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Recovery|
Scottish summit
20 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| November 2013
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Face to
Face
Last month’s recovery
summit in Scotland brought
together people from all
walks of life to explore what
they could do for recovery,
as
Kuladharini
explains
SCOTLAND’S SECOND NATIONAL RECOVERY
SUMMIT TOOK PLACE IN GLASGOW AT THE END
OF LAST MONTH.
The event was hosted by the
Scottish Recovery Consortium, a small charity
funded since 2010 by the Scottish Government to
promote the implementation of our drug strategy
The road to recovery.
A total of 420 people
registered for the free event, which was hosted by
a crew of 40. People gave their time and talents
to make it happen and the Scottish Government’s
drugs policy unit sponsored the event.
So, what is a recovery summit? For us the
summit is
a ‘walk
your talk,
practise
what you
preach’,
encounter
between
tribes of
recovery,
their
friends and
allies in
treatment
and public
life, and
people in
power who
are new to the whole idea of recovery.
A recovery summit is not a conference. It is a
place and time where the informal and formal
networks connect, engage in dialogue across
round tables, drink coffee, eat lunch and inspire
each other. We appreciate each other’s
contributions. There are no speeches, just
‘seeds’ – small nuggets that stimulate thinking
about our next steps individually and collectively.
It is not particularly about my or your
individual recovery. The beating heart of the
recovery summit is the altruistic dimension of
recovery. To paraphrase President Kennedy: ‘Ask
not what recovery can do for you, but rather ask,
what you can do for recovery.’ Now this is a no-
brainer for people in long-term recovery. Recovery
communities and mutual aid members are past
masters at Zen koans [parables], like ‘you can’t
keep it unless you give it away’. Increasingly we
find that paid staff at all levels of public service
delivery are also seeing it this way.
On the day of the summit our focus on
grassroots and bottom-up approaches to recovery
in the community and in treatment came of age.
Grassroots activists chaired and hosted the
event. The minister for community safety and
legal affairs, who holds the portfolio for the
recovery policy in Scotland, made her contribution
and then took to the dialogue tables to share and
learn from the collective wisdom in the room.
Alcohol and drug partnership leads were
alongside local recovery activist groups from all
over the country. Four mutual aid fellowships
(SMART, CA, NA and AA) public information
committees presented in the studio parallel
sessions, and even our healing room was staffed
by qualified alternative therapists in recovery.
Rank and file treatment workers pondered
together with recovery college graduates, heads
of major national organisations, police, prison
officers and recovery elders.
First names only. No job titles and please,
no hierarchy and status, which can get in the
way of us finding what unites us as humans.
Dialogue begins around questions that really
matter to us – what have you contributed, what
are you noticing and what do you imagine?
From there the sparks fly, the ideas emerge
and each of us forms a next step commitment
to building recovery. Longer tea breaks and a
good lunch break allow the conversations to
continue naturally. Our working assumption is
that the wisdom is in the room. You are invited
to the recovery summit intentionally, because
you already contribute to building recovery or
because we need you to contribute!
The recovery summit is a catalyst, an
alchemical melting pot if you will. We are a
small country, urban and rural, that uses
natural assets (talkative, cheeky, irreverent
and passionate) in pursuit of a shared love.
This vision is of a more humane, inclusive,
connected, community spirit that is alive,
thriving and has a place to live on your street.
There is a future we can now see emerging
where we put the ‘better than well’ effect to work
– not just to build better treatment and access to
mutual aid, but where the community strength
that visible and growing recovery brings is put
back into helping to heal the very communities
we ravaged with our addiction. Scotland has
enormous challenges and some of its many
assets – once lost to addiction, now found in
recovery – are available and willing to help.
How on earth do you make such a vision
manifest? All we have to do is ‘take the next
right step’ and see what happens.
Our fundamental message is that people do
recover. This can be a challenging message for
those not involved in the recovery community or
those with a ‘glass half empty’ approach to life.
We believe that the importance of reconnecting
face to face to inspire each other, at gatherings
like the recovery summit, cannot be
underestimated. We find it creates a recovery
‘bounce’ – enormous creativity that goes into
action to strengthen recovery across the country,
both locally and nationally.
That, my friends, is a national Recovery
Summit in Scotland.
Kuladharini is director of the Scottish
Recovery Consortium