This post is the second of a series of excerpts from my forthcoming book Transforming Pain Into Power: The Story of North Wales Recovery Communities. It is taken from Chapter 1 of the book, ‘My Initial Insights Into What Facilitates Recovery From Addiction’, and focuses on someone I met in the early days of my Wired In grassroots initiative, which I started at the turn of the new millennium.
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‘I vividly remember Natalie, a client of a treatment service I visited in my early days in the field, saying to me that when she was using heroin, she did not know anyone who had stopped using the drug. She could find no useful information on how to overcome an addiction to heroin. She told me there needed to be stories available on the internet, so that people could feel hope that they could overcome their substance use problem and learn how to do so. She told me that if I wanted to help people, I needed to start telling stories of people’s lives. And I did so.
Natalie also emphasised to me that when your life has fallen apart and you are physically and mentally unwell, have become isolated in your addiction, feel shame and disgust about yourself, and know that others think of you as nothing more than a ‘worthless junkie’, you give up on trying to change. It’s all too difficult; you see no escape. The easiest thing to do is to kill all the pain with more heroin, or more drink.
The conversations I had with Natalie have always stuck in my mind. They have had an enormous impact on me, even today over 25 years later. I asked Natalie whether we could tell her story. She agreed to be interviewed by my colleague Becky Hancock. Natalie’s Story, first ‘told’ by Becky, has appeared in various forms over the years, including in the first (p. 6) and second (p.8) editions of Drink and Drugs News. Her Story was published on my Recovery Stories website in 2013, and then updated in 2020. You can read Natalie’s Story, which is also a trauma healing Story, on our Recovery Voices website. The following words from Natalie triggered something inside me which further inspired me to work in this field:
‘… I was still using heroin when I first attended the agency. There were about fifteen other treatment agency clients in my first group session, one of whom was an ex-heroin user who had been clean for about 16 years. She came over to talk to me and I was in awe. She had done exactly what I was doing, and she had gotten through it. It was a Light Bulb Moment. From that moment on, I didn’t feel so alone. For the first time, I was with a group of people who understood me and my addiction, and I understood and related to them and with what they were saying.’
After engaging with the treatment agency, I felt like I belonged somewhere for the first time. There was just something about the place. I loved the people, and most importantly they weren’t judging me, and they were treating me like a human being. I was being supported in what I wanted to do, and I was being treated like a decent person. They believed in me when I didn’t.’
Natalie is now 25 years in recovery and for the large part of that time worked as an addiction treatment worker. She remains a close friend and I always enjoy meeting up with her when I am visiting the UK.
The power of Story is one of the most important things I have learnt whilst working in this field. I have written a number of Recovery Stories over the years, and members of my Wired In team (including my eldest daughter Annalie) really enjoyed writing such stories. The following two quotes are of particular relevance:
‘Human beings are human beings. We don’t change our minds because a bunch of scientists publish a set of recommendations and issue them. Honestly, this is no offence to the Heart Foundation or any other Foundation, but you’ve all been publishing white papers about topics for years. Those don’t change public opinion. What changes people are the storytellers in our society.
Human beings are storytelling creatures, that’s how we best learn, that’s how we best communicate. So, when the storytellers in our society tell their stories, they end up having a powerful impact.’ Dr. Bruce Perry
‘… if we are to support those that experience problems, we need to understand them as people first and foremost: what drives the inner experience of use of drugs and alcohol, what drives change and how people not only identify a different kind of life, but also how they sustain it in light of obstacles and setbacks.
This is not just about the individual, but also the relationships and the environments that provide the contexts and reference points of their lives.’ Phil Harris (Amazon keeps insisting in giving me an Australian price of the book)