On Monday, I posted a blog about the first 22 chapters of My Journey: From Brain Chemicals to Human Connection, my experiences, reflections and the people who inspired me on a 48-year journey in the field of addiction, mental health and trauma recovery.
Wulf has suggested that he interview me sometime for our Recovery Voices website. I’m too busy at the moment, and with my youngest daughter arriving Saturday for a nine-day visit and my forthcoming trip to the UK in April/May, I don’t see we’ll get an interview done and edited until later.
Therefore, I have posted on the People page an interview I did in June 2021 with Huseyin Djemil of Towards Recovery for his Journeys Podcast. I edited this interview into 12 films, totalling 70 minutes. In the interview, Huseyin takes me through various parts of my journey, including my neuroscience career, recovery advocacy work (Wired In), and the writing of an eBook about Aboriginal child artists which relates to the healing of trauma. We cover a range of recovery-related topics, including the power of story, the impact of trauma, recovery as self-healing, and the power of human connection.
Here is one of those films, in which I describe one of my favourite memories from my early days of working in the addiction recovery field:
Inspired by Natalie’s Story [3’32”]
I describe meeting ‘Natalie’, a former heroin addict, in my early days of working in the field. I read to Huseyin a section of her Story that is posted on my Recovery Stories website. ‘There were about fifteen people 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. From that moment on, I didn’t feel so alone. She had done exactly what I was doing and she had gotten through it. It was a Light Bulb Moment.’
Natalie also explained that when she was using heroin she didn’t ever meet anyone who had given up using the drug. She couldn’t find any information on the internet about stopping using heroin. ‘I had to carry on doing what I was doing.’ Natalie told me that if I wanted to help people with serious substance use problems, I should tell stories of addiction and recovery. I asked her if he could tell her story and she agreed. Natalie is now over 20 years in recovery. I have written later versions of Natalie’s Story, the last of which reveals Natalie’s traumatic experiences prior to her starting to use heroin.