Last week, I was talking on Skype with my good friend Kevan Martin, he who set up the amazing organisation NERAF (Northern Engagement into Recovery from Addiction) in the early 2000s, which went from being a support group in his flat to eventually having nearly 100 staff and volunteers. Check out Kevan’s inspiring Recovery Story He’s a Loser and Will Never Be Any Good.
We talked about a variety of matters, including my grassroots initiative Wired In and my writings for the magazine Drink and Drugs News. That conversation got me thinking about including a post on Recovery Voices about my involvement with this excellent magazine and the people who launched it years ago. So here goes.
In the summer of 2004, Simon Shepherd of the Federation of Drug and Alcohol Professionals (FDAP) was approached by Claire Brown and Ian Ralph, who worked for a public health magazine. They asked him whether there was a case for a regular magazine focused on the treatment of substance use problems to be distributed bi-weekly for free to the field. The idea was for costs of the magazine to be covered by advertising. Together, they sketched out the bones of what the magazine might look like, and came up with the name Drink and Drugs News (DDN).
Simon and I had already become good friends and were working out how FDAP and Wired In—WIRED, as it was called then—could work effectively together to help the addiction recovery field. He contacted me and asked if I would meet with Claire and Ian, as he thought that Wired In could play an important role in this venture. The four of us met and planned a strategy. Soon after, Claire and Ian left their jobs, rented a new office near the Thames River in London, and a special new venture began.
I remember how thrilled I was when I saw the first issue of a high-quality DDN come out on 1 November 2004, with a banner at the top reading ‘From FDAP in association with WIRED’. Mind you, I must make it absolutely clear that Simon and I (and our organisations) had little to do with the preparation of the magazine and almost all of the content. Our organisation’s names were used to help the magazine ‘take off’ and become part of the field. Simon and I did all we could to promote the magazine.
Claire commissioned me to write content for the magazine. In the first edition, I wrote an article on ‘the story behind the WIRED initiative’ (p. 7), as well as the first part of Natalie’s Story about her recovery from heroin addiction (p. 6). [Natalie’s full story can be found here.] I also arranged for Dave Watkins to write an article, A day in the life…, which focused on his activities as a community support worker for WGCADA (West Glamorgan Council of Alcohol, and Drug Abuse) in Swansea. (p. 12).
The second edition of DDN, which appeared two weeks later, contained the second part of Natalie’s Story (p. 8), along with an article I wrote on Internet treatment and support (p. 11) in which I argued ‘that there is an urgent need to be innovative in developing ways of tackling substance misuse.’
My first Background Briefing, Drugs in society, appeared in this second edition (p. 13). My Background Briefings, an educational piece related to addiction and recovery (and related matters) of just over 900 words, appeared in almost all editions of DDN until late 2008. I also wrote a number of other articles for the magazine during this time. You can find links to the first 38 of my Background Briefings here.
Claire and Ian, and their team, have done a remarkable job with DDN over the years. Today, it still remains a magazine of the highest quality. It helped realise my (and Simon’s) dream of seeing a field that is much better informed than it was all those years ago when I started Wired In. It helped me find a new audience for my writing, for which I will always be grateful.
I remember fondly the four of us having a number of good times together, as well as Claire’s telephone calls warning me that I only had ‘two hours to deadline. Get your act together, your audience awaits!’ Claire had a real bubbly personality and was so much fun. And she was very, very good at her job. We are still in touch all these years later, despite living on opposite sides of the world.
David’s Background Briefings on DDN
