March 2017 DDN March 2017 DDN Magazine | Page 11

‘ No one even bothered to report them missing.’

first person

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POST-ITS FROM PRACTICE

FINDING THE PIECES

One life, but many varied components to recovery as Dr Gordon Morse reflects
‘ No one even bothered to report them missing.’
John and Louise met under a railway arch in London; they shared an old mattress and slept under cardboard boxes. They had both run away from very abusive families – John from the West Country, Louise from Yorkshire. They left their homes when they were only just teenagers, completely under the radar of social services. No one noticed they had left, no one even bothered to report them missing. John hadn’ t been to school for years and was unable to read or write.
By the time that they met under that railway arch they were in their late teens, both with injecting heroin habits. Their relation- ship was more about self-preservation than anything else, and John started stealing more so that Louise wouldn’ t have to continue to sell herself.
After another year or two, they decided to move back to Somerset where John had friends. It was there, after Louise had been discharged following an emergency admission with another accidental overdose, that I met them, about eight years ago. I got them both titrated up to a proper dose of methadone and allocated them the support of a keyworker. Without the daily demands of miserable withdrawal symptoms, obtaining funds, using drugs and repeating this several times a day, they were able to take stock of their lives and what they wanted to achieve.
Opportunities are few for those with drug addiction, criminal records and health problems, and progress has not been quick – but it has been remarkable. When I last saw them, they had been housed in a tiny bungalow. John had been to literacy classes and they were both working in the local business – poetically, a cardboard packaging company – where Louise was supervisor. They lead quiet lives – John likes a bit of fishing, Louise likes walking their dog. They are both still on methadone, and when they come home from work each day, they still smoke a bit of heroin to ease old memories.
So Louise and John have come a very long way. OST hasn’ t achieved this for them – their own resilience and the opportunities offered by my colleagues have done most of that. And if anyone says to me that this is not‘ recovery’ because they are still smoking a bit of heroin, all I can say is that this story is the embodiment of what recovery from addiction really means – and I doubt it would have been possible without the stability and safety that OST has given them. Indeed I doubt that they would still even be alive.
Dr Gordon Morse is medical director at Turning Point and a member of SMMGP. First published in the IDHDP newsletter, March 2017.

MEDIA SAVVY

The news, and the skews, in the national media
FOR EVERY PIECE OF EVIDENCE showing that youth smoking rates have plummeted since e-cigarettes became popular, there is a blowhard in Philadelphia who insists that vaping is a gateway not only to smoking but to crack cocaine. For every report from the Royal College of Physicians showing that e-cigarettes help people quit smoking, there are a
hundred activist-researchers in San Francisco claiming that vaping makes quitting more difficult … Teenagers experiment, and there is no doubt that they have experimented with e-cigarettes in recent years. The real question is whether they are experi ment ing with vaping instead of smoking or if the former leads to the latter. The drip, drip, drip of junk science from the US would have us believe that vaping is a gateway to smoking, but the empirical data strongly suggest the opposite. Christopher Snowdon, Spectator, 8 February
I MAY NOT BE an enlightened nondrinker but I am an informed one. Sooner or later your vices catch up with you. The big bad medical wolves have
achieved their goal. Dealing with unpleasant feelings seems a lot easier to me than any one of the ten horrible alcohol-related diseases I’ m destined to get if I go back to drinking. So, I’ m staying sober. For now. Helen Kirwan-Taylor, Telegraph, 6 February
THOUGH THE PLIGHT OF ALCOHOLICS is awful – the demonisation by society( medical professionals included), cuts to mental health services, the ready availability of the drug... the list goes on – often overlooked are the struggles faced by their children … Local authorities require proper funding to deliver crucial physical and emotional support to children in need. It is only by reaching out to the children of alcoholics that we can hope to definitively break the cycle of addiction that has a stranglehold upon the nation. Annie Beckett, Guardian, 27 February
LOCAL NEWS REPORTS [ in the Philippines ] of politicians found to be directly funded by drug money are so frequent, widespread and often absurd it’ s hard to know where to begin … So while Duterte’ s reprimanding of, and promise to cleanse the country of, crooked cops and officials will only add to his popularity among common Filipino people, I wonder if this is a fight he will stand by as firmly as his ferocious war on drugs. The deaths of more than 7,000 addicts and low-level dealers is one thing, but ruffling the feathers and incomes of the country’ s most powerful? That’ s an entirely different battle, and one Duterte should make sure he is squeaky clean for, because the most sinister thing about the Philippines’ drug problem is not wild addiction statistics, but that there could be proof that corruption is endemic. Joanna Fuertes-Knight, Guardian, 2 February
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March 2017 | drinkanddrugsnews | 11