Recently, I had the privilege of attending and presenting at the Scottish Recovery Consortium (SRC) in Perth. Four hundred folk gathering, chatting, networking, discussing, and of course hugging. What is there not to like? There was a real buzz in the air and a palpable sense of lots and lots of different recovery activities, organisations, and people from across the whole of the country.
This felt for me like a marked change from some of my visits to Scotland in the run up to the outbreak of Covid. I was then doing some research, with the intention of connecting to recovery communities. I had been encouraged this was possible by claims of huge numbers of recovery communities within the 2018 Rights, Respect and Recovery strategy from the Scottish Government. However, the reality was more that of one or two peer champions within services operating the odd drop-in or activity, rather than any wholesale sense of large numbers of peers doing a diversity of things for, and with, others.
I have called last week a rejuvenation, because if I look a decade or so back from 2018, then Scotland was very much a significant heartbeat within the emerging UK Recovery movement that had an explosive period between 2007-2012. Indeed, Glasgow hosted one of the early UK Recovery Walks. I still remember that day, the associated Recovery Academy Conference, and subsequent UKRF conferences with nostalgic warmth. It was a period of huge optimism for the arrival of a transformative movement for change. However, it was followed by a period of some fragmentation and factionalism. Many of the interviews we have recorded for Recovery Voices talk about this influential period around 2010. Despite the setbacks of the next years, it did leave large numbers of inspired individuals and connections that have endured and gone on to foster much of the resurgent activity that is around the UK, including Scotland, in 2025.
Last week in Perth, there were some magical moments. The conference was kicked off with a keynote speech from David Best, who reminded us of the necessity that recovery be visible, accessible, and attractive. There was a presentation from the brilliant Eddie Gorman on the explosion in Ayrshire that is Harbour. There were a number of fantastic workshops which included such topics as: women’s needs in recovery; authentic lived and living experience voices; recovery in prisons, and leaderships. There was a warm connection between communities focusing on harm reduction, treatment settings, and community recovery. A recognition of shared interest and motivations, rather than the distrust of the late 2010’s.
I was there, with colleagues from Figure 8 Consultancy, sharing our work with the SRC on mapping the diversity of recovery organisations in Scotland. We reiterated our call to government ministers and commissioners to recognise that recovery is not a one size that fits all, and that there is no prescriptive template for what recovery organisations do.
We emphasised the need for the supporting of environments that enabled community- and peer-led activities to grow bottom up and reflect the interest of its members, rather than ticking boxes within a system. These points echo what David Clark and I are trying to showcase here on Recovery Voices. That is, despite the differences and diversity in recovery communities, there is a commonality of peer bonding and support, contagion, and hope.
Perth was a joy. Tracey McFall, the new Chief Executive Officer at the SRC, is a real champion and someone keen to include all, harness the hunger, and demand a more recognised place for Recovery within all the range of responses needed to tackle alcohol and drug use problems. New connections were made, and I look forward to my next few trips to Scotland and seeing some of the old and much of the new exciting developments. On the back of my trip to ARC Fitness in Derry/Londonderry, I have now attended two huge recovery gatherings in the last year, each offering the combination of connection, hope, hugs, inspiration, and love.