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Recommended reading – from the drug and alcohol sector
‘ I am not suggesting that aiming for recovery is wrong... [ but ] for all the talk of recovery, the evidence suggests that we are not very good at making it happen.
Off the mark?
I am sure you know the story of The Emperor’ s New Clothes. Two weavers promise him a new suit that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When he parades before his subjects in his new clothes, no one dares to say that they don’ t see any suit of clothes on him for fear that this is how they will be seen.
Arguably this is how the treatment field has been treating recovery. Because commissioners say they want it, guidance says we should do it and everybody else says how they great they are at it, we feel we must go along for fear of being described as‘ unfit for our positions, stupid, or incompetent’.
We can talk about recovery but we can’ t hide from the facts, namely:
1. The NDTMS website shows the current recovery rate for opiate users is 6.6 per cent – a drop from 8.59 per cent in 2011 / 12. For all service users the rate is 38.24 per cent, a rise since 2011 / 12 of just 3.52 per cent.
2. Drug-related deaths have risen and continue to rise. They are at their highest point since data was first collected in 1993.
I am not suggesting that aiming for recovery is wrong. I am not trying to make an argument that harm reduction is somehow better than the focus on recovery. All I am saying is that for all the talk of recovery, the evidence suggests that we are not very good at making it happen.
This isn’ t just a provider issue. Commissioners have been commissioning‘ recovery focused’ services for a number of years and yet the recovery rate has dropped. As they have pushed for more recovery, and the providers have responded with plans, initiatives and service models that don’ t appear to work, drug-related deaths have risen.
If you were in central government and could see that all the investment into the field was achieving an annual recovery rate that was dropping, would you continue to invest? Perhaps it’ s time we all had a realistic discussion about what can be achieved before it’ s too late. Howard King, head of Inclusion
heavy industry
In your article‘ Industrial strength’( DDN, November 2016, page 10), I was surprised to see so much space detailing the arguments made by mostly alcohol industry and associated bodies at the recent Westminster Social Policy Forum.
Henry Ashworth of the industryfunded Portman Group stated he was disappointed not to see more representation of public health at the event, but looking at the dominance of industry-related bodies on the agenda the reason for this seems rather self apparent. Whilst I was asked to speak at the conference and agreed, I was certainly ambivalent about doing so.
I was given five minutes to speak on a fairly narrow brief, but tried to highlight some of the limitations of a continued focus on‘ partnerships’ and‘ voluntary action’ without addressing key environmental influences such as price and availability. Whilst I do not wish to see complex policy debates over-simplified or polarised, there is a clear need for caution over how policy debates are framed and influenced by different agendas. James Morris, Alcohol Academy
Sober Stick Figure
By Amber Tozer Published by Blink Publishing ISBN: 9781910536636 £ 9.98 Review by Mark Reid.
AMBER TOZER’ S STICK FIGURES brilliantly follow the recovery idea of‘ keep it simple’. In just a few strokes of her pencil, the childlike pictures are a great way to show addiction for what it is – destructive: drink too much of this and you’ ll end up on the deck. It helps that Amber’ s commentary alongside her storyboards is by turns hilarious and caustic.
Many drunks do‘ geographicals’, jumping from one place to another trying to find themselves or, more often, to leave themselves behind and shake off the drink. Amber’ s geographical takes us on a tour of the USA. It starts in her‘ hometown of Pueblo, a midsize lower-middle-class city in the foothills of Colorado’. Her mother runs the Do Drop Inn where‘ men on stools with their elbows on the bar drink one after another’. Amber always loved the attention they gave her. She then takes her drinking to New York and Los Angeles – a coast-to-coast all-inclusive of high jinks and horror stories.
Amber is spot-on describing untreated alcoholics – low self-esteem but big ego:‘ compliments made me nervous and when I did accept a compliment, I’ d let it go to my head. I’ d fluctuate between feeling worthless or
‘ In just a few strokes of her pencil, the childlike pictures are a great way to show addiction for what it is...’
like I was better than anyone else – nothing in between’.
Then, getting drunk, all that mental discomfort disappears and Amber enjoyed‘ laughing at something I would normally be worried about’. Amber‘ loved the manufactured feeling alcohol gave with bad ideas that I thought were 100 per cent great’.
It is a relief when Amber finally chooses recovery. Stopping is one thing. Staying stopped another.‘ I was still stuck with the reason I drank in the first place. I drank because I had obsessive negative thinking, and without alcohol I still have negative thoughts’.
Like fearing the worst. Sober Amber was dog-sitting‘ a tiny, white, fluffy Bichon poodle named Latte’. A coyote made off with him,‘ dangling from its mouth’. In shock, Amber had two thoughts:‘ a coyote turned Latte into lunch’ and‘ I get to drink over this’. Then suddenly the poodle bounds back into the garden‘ tongue poking through his huge smile’. Amber’ s‘ excuse’ to drink is gone. The stick figure drawing for this is my favourite.‘ I kicked that coyote’ s ass’ says Latte. Somehow he escaped. So has Amber.
Mark Reid is peer worker at Path To Recovery( P2R), Bedfordshire
10 | drinkanddrugsnews | February 2017 www. drinkanddrugsnews. com