In yesterday’s blog post, Wulf introduced you to Tim Leighton and provided a link to his People page that was launched that day. This latter page contains links to the 12 main films (totalling 87 minutes) edited from their Recovery Voices conversation, along with written summaries. I was buzzing when I first saw this inspirational conversation.
I also edited the conversation into short (generally less than three minutes) Theme clips which are available in total as a YouTube Playlist (29 films, totalling 63 mins approx). Here are the individual films that make up this Playlist:
1. Falling Into Problematic Drug Use [0’52”]
‘I suspect that mine [Tim’s drug use] was about feeling very lost in the world. I don’t think I was particularly hurt or traumatised, but I didn’t really feel I had a purchase on life. I didn’t really have any guidance, I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself.’
2. Types of 12-Step Clinic & Group [3’01”]
Tim says that he was very lucky when he accessed a clinic to help him overcome his heroin addiction. He went to one using the Minnesota Model that was humanistic and client-entered, rather than one that was confrontative and dogmatic. If he had been in the latter situation, he would have been ‘out of the door in a couple of days.’
3. Socio-Political Factors & Wellbeing [2’41”]
Tim describes being influenced by Tony Ryle, who introduced him to Cognitive Analytical Therapy (CAT), and Julian Tudor-Hart who described the inverse-care law—‘…medical and other resources are provided in inverse relation to the needs. People who don’t need it get a lot, and people who do need it don’t get very much.’
4. Nature of Addiction & Recovery [2’37”]
There is some sort of legacy when you come out of addiction that needs to be mended. A very big hole where addiction used to be. In a way, recovery is about filling that hole.
5. Meaning & Identity [2’25”]
For many people, addiction attenuates their life meaning. Recovery restores meaning. Most people get meaning from relationships, from being able to give and receive, to have fun with other people, and share experiences with others.
6. Recovery Without Abstinence, Part 1 [2’12”]
Tim is quite interested in people who recover without abstinence, what that looks like, and whether there is a place for them in the Recovery Movement.
7. Discovering Bill White [1’53”]
Tim describes his discovery of US recovery advocate Bill White as an ‘Aladdin’s Cave moment’. He started reading Bill’s writings in the early 2000s, and views him as writing so sensitively and wisely ‘about virtually everything’ relating to recovery, treatment and addiction.
8. Recovery Without Abstinence, Part 2 [2’02”]
Tim points out that it is now more socially acceptable to be abstinent from alcohol and tobacco than it was 50 years ago. That’s very important because it gives people a lot more opportunity.
9. You Are In Recovery If You Say You Are [1’40”]
Tim emphasises that Phil Valentine’s statement ‘You are in recovery if you say you are’ is profound. It is criticised by many people, but they miss the point that Phil is making.
10. Recognising Individual Needs [1’07”]
Tim emphasises that recognition of people’s needs on the basis of their ethnic, religious and other affiliations must be taken into account when helping people find a safe, secure, congruent environment that facilitates meaningful recovery.
11. Diversity of Individual Needs [2’04”]
Interviewer Wulf Livingston talks about the diversity of activities (e.g. arts-, sports-, green-therapy-based) that people can do in ‘recovery sociality’. Tim believes that whilst this diversity is extremely important, it also leads to a sort of vagueness.
12. Reflecting on Treatment [1’48”]
Interviewer Wulf Livingston describes treatment as something that people seem happy to prescribe, manualise, and even regulate. The individuality and sociality of recovery makes it much harder to prescribe and manualise.
13. The Dodo Bird Effect [3’01”]
Tim points out that whilst sensible, respectful and structured psychological therapies are often considered as separate technologies (treatments), they produce equivalent outcomes which are superior to no treatment at all. This is known as the Dodo-Bird Effect.
14. What Works [1’46”]
‘What works is when somebody goes to something that makes sense to them, they stick around because they feel inclined to do that, and if they finish the course we know that they will get something out of it that will help them in the future. What’s also very important is what they do next, and that of course is the recovery bit.’
15. Getting Off & Staying Off [2’51”]
Whilst ‘getting off’ is very much easier than the ‘staying off’, the current system spends much more on the ‘getting off’ part of the journey than on the ‘staying off’ part. Tim describes Middlesborough as a centre of excellence for recovery due to their Lived Experience Recovery Organisations (LEROs).
16. A Paradigm Shift To Recovery Management [1’26”]
In 2006, Bill White pointed out that there was a paradigm shift occurring in the addiction world, from a pathology and intervention paradigm to a recovery management paradigm, where the role of professionals is to introduce people to recovery and connect them to recovery resources which can help them create a meaningful life for themselves.
17. Professionals & The Recovery Vision [2’41”]
Despite the success of Lived Experience Recovery Organisations (LEROs), there are still professionals who say that they do not know what they are doing. There must be a better connectivity between the medical world and LEROs, so people can move from one to another as needed.
18. Social Capital & Addiction Severity [2’38”]
Tim emphasises that both the severity of a person’s addiction (which often has a physiological basis) and the social capital they possess must be considered when helping a person overcome an addiction to drugs and alcohol.
19. Social & Cultural Factors Influencing Addiction [2’46”]
Tim points out that addiction is created and sustained by social and cultural factors, and there are great differences between countries in the extent of addiction problems amongst their population.
20. Grassroots Activism & Role of Government [1’27”]
Tim emphasises that he believes both in grassroots activism, and in a controlled, accountable government providing beneficial conditions for a civilised society.
21. Drug Strategy & Methadone Maintenance [2’05”]
The UK’s first drug strategy, Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain, was based on an attack on drug-related crime. Drug problems were treated as a criminal justice issue, rather than a health issue.
22. Failed Government Strategies [1’41”]
David Cameron’s Coalition government’s strategy for helping people recover from drug problems, and their ridiculous alcohol strategy, were both failures.
23. Promise of New Reports Being Squandered [2’55”]
The huge promise of Dame Carol Black’s two recent reports on drug treatment, prevention and recovery has been squandered by government.
24. The Persistence of Stigma [1’39”]
When you are part of a recovery movement and proud of your recovery, it doesn’t mean that the whole of society is proud of you. Addiction is still a misunderstood and stigmatised condition.
25. Reflecting on Self-Disclosure [2’31”]
When people get into AA and NA they learn a culture of unusual self-disclosure. They become very open and honest. However, it is still not acceptable to be a recovering alcoholic in much of society.
26. ‘You Can’t Stay Silent’ [0’48”]
Tim emphasises that the main reason why the idea of recovery needs to be widely known about is that people can reach out and grab it.
27. Commissioning Lived Experience Recovery Organisations (LEROs) [3’13”]
Tim argues that well-established, clearly defined LEROs of different scales (from big organisations to small groups) should be funded properly. They should receive funding directly from commissioners.
28. Commissioning for Social Need [2’59”]
Tim argues that commissioners must assess need in the community, and ask, ‘What does this Lived Experience Recovery Organisation (LERO) do, and how does it add value to the recovery community in that area?’
29. Social Justice & Politics [1’53”]
Interviewer Wulf Livingston asks why are we not just seeing this field through a social justice lens? ‘Because most people aren’t interested in social justice,’ says Tim.
Here is Tim’s biography:
Tim is currently an independent consultant in addiction recovery research, staff team and programme development, practitioner training and clinical supervision, and professional education.
A few years into his personal recovery from addiction, he started work at Clouds House (a residential treatment centre) as a counsellor in 1985 and launched his first training course for addiction counsellors in 1988. He has been leading professional education courses and degrees in the field of addiction for over 30 years. He has worked as practitioner, supervisor, programme designer and consultant, researcher, and educator in the charity sector and the NHS. In 2022, he moved into independent consultancy.
Tim was a UKCP registered Cognitive Analytic (CAT) Psychotherapist from 1994 to 2022 (moved to retired status) and is also an accredited trainer and supervisor. His current research interests are the development of social identities in recovery from addiction and the ecology of recovering communities. His PhD was a critical realist study of mechanisms of change in alcohol and drug rehabilitation programmes.