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Hi David & everyone out there.
I finally got around to updating my profile. I have been reading all the blogs for weeks now and it is wonderful to see such a movement developing for Community Recovery.
I have worked for 17 years in this field, having come into it as an ex-service user, previously working in the medical field. I came into this field to put Recovery and rehab on the map.
Seventeen years later large parts of the Country are still fighting. Why is it so hard to believe that people would want to stop using the one thing that has destroyed theirs and others lives?
Finally, 17 years later, voices are joining together to be heard and put recovery on the map.
I have a husband in Recovery who has been working in the prison service for 24 years. My mother died from liver failure and I have a brother in Recovery working in this field.
I have serious health problems from my own years of alcohol abuse, so with such a history put together with all the service users I have met and worked with over the years I have (as many would wish) no intention of going away or remaining silent.
I have been described by some as difficult – usually those people, for reasons I will never understand, who are opposed to Rehab. I pefer the term challenging.
I have two Home Office awards, we have been visited by Princess Anne, and I had Lunch with the Queen and Prince Philip. I am due to pick up my MBE from Buckingham Palace on 2nd June – not bad for the Drunk from Nottingham!
This is all since I got into Recovery and shows that what we are all doing is right and respected, but most importantly what can be achieved if we inspire service users to get into Recovery.
I would never leave this field and when I come back from negative meetings I sit with the service users and remember what it is all about.
Does anyone know the actress Joanne Lumley? Look what she has and is doing for the Gurkhas. Could we not get her on board?
I started BAC O’Connor 11 years ago, having worked in a well known rehab service for 5 years.
We started delivering Community Rehab 11 years ago in Staffordshire. It was unheard of and very controversial, but 11 years later we have two centres and we deliver the service from detox right through to semi-independent flats with work placements. Without our partner agencies this would not be possible.
David, as you stated in your evaluation of us in 2004: “A community service that was in the true sense of the word, there for the service user, that would tap into all the other services that they need – housing education, employment, mental health and many more, and also give them continued support when they have finished the programme.” Do you remember that?
The gaps are now the Service User Cafe which is being developed, again in partnership.
Anyone who is out there who wants to learn from our experience and mistakes over the 11 years, or talk to our Service User Committee – R.I.O.T (Recovery Is Out There) – we will be at the UKESAD conference next week with an exhibition stand. More than happy to share ANY knowledge we have and how we got around the funding minefield.
I feel passionately and have fought many a battle to get Rehab as part of the treatment process here. We have between the two Centres over 260 people per annum in Rehab. Rehab is there on the menu of choice from the start and this should be the same in EVERY County.
I tell every service user to remember that I started BAC O’Connor as an ex Service User without a Bean. Anything is possible!
Mark Gilman – you are one on your own and I admire the work you have done. I would love to see development of the workforce in drug services, workers inspired to move clients forward.
Community rehab allows them to see the evidence that Rehab works, which enables them to inspire their clients. This is not to say that out of county placements should not happen – course they should, but choice is important and why can’t we link together to provide Aftercare for those who return to their home town from out of county rehab.
Finally, there is another piece of research going on here, by Dr David Best. Really excited and looking forward to providing evidence for our field and I hope many more contribute to his next piece of research – we need evidence.
Time to shut up Noreen, get down off the soap box. I could go on forever. I hope to meet many of you next week.
Noreen
Noreen welcome to the site and please never get off your soapbox or stop being difficult, we are made from the same mould it would appear. WOW an MBE us ex addicts certainly know how to do things 100% and then some. So proud of you and many other recovering people. As we say say in scotland “you my friend are QUALITY man” really look forward to hearing about your experiences over the years if you have time to blog.
Big hug and again a very warm welcome x
Noreen i forgot to say see you at ukesad, i am speaking with deirdre boyd on faces and voices of recovery in the UK, please say hi if you spot me. x
Noreen, just to thank you for the lack of help you gave to me and my partner……. after 15 years on heroin he was ready to come clean and join the real world with me at his side, his partner for two years…his decission, he wanted to do it, it was nothing to do with me. It was the day i and his family had been waiting and praying for, the day he wanted to go into detox and rehab. He was so lucky, so i thought, to get into your centre and after 15 years of his family and friends having to suffer his long life of crime, imprisonment etc through heroin it has for him come to an end. But after going through 2 weeks detox in stafford then coming to burton for only a matter of 3 1/2 weeks he was asked to leave, becasue you thought he was not ready to be there, and told him to come back when he was. You told him he had to many prison traits, and a prison attitude….. Well yes i know what this was like I had two years of it, and I can tell you that most of it was gone, so you had nothing compaired to what i dealt with. I thought you were the experienced ones, but you are not. He kept telling me that he knows he is loud and has an attitude but that was part of his life on the inside and out, and he was willing to change but had to be taught. he was well impressed by the amount of times he was told that many of the people that came in there was like him and when they came out they were more relaxed, quieter and more adapatable to the outside life.
When I came to family group, for myself, and found him on the streets with his suit case I was in shock, I wasnt sure what to do, had he used, why was he out so soon , he hadnt completed and graduated, I myself was in termoil, and my partner was in pieces. No he didnt want to be in there, everyone knew that, he wanted to be with me, but he knew what he needed to do and it wasnt an option for either of us, it was his time, the time in his life he had decided to put this heroin life behind him. But you gave up on him Noreen ,and yes it was you, you were part of the comittee that put him out on the streets and if it wasnt for me taking him back that particular night – where would he be now??? I know, back where he was 15 years ago a sad sight on street with nothing, no where to go with no one and no family……to top it all the kick in the guts after all his hard work was to be told by your staff “to immediatly get back on a methadone script”. he told me thats what he was advised, and i know this was true, because when i was taken into your offices that night, and advised you were dismissing him out of rehab, I also was told the same about the script. I was horrified at your advice. But who am i, what do i know i thought your were the experts, i thought you were there to treat my man and send him out the person he so wanted to be, he did want that more than anything in the world. I was so disappointed and still am, that there is still no where that will take on the responsibility of re directing someone like my partner into the real world of living and work. He was, a person who had dedicated his whole life to prison and heroin just becasue he knew nothing different. I now understand why so many people are in and out of rehab……
Hi Amanda
I am truly sorry that you feel let down. firstly when we refer clients who have not completed rehab back to the community drug teams and suggest maintenance for a period of time, that is to keep them safe, as relapse is high and and following a period of abstience, relapse can lead to overdose, this is standard procedure and one we are required to follow.
In realtion to your partner being asked to leave, No rehabilitation Centre likes to discharge anyone, our primary goal is for everyone to complete rehabilitation drug free and on the road to recovery, secondary to support and enable them to maintain recovery. As you are on your partners release of confidentiality, if you would like to contact the centre and arrange to come in and see me we can discuss the actual reason’s behind your partner being asked to leave, due to confidentiality this is not something I can discuss in an open forum such as this, but I am more than happy to do so with you and offer any support we can.
Please ask to speak to Lynda who will arrange this as I am away for 3 days
Kind regards
Noreen
Thank you very much for your reply…I am chocking on my humble pie that I must eat for the reasons you only know to well… He has started taking drugs again, I will admit you were right. Its not the fact who is right or wrong, what I wanted more than anything on earth was for you to be wrong. I knew life would not be perfect by anymeans, and it hasnt been up till now. But he worked so hard to get off it, it has just suprised me so much what he has done again, in such a short time….i feel he has let everyone and himself down again, and for what ? I havent been to family meetings only for the reason i have been supporting him by taking him to work whilst he settled in, but he wont last long there, he was wrecked this morning before even going out the door….
anyway i am diversifying – good look in all you do and i do beleive in you and your work, its just hard not knowing how to feel and how to act when you are a bystander to someone you love so much and feel so helpless.
i do thank you and sorry for doubting you and your forethought to this unpradictable situation x
Hello, Noreen,
I am not sure if I am writing in the correct place, but I was so moved by your story on your member profile page.
Well, my brother from the age of 15 has been an addict you name it he has had it he is currently on a methadone script like he has for 3 years. I have seen my family torn apart by the suffering he has done to himself, he has been in and out of jail for petty theft throughout my teens he stole everything I had to get a hit – he even stole my car once! But no matter how difficult he has been and to see my parents cry and asking why he does it none of us can give up on him at times believe me as I am certain you know you really feel like why do I bother?
But we have too, I have just completed a degree and was all set to become a teacher when I started to work part time in a pharmacy working mainly as part of the needle exchange programme. And how I enjoyed it, I built strong rapport with the users as I could listen and understand how they felt through nights of watching my brother in pain. My career path is not so certain now and I really want to help those out there who need the support.
I have been to many meetings with my family and my brother and it is a relief that there are people out there like you who do care and set up centres. This is my goal – I want to be part of a team to help and support I know from experience that it will not be plain sailing but I am willing to put the time and effort in to do as much as I can including any training courses.
Any help or advice you could offer me would be fantastic, I need to know how I can get my foot in the door! I live not too far from Burton.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Katiex
