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drinkanddrugsnews
| August 2014
Profile |
Sunny Dhadley
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Sunny Dhadley talks to
David Gilliver
about peer
mentoring, raising awareness
and the importance of seizing
the moment
‘
A
nything’s possible if you make the most of your opportunities,’ says
Sunny Dhadley, service user involvement officer at SUIT and director of
the Recovery Foundation CIC in Wolverhampton. ‘Or create opportunities
if they’re not available.’
He first entered treatment at 19, the beginning of a long period of being ‘in and
out’ of services, he says. ‘Once I started using heroin and crack cocaine it was initially
a matter of me saying, “I can stop if I want to stop” but it soon became apparent that
it wasn’t going to be that straightforward. I thought my life would still work out the
way I wanted it to, but I was constantly being pulled back by my addiction – I had
traits of my previous life that were apparent within my treatment journey.’
He finally completed his detox eight days before his wedding day in 2007,
which was also his 27th birthday, leaving him drug-free but unsure of what to do
next. ‘I didn’t know who I was or what I enjoyed doing,’ he says.
One thing he did know was that he wanted to try to ‘influence other people not
to go down the same road’, and decided to get involved in volunteering. ‘I had to
find out about it myself – I had no guidance in terms of someone saying, “do this
course” or “go and see these people” – and within quite a short time I found myself
managing the organisation that I’d started volunteering at.’
That was Wolverhampton’s SUIT (Service User Involvement Team), which
originally launched with just two staff and one volunteer. ‘It was in its embryonic
stage really when I took over, so I kind of had a blank canvas, other than
contractual obligations,’ he says. ‘The service developed very much as a result of
the needs and wants of the service user population.’
As well as his role as service user involvement officer with SUIT, he also set up
the Recovery Foundation last year. ‘SUIT sits within an infrastructure organisation –
which is a non-drug and alcohol organisation – the local CVS [council for voluntary
services],’ he explains. ‘That’s been a fantastic place for our organisation to be
based because we receive a lot of support and resources from the voluntary sector.’
The arrangement is not without its downsides, however, and it was this that
provided the initial impetus for the Recovery Foundation.
The realms of
possibiliTy