Recovery when mine aint perfect.
Peace Out.
Hi everyone, I have recently finished the excellent ‘recovery champion’ training in Doncaster and early on in class the ‘R’ word was up for debate and it opened up a right can of worms (remember Carl?) haha! I know I am out of my depth here, but from early on I thought the ‘recovery word’ although intended to respect the individual and promote choices, it would cause confusion, debate, misunderstanding and so on…
I’ll try to illustrate my own take on my personal journey…. After my 2 week alcohol detox in 2008, I was frail and I unsuccessfully got my job back of 22 years. Now because I was a ‘problematic drinker’ or what some might call a ‘functioning alcoholic’ for 10 years or so before ‘physical dependancy’ kicked in, then ‘recovery’ in this sense would mean a ‘return to normal’ and the normal being ‘reduction in consumption’ and back to work (would it not?) Now I am 3 years plus abstinent, I do not consider myself ‘in recovery’ any more now than I did back then. Another example is the ‘better than good’ theory we did in class, when it’s associated with ‘recovery’…If you havn’t ‘returned to normal’ and you’re now ‘better than good’, can we not eradicate the ‘R’ word somewhere along the way? The ‘R’ word is a right pain in the ass to the man in the street also…when I say “ I don’t drink anymore”, I’m often met with the response..“Oh, you’re in recovery then!”
I love reading all the fascinating bloggs on here and I know nothing is clear cut. Myself, I like to keep things simple so in layman’s terms…I drank alot for ten or so years, got hospitalized for severe withdrawal from eventual physical dependancy, kept off the drink, did exercise, volunteered, further education and so on. The word ‘alcoholic’ does not come into this anymore than ‘recovery’ does as far as i’m concerned.
That’s just me…merry xmas to all!
