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Needle exchange eventually became legal, and his organisation had continued
to be able to influence policy and guidelines, ensuring a service user friendly
environment – ‘although it’s far from perfect.’ The process of constituting the group
was also now underway, he said.
‘Funding is important, but don’t let it stop you,’ he urged delegates. ‘Focus on
what can be achieved without it.’
DEBUNKING THE RECOVERY MYTHS
The recovery movement represented choice not
abstinence, said Jacquie Johnston Lynch and Eve
Cameron, who were determined to make its agenda
inclusive
It was important
to debunk the myth that recovery only
meant abstinence, head of services at SHARP in
Liverpool, Jacquie Johnston Lynch, told delegates in the
morning session
The recovery movement in the UK.
‘Every now and again there will be fanatics, but you’ll
find that in every field. You need to look beyond that and
see that it’s about choice.’
It was also important to address the fear that
recovery meant taking away options like methadone,
and to work to build a recovery community with all
services on board – ‘so it doesn’t look like it’s just 12-
step.’ The recovery movement needed to come together,
and this would mean a culture shift towards supporting
clients, she said. ‘It’s not a drug worker’s job to tell
people how to live their lives’ – the key things in moving
forward were choice, engagement, hope and meaningful
options. There were a range of definitions of recovery,
she said, many of them vague and non-specific. ‘You have to decide when you’re ready
for recovery, and what your recovery will look like.’
‘When does recovery start?’ co-presenter and graduate volunteer at SHARP, Eve
Christian, asked the conference. ‘The minute someone says “my life is
unmanageable and I want to change this”.’ Both speakers were in recovery
themselves, Jacquie from an eating disorder and Eve from drugs and alcohol.
‘Recovery has had a huge impact on my life and the life of my three children,’ said
Eve, adding that an essential factor was having a key worker who listened.
‘The one size fits all model of recovery has been put in the bin,’ said Jacquie
Johnston Lynch. Eight to ten years ago on Merseyside the only thing on offer had
been prescription, she said, but since that time there had been a ‘recovery
explosion’. People needed to be given information about all of the options,
and the polarised harm reduction versus abstinence debate was counter-
productive – ‘it’s the same journey,’ she told delegates.
‘And finally, it’s about you,’ said Eve Christian. ‘It’s also about creating fun in the
community – showing that it’s not just a hard slog.’ On the statement ‘the recovery
movement adds more choice in the addiction treatment field’, 51 per cent of
delegates strongly agreed and 37 per cent agreed, while just 6 per cent disagreed
and 4 per cent strongly disagreed. On the statement ‘recovery can be defined by
somebody’s personal choice,’ a massive 71 per cent strongly agreed and 24 per
cent agreed. Only 3 per cent disagreed and 1 per cent strongly disagreed.
FROM ‘CANOE TO CRUISE LINER’
Don’t give up when you get knock-backs, was the
message from Kevan Martin, who steadily built a
support network for alcohol service users
‘I designed the service
based on the feelings I
had about what could have been done better when
I was in treatment,’ founder and chief executive of
NERAF (North East Regional Alcohol Forum), Kevan
Martin, told delegates.
NERAF was originally set up as a support
group from his own home, he said, funded for the first two years entirely from
his incapacity benefit. ‘In the early days I was in a canoe. Now we’re a cruise
liner. I just kept knocking on people’s doors – local service providers – and
they let me use their premises free of charge.’
Within a year he had support groups running across the region, along with
funding from Awards for All and, later, the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund.
‘We’re now open from 10 until eight, six days a week,’ he said. ‘We run 14
support groups a week in Sunderland alone, and there are 15 full-time staff,
most of whom are in recovery. We provide an end-to-end service – we hand-
hold people through the experience, through the many doors along that
journey, reminding them that they can be whatever they want to be.’ NERAF
had also developed a volunteer programme and now had its own accredited
mentor training. ‘We provide lots and lots of opportunity,’ he said.
‘Recovery is a journey – it doesn’t have a destination,’ he told the
conference. ‘But the longer you’re in it, the better it gets.’
Conference highlights are on our website at www.drinkanddrugsnews.com