In April 2024, I travelled from Perth, Western Australia, to the UK to see my family and visit a number of recovery communities: North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) and Eternal Media in North Wales, BAC O’Connor in England, and ARC Fitness in Northern Ireland. In each community, other than at Eternal Media, I gave a series of talks on addiction recovery, trauma and healing, and the importance of connection.
After the last visit, I headed to North London to stay with an old school mate (Tom Wragg) and his wife Jill, before leaving the next morning to see friends in my old haunts of the Gower and Swansea, South Wales. On arrival, Tom and Jill took one look at me and said I would be staying the weekend. Apparently, I looked shattered. And, yes, I was totally exhausted and I stayed the weekend. But strangely enough, the tiredness hadn’t come from giving a number of talks, being involved in many conversations, and all the travel involved.
I realised that I had been worn out by the excitement of seeing so many people in recovery and the wonderful things they were doing to help others; by the kindness I experienced and all the good food with which I was provided; the feeling that my audiences were genuinely interested and even excited by what I was saying, and the positive feedback I received after each talk. I was worn out by the goodness of people and by the recovery that oozed out of the walls of the places I visited! Strange, eh!?
On the plane back to Perth, I reflected on my trip and the experiences I describe above. I also thought about the major changes in my career, the things that I have learnt over the years, and the people who have inspired me. How I stopped working as a neuroscientist because I realised that using drugs to help people overcome mental health problems and addiction was causing more harm than good.
I reflected on Wired In, the grassroots initiative that I developed in 2000 to empower and connect people to help them overcome substance use problems. People in recovery taught me how they got well. I also learnt that our treatment systems were not only broken, but were resistant to change. They still are today. Back then, I saw genuine recovery communities, like BAC O’Connor, helping people get well. Now, I was seeing recovery communities taking this form of help to a new level. No wonder I was so worn out by excitement, inspiration and joy.
And there is a bigger picture here. As emphasised in his classic book with Oprah Winfrey, What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, Bruce Perry states: ‘Our society’s transgenerational social fabric is fraying. We’re disconnecting. I think that is making us more vulnerable to adversity, and I think it’s a significant factor in the increases in anxiety, suicide, and depression we are seeing…’ Disconnection is also leading to more people turning to illegal and legal (alcohol and prescription) drugs to kill their pain, resulting in more people suffering from substance use and related problems.
Ironically, it is recovery communities like NWRC that understand how to help people overcome such problems, and are helping people find connection: to other people, to their environment, and to themselves. They are not just doing that in their own recovery community, but also in their wider community. Society must learn from these recovery communities. They teach us how to transform Pain Into Power. That is another reason why we are celebrating NWRC with this month’s blog posts and the book I am currently writing.