In late 2008, I launched the online community Wired In To Recovery (WITR) as part of my Wired In strategy to empower and connect people who had experienced, or were experiencing, substance use problems, either directly or indirectly through a family member.
The website was developed by Nathan Pitman of Nine Four—in those days such community websites involved a great deal of programming—and content (written and film) was prepared during a long development phase by my close colleagues Lucie James and Kevin Manley (left side of the photograph above), filmmaker Jonathan Kerr-Smith, a number of volunteers, and myself.
Our primary aims in developing WITR were to:
- Highlight role models who show that recovery from addiction is possible, and illustrate the multitude of paths to recovery.
- Provide information and tools that help people better understand and use the options they have to overcome the problems caused by their own, or a loved one’s, substance use.
- Create an environment in which people can inspire and learn from each other and provide mutually beneficial support.
- Establish a ‘people’s journalism’, or Voice of Recovery, which acts as a strong source of advocacy both for recovery and the Recovery Movement.
Wired In To Recovery community members had access to a number of recovery tools: various forms of content, including articles on key topics or issues, Personal Stories, blogs, film clips, discussion forum, and links to various resources.
After four years, WITR had attracted over 4,000 members, who were from around the world and had a diverse range of backgrounds. A significant number (over 1,000) of community members blogged, generating over 7,500 blogs and 35,000 comments!
We received a considerable amount of positive feedback about the quality of our content, the supportive nature of the environment, and how well recovery and recovery initiatives were being promoted. Many individuals emphasised how much they are being helped therapeutically by being a member of the community. However, although WITR was unique worldwide, I eventually had to close down the community due to lack of funding.
When we were developing WITR, we rationalised that by providing people with the opportunity for people to blog, we would accumulate a wealth of information about the lived experience of addiction and recovery, the needs of recovering people, personal views about the care system, etc. And so we did.
What did recovering people have to say when they blogged or commented on WITR? Here is a summary of some of the findings:
1. Some people addicted to substances (and affected family members) had little understanding of their condition (addiction, cross-dependence) and how it could be overcome. They felt trapped in a culture of addiction and/or isolation and didn’t know where to turn for help. They had no hope. They had few resources. They were fearful.
Some people who accessed treatment did not receive the help they required to help them overcome their problems. They couldn’t access information and support they needed to deal with their problems, including information about day-to-day problems they experienced on their ongoing recovery journey.
Treatment was a beneficial experience for some people and facilitated the early stages of their recovery. One message that came through was the importance of the relationship between treatment staff and the person in need of help. Empathy is key. A mutual two-way relationship is most beneficial to the recovering person.
2. Recovering and recovered people were considered by many people seeking help as a key resource for their own recovery. People in early recovery identified with another recovering person’s experiences and trusted the person. They learnt that recovery is possible and there are many paths to recovery. They gained insights into how they can recover.
WITR was considered invaluable because it provided many voices of recovery. At the same time, many of our members stated that there were too few recovering people in their communities, and too many treatment services did not value the experiences and views of recovering people.
3. Connecting people to other people and resources was seen as key to facilitating recovery. Recovering people helped each other—helping someone else is actually beneficial to the helper’s recovery.
Sadly, only a very small proportion of treatment practitioners referred their ‘clients’ to mutual aid groups, despite the fact that mutual aid had been around a lot longer than professional treatment and had been more successful in helping people recover. People in need of help need to be linked to all community resources that can facilitate their recovery—many people commented that treatment services they accessed did not do this.
4. Community members stated that many treatment services and other parts of the care system did not listen to their concerns. These services seemed to be more focused on themselves than the people they were supposed to be helping. The process of collecting ‘service user’ views by treatment agencies was often viewed as tokenistic.
Members commented on a power differential existing in some treatment services, with practitioners seeing themselves as being in a position of power. Choice of interventions was often lacking. Many treatment professionals knew nothing about recovery. Many have never seen anyone recover.
5. Prejudice, stigma and discrimination towards people with substance use problems and their families was considered to be rife. Community members even described prejudice and stigma existing in treatment services—’once a junkie, always a junkie’ was sometimes heard in some services.
Prejudice and stigma were seen as major barriers to recovery, making the recovering person feel they could not fit into normal society and impacting on their self-esteem. Members thought that societal prejudice would reduce as more people revealed themselves as being in recovery and more people talked about recovery.
I was thrilled and inspired by the quality of writing in the WITR blog posts. The comments that people made to other people’s posts were often very supportive… and also inspiring. I felt very proud of being a member of our community, as did Lucie, Kevin and many others who were part of the community. I was devastated by later having to close down the community.
You can still some pages of WITR, as parts of the website (www.wiredin.org.uk) can be found on the WayBack Machine archive. If you want to check it out, just type in the url in the search and choose a date between late 2008 and late 2012.
As I have been informed, many of the problems outlined above are still evident today.
Tomorrow, I’ll post one of my favourite blog posts on WITR, A Bright Light in a Dark World by Maddie.