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16th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 16th September 2023
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Recovery, Reintegration, and Anti-Discrimination: Julian Buchanan

The paper highlights ‘the debilitating nature of marginalisation and social exclusion that many long term problem drug users have experienced. It concludes by suggesting a new social model to understand and conceptualise the process of recovery from drug...
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15th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 15th September 2023
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Ian and Irene’s Story, ‘Living Through Our Son’s Addiction and Death: Our Journey to Recovery’

Sometimes, it’s the little things that are significant recovery moments. Like the many comments from family members who we’ve supported, confirming to us that their contacting CPSG has been of genuine benefit...
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15th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 15th September 2023
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On Relationships and Connectedness: Bruce Perry

‘... I’m very concerned about poverty of relationships in modern society. In our work, we find the best predictor of your current mental health is your current “relational health”, or connectedness. This connectedness is fueled by two things: the basic capabilities you’ve developed...'
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15th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 15th September 2023
Categories

The Nature of Healing: Voices of We Al-li

'My medicine is listening to other people too. First time I as in a meeting like this, and I listened to others talking, I though they were talking about my life, their experiences were like my experiences. Their feelings were like my feelings. They were stealing my story—I wanted to know how did they know my story and what it felt like to be...'
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15th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 15th September 2023
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Dr. David McCartney

Dr. David McCartney, Founder of Lothians and Edinburgh Abstinence Programme (LEAP), talks about the development of his drinking problem whilst working as a GP in an inner-city practice in Scotland. He describes an unsuccessful attempt at sobriety, which involved a medical approach focused on prescribing. In crisis, he...
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15th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 15th September 2023
Categories

Stigma

Our interviewees talk about various aspects relating to the stigmatisation of people who have had a past drug or alcohol problem.  David McCartney describes the negative reactions of a doctor who was assessing him as part of the process of determining whether he was eligible to receive benefits after he had come out of a treatment...
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15th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 15th September 2023
Categories

The Magic in Recovery Communities

The first essential factors for a person to be able to recover are hope and a sense of belonging. Hope is based on a sense that life can hold more for one than it currently does, and it inspires a desire and commitment to pursue recovery. People in recovery describe the importance of having hope and believing in the...
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15th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 15th September 2023
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From Recovery to Methadone: Huseyin Djemil

Methadone maintenance became more the norm, rather than clinical detoxes. After Huseyin left the prison service, prisoners who had detoxed after being addicted to opiates were encouraged to go on methadone before being released into the community. They were told: 'You could die out there'.
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15th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 15th September 2023
Categories

Journeys, Part 2: Living With Heroin Addiction

For some heroin addicts, everyday life can be reduced to simply responding to the body’s needs—finding the funds to pay for heroin to be used that day (which might involve acquiring and then selling items), purchasing, and then taking the drug. This can become a full-time job...
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14th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 14th September 2023
Categories

Iain’s Recovery Story: ‘This is Me’

I then decided that enough was enough, the script had to stop. I realised that if I didn’t do something about getting off methadone, I could end up getting stuck in a situation where the methadone kept getting increased. This was something I wanted to avoid at all costs, since I would be just changing one dependency (an illegal one) for...
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14th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 14th September 2023
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Healing Trauma – Overlooking Fundamental Truths: Bessel van der Kolk

The reality is that there is little evidence that mental illness is caused by specific chemical imbalances (the brain disease model), or that psychiatric drugs are actually beneficial to people in the long-term.
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14th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 14th September 2023
Categories

The Healing Forest

'It means that we must actively heal the community and its institutions at the same time an individual works on his or her own healing from alcohol or drugs or other unwell behaviours. The individual affects the community and the community affects the individual. They are inseparable from the point of view of addiction recovery.'
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14th September 2023
Author: Wulf Livingston & David Clark Posted: 14th September 2023
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James Deakin

James Deakin describes his drug-dealing days in Manchester and cocaine addiction. He begins his recovery journey after moving to Bangor, and spends ten years as a chef before becoming a mental health worker and then a Drug Interventions Programme (DIP) worker. He becomes disillusioned with the treatment system...
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14th September 2023
Author: David Clark Posted: 14th September 2023
Categories

A Family Trauma: Huseyin Djemil

Huseyin’s earliest memory, from when he was three or four years old, was being terrified whilst he stood in his pyjamas in a hallway with lots of commotion going on around him. Someone picks him up and whisks him away. Later, he learns that his father had just killed someone in their house. As he grows up, he hears stories of that day...
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14th September 2023
North Wales Recovery Communities
Author: David Clark Posted: 14th September 2023
Categories

Giving Back, Part 1

James Deakin points out that a major ethos of North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) is to be of service to the wider community of Bangor and further afield. He emphasises that the social cost of addiction is huge. One of the great things about recovery is that people actually get well and gain strength by giving their time and...
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