Kevin speaking about recovery from addiction to Red Rose Recovery group in Preston
On Wednesday 10th June I was invited to Preston, Lancashire as guest motivational speaker to the delivery arm of Red Rose Recovery, The Lancashire User Forum (LUF) at their Central LUF Forum Meeting. My talk was entitled ‘Sharing To Motivate And Inspire’.
The delegates included professionals from the NHS, from rehabilitation agencies based in the community and criminal justice sector, and service users, who because of LUF have a massive coherent voice and are able to become involved and participate greatly in the delivery and policy of drug and alcohol treatment services.
Speaking in public in a new area to new people can be daunting but on arriving at the event in Preston, the immediate welcome I received from strangers I’d never met was deeply warm, considerate and caring. This made it easy for me to feel quickly that here, in all sincerity, I had new friends. As a group, and with each of them, I felt at one.
My talk referred to my experience of recovery, my career, what I have learned professionally and personally that I consider being important and necessary to achieve a flourishing successful recovery. I also spoke of my main assumptions on present addiction treatment, on how lack of insight and appropriate attitude and knowledge by drug workers are linked to not achieving positive outcomes, the causal link of stress to addiction, and the neuroscience behind understanding addiction as an illness.
I am glad that what I had to say resonated with service users and workers alike. The comments I received, and the conversations I had with delegates after my talk, confirmed that if we don’t understand addiction, we won’t understand recovery from it, or people experiencing it. And this has to be addressed through new training and new awareness for anyone working with people experiencing addiction.
To meet people at different stages in recovery from addiction, giving a helping hand to the other guy and taking part in events like LUF no matter what is happening for them or the difficulties they face, I find amazing and is great example to people just finding recovery. The strength and the integrity I felt from the people I met I carried all the way home, it will never leave me. Later that night it hit me just how deeply moving I found meeting people, against every adversity, flourishing full of courage in recovery.
Organised and active, the service users at LUF I met were glowing and it’s clear that they hold dear the ethos of giving back to the community and changing the negative public perception of people experiencing addiction. This seems to me to be at the heart core of this brilliant movement and organisation.
Thanks to CEO Red Rose Recovery: Pete Yarwood , and Media Lead: Michael Reynolds and Michael Holt
Realworld Recovery 