LETTERS AND COMMENT
‘ It dawned on me that there were resources within myself that could be focused towards achieving the outcome that the treatment programme was designed to deliver.’
TAKING THE INITIATIVE Given the chaos taking place in prisons, I am hoping to communicate the concept of self-rehabilitation as a vital complement to formal programmes for those who struggle within treatment settings for whatever reason.
The idea came to me while serving my final prison sentence in HMP Downview, where I was one of the early graduates of the Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners trust( RAPt) programme – nowadays the Forward Trust.
I had the advantage of occupying a single cell so was able to sit in meditation. This is how it dawned on me that there were resources within myself that could be focused towards achieving the outcome that the treatment programme was designed to deliver – abstinence-based recovery. The neuronally-sculpted pattern of recidivism I was in the grip of for so long could dismantle at an unconscious level, allowing a brand-new life-trajectory to establish itself even before custodial release.
At this stage the individual can use their inner resources to create a rehabilitative structure. For practitioners too, encouraging the person to further their self-rehabilitative initiative – rather than allowing them to continue to struggle with an authoritarian agenda – can encourage self-motivated individuals to achieve their own outcome by accepting responsibility. This offers a way to dismantle entrenched offending-behaviour patterns long before release, and gives staff a language to encourage genuine engagement.
For those still caught in the cycle of continuous relapse-andreturn, whether in communitybased treatment settings or custodial environments, selfrehabilitation is not grandiose theory but a simple means to self-rehabilitate by means of self-effort. It allows the body and mind to rebalance and reintegrate with society to build daily structure and the foundation of a new life.
Self-rehabilitation, once awakened, can carry a person far beyond the walls of any institution, as proved true for myself. I’ m currently approaching completion of my 32nd year of abstinence-based recovery following approved school, borstal, a sequence of six prison sentences in the UK, a sentence in Germany and a period of time in the Central Prison Peshawar, in the Northwest Frontier Province – all for drug-related offences.
The pattern of recidivism fuelled by active addiction was ended by my decision to self-rehabilitate while drawing on the resources available in custody( the RAPt Programme and the Phoenix Prison Trust), from which my motivation for inner-resourced rehabilitation was fostered. John Graham, by email
EMPIRE STATE OF MIND I am not sure that treatment services are too narrowly focused( Aiming higher, DDN, October, p22). If anything, the opposite is probably more accurate. Treatment, the NHS – or now farmed out to big third sector – is about the process of acute harm reduction and supported substance behavioural change. Keeping folk and helping them get sobriety to start sorting shit out.
What has actually happened is addiction service empire- building, morphing into‘ we change anything and everything’ organisations as long as we have got funding to do so. But if we consider much substance use as a logical response to situations folk find themselves in and experience, which has developed into maladaptive use making things worse – then the behaviour change is beyond these services. Whether economic, educational, housing or social injusticerelated, or deeper traumabased, it seems the service or provision is better provided by others – including separate peer-led recovery, better-funded housing, basic universal income, counselling etc.
So perhaps less of a belief in the omnieffective‘ addiction’ service and hot potato referral to them by others – what we need is a sense in which the wider needs of alcohol and drug users are actually attended to by those better versed in the underlying considerations. We do not have omnieffective services for diabetes, those with lifechanging injuries etc – but stigma towards alcohol and drug use means we feel a need to treat them differently. It just may be that the empirebuilding reinforces this, rather than challenges it. Wulf Livingston, professor of alcohol studies, Wrexham University, via LinkedIn
BEST SECTOR Thank you Richard Chapman for sharing a really important point –‘ I get to meet some of the most interesting people in this world’( DDN, October, p21). I love this. We talk about how to get people through the system – how to treat them, medicate them and make sure they don’ t come back. But how often do we acknowledge that we work in the most interesting and rewarding – and dare I say the best! – sector? Having the opportunity to watch people grow and flourish is a privilege we should celebrate. Thanks for the motivation! Sarah, by email
PITIFUL PROVISION Maybe we need to stop mapping where NSP services are – and start mapping whether people can actually access them( News, DDN, October, p3).
A service can appear on a directory; a pharmacy can be listed as providing NSP; a contract can say provision exists. But what happens when someone actually walks through the door? The service has stopped providing NSP; the opening hours have changed; equipment isn’ t available; access is restricted; the person is directed somewhere else; the information online is six months out of date; there is technically a service – but practically, there isn ' t access. That’ s not simply a data problem. That’ s an accessibility problem.
The Hepatitis C Trust’ s latest research found significant gaps between recorded and actual provision – including less than half of pharmacies identified through existing intelligence actually providing NSP. The person who discovers that an NSP has closed doesn’ t need a quarterly report – they need accurate information now. This isn’ t about creating another database. It’ s about creating a living picture of harm reduction accessibility. We shouldn ' t just be measuring whether NSP exists. We should be measuring whether it is reachable. Natalie-Louise, recovery navigator, via LinkedIn
DDN welcomes all your comments. Please email the editor, claire @ cjwellings. com, join conversations on our Facebook page and LinkedIn, or send letters to DDN, CJ Wellings Ltd, Romney House, School Road, Ashford, Kent TN27 0LT. Longer comments and letters may be edited for space or clarity.
/ ddnmagazine @ ddnmagazine www. drinkanddrugsnews. com
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