What I really loved about this year’s event was its focus on family. It was wonderful to hear about US studies that prove family wellbeing is fundamental to a successful and healthy long-term recovery from addiction.  A belief I’ve always held.

Family Is the Secret to Long-Term Recovery

It was stated categorically that families can make the difference in keeping clients (their loved ones) in treatment. The family is also essential to the maintenance of sobriety once living in the community and attending mutual aid meetings (ie AA, NA, CA, OA, SMART).  A brief spell in rehab enables the addict to come to terms with their addiction, behaviours and attitudes, it gives an opportunity to achieve abstinence and maintain sobriety in a nurturing and safe environment and learn the valuable tools that will assist in the transition to the community.

Family Treatment: Rehab alone is not the panacea – it won’t keep someone sober.  Long term sobriety requires those who are affected by the addict’s behaviour (co-dependents such as family) to devote time, understanding, some treatment, support and understanding about how they have managed the addict/alcoholic and in so doing developed their own unhealthy patterns of behaviour.

Without realising we can enable and collude with the addict/alcoholic.  I’ve often written about this so it won’t be news to you.  Usually without realising we are manipulative and controlling. But the focus of our attention isn’t the drug or alcohol that our loved one craves but the addict/alcoholic themselves.

Family members need a level of assistance otherwise our co-dependent traits will impact negatively on our loved one and in worse case scenarios be a negative influence on their recovery.

The Family Programme is an accessible opportunity to start the healing process.  For many it is the first chance they have to express anger, impatience and the fears they may have. It provides a safe environment for exploring the feelings of living with addiction and the appropriate venue to learn about treatment and recovery.

Our next Family Programme is on Saturday 26 May, to book a space or for more information please contact us on 0800 849 9257 or 01934 627600.

For anyone interested in how addiction can affect the family, I recommend the film “When a Man Loves a Woman”.  A tearjerker with Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia. I’m sure it was never intended to be the powerful therapeutic tool it has since become.

• Relationships: with family, friends and self
• Attitudes: to their community and their understanding of personal responsibility and consequences.
• Relapse Triggers: personal relapse triggers and assist them in finding their own coping mechanisms and methods to keep themselves safe.

A Choice: I strongly believe relapse is a choice. During his or her time in treatment, each client will have every opportunity to explore their propensity for relapse in detail – in Group therapy and 1:1 counselling sessions.  This is why I say that it is a “choice”.  Once someone achieves abstinence and is “clean” for a period of time, they sometimes decide to “test” their addiction – they wonder whether they can “control” their use and try “just the one!”

For those who have truly surrendered and accepted their addictive selves, this is not an option. But as I say, for many it’s part of their testing process to “try out” how much of an addict they really are.  Rarely will it stop at “just the one”, it quickly, if not immediately escalates and the downhill spiral is all the worse for their recent abstinence.

For those who decide they need a period of help back in therapy we offer a Relapse Programme, a short period in treatment where they explore their thinking around the relapse and again work through their understanding of their powerlessness over mood altering substances –Step One.

We’ve compiled our top 10 hints for Relapse Prevention – if you want a copy leave a comment.

Highlighting the risks of co-dependency

Yesterday, I saw a young man (let’s call him Simon) in the latter stages of liver failure, he was the colour of a yellow highlighter pen and his skin had a waxy sheen (akin to that of my mother as she lay dying). Somebody conspired with him to cover up his addiction and now he is dying too.

I know this because Simon was someone I once worked with and I hadn’t seem him for three years. When I first worked with him he was in recovery. But as co-workers we became worried about him. There were fears he’d relapsed, but no specific evidence.

By the time he left work I knew that he had definitely relapsed and despite our offers of help and support he still denied he was ‘using’. Sadly, I later discovered that a well-meaning individual with co-dependency issues had been colluding with Simon’s behaviours and covering up his relapse, they had enabled his deceit and denial.

To say I was devastated to see Simon like this is an understatement. Disguising my horror I discussed his situation with him and local services and we will support him however possible to ensure that he is able to achieve abstinence.

Feeding Denial: My message this week is to anyone who thinks they are helping someone by colluding with their addiction. Not being truthful about the situation is not helping anyone, it feeds denial in the addict and slows their opportunity to seek help and support.

Is Your Love Killing Them?

I know this first hand, I used to purchase alcohol for my alcoholic partner and when he lost his driving licence due to drink driving, I would drive him to the cider farm.  When realisation set in I stopped.

Many people who work in the field of addiction are either in recovery or have a “relationship” (they are family members, carers etc).  To them I say be careful when you know something’s going on with a friend or colleague, check your motives if you decide to not voice your suspicions. Denying someone’s lapse isn’t helping them it’s helping the addict self take hold, its slowing the consequences that will ultimately start piling up, its selfish and its self serving.

Addiction Kills: I don’t mean to be harsh, I mean to be direct and straight.  This disease of addiction is a killer, by enabling the behaviour we enable the disease to take hold.

I hope we aren’t too late for Simon, I hope there’s still time for him to undergo a detoxification process and achieve abstinence prior to his body saying enough is enough.  He’s a young man and I’ve seen too many young men die because of addiction and/or alcoholism.  Enough, please. Let Go.

Our clients have participated in the Foodbank, volunteering with the collection and warehousing of items.  They participate in Vision for Life Skills, taking part in cooking, photography, art and design and literacy.  They have made and looked after a vegetable garden that provides fresh produce for the Kings Table (an initiative which prepares and serves a meal weekly, free of charge, to anyone wanting to attend).

The Lighthouse Cafe is Open for Business

And the Lighthouse Café is once more be open for business, with our volunteers assisting with both back and front of house duties.  Preparing fresh food and drinks for the public.

Homemade cakes and freshly brewed coffee

The coffee is freshly brewed, the cakes homemade and delicious and you can choose from  a range of Panini and freshly prepared sandwiches. The exciting news is that the café will also now open in the evenings Tuesday – Friday as an alcohol free venue.  To my knowledge this will be the first alcohol free venue for adults open on more than one evening per week in Weston-super- Mare.

The square is named after Princess Anne who visited the Grand Pier

Situated in the newly named Princess Royal Square, formerly Pier Square the café has a wonderful view of the beach, the Pier and if the weather is great, over to Wales.  We expect this will become a favourite venue not just for those in Recovery from addictions seeking a safe place to socialise, but also for anyone wanting to enjoy an evening out in the town, without fear of alcohol fuelled violence or disquiet.

Bring your friends, your family, your work colleagues – I look forward to seeing you there.

For opening times check Lighthouse Website:  www.lighthouse-weston.org.uk

So, this morning I want to clarify my statements to avoid any further misunderstandings….

Western Counselling Delivers Detox as Part of Treatment

Detox is delivered free of charge at Western Counselling providing the individual is undertaking a programme of rehabilitation. We do not undertake stand-alone detox. Any detox is delivered as part of the treatment programme the detox period is included in the overall treatment fee.

My previous comments were referencing situations where detoxification is commissioned in alternative centres for a client who will be undertaking rehab at Western Counselling.  Why, in my opinion, does it make sense to pay for a detox when it can be undertaken at no extra charge, as part of the programme of rehabilitation?  That detox bed is then available for another individual who is perhaps undertaking their programme of rehabilitation in the community.  This may also help with problems of accessing a detox bed, which in some areas is the cause of the blockage.

I hope that clarifies for anyone who was not clear.  I would also encourage you please do post a comment on the blog if you have queries regarding my Rants. I’d love to hear your views but I can’t respond if I don’t know your thoughts.

To the Commissioner I met yesterday, you know who you are, and I now know you read these blogs I would like to say….

1. Thanks for reading  my blog

2. My apologies if you felt misled by my comments  (it is never my intention to misrepresent the services we offer)

3. Please don’t take my comments personally we take referrals from all over the world.

Another Celebrity Enters Rehab!

For me these cynical admissions to hospital denigrate the treatment choices for many others – who are truly experiencing the pain of addiction and are aware of the downward spiral of their life and potential for death.

Celebrity Fever: We’ve had celebrities in treatment at Western Counselling. Laughably we’ve even seen newspaper photos of our celebrity clients supposedly ‘snapped’ showing them leaving a lively London hang out, rather the worse for wear; when we know they were safely tucked up in bed in one of our properties!  You see, we don’t feel the need to advertise their presence, because we believe EVERYONE has a right to anonymity and confidentiality, even if you are a celebrity!

And……..we believe that everyone has a right to quality, effective treatment, so anyone accessing our programmes, irrespective of their lifestyle, media headlines to their credit, financial status etc. receive the SAME treatment.  Everyone attends Group and workshops, has to undertake a Therapeutic Duty and “buddy” a newcomer.

Celebrity Anonymity

No cameras, no hints, no gossip: Celebrities who truly value their anonymity are the ones who come here for treatment:  they know we’ll respect their right to confidentiality (we’ve been known to change their name so even the postman couldn’t recognise they were a resident at Western Counselling).

You won’t find cameras and papparazi camped outside our premises either.

We don’t gossip about who’s been here or drop hints.

And of course there’s the other side we don’t have them talking about us, which means you might not know that much about us! But we’ve done our job, these celebrities rarely end up back in treatment again, they are clean, sober and part of the international Recovery fellowship where anonymity is fundamental and at the core of support.

If your intentions for entering treatment for an addiction treatement centre are genuine why would you court attention?  Don’t you want to be somewhere that will quietly get the job done, effectively, without fuss or commotion?  A treatment centre that treats you for your problem with alcohol and/or drugs, with gambling, gaming, food or co-dependency, not a centre that fawns over your celebrity status?

Yes – call me a cynic.  I think every time we hear about another celebrity entering rehab its because they want us to know.  Its “celebrity” they want, not Recovery!!

Research reveals that 50% of British companies have disciplined or dismissed workers for alcohol related problems in the last two years.  But only 1 in 5 organisations have a policy or procedure in place for alcohol or drug related incidents and the smaller the company the less likely they will have a policy.  And he cost in time to recruit and replace a worker (who has been dismissed for addiction issues) can run into 18 months.

Which is why Western Counselling is off to the Health and Wellbeing @ Work conference at the NEC this week where will be meeting and talking to employers, HR/personnel managers, occupational health practitioners, Health and Safety officers and anybody concerned with wellbeing issues for their staff.

Preparing for the event we found plenty of interesting information and statistics, which we think you might find interesting too.

We hope that our experience in this area will allow us to develop relationships with businesses that are open to the possibility of treatment intervention as a solution for addiction related issues.

This means clients arrive for treatment more physically and mentally unwell, with more associated issues including relationships, family, housing, children, criminality, life skills and social skills. And its our staff teams who are picking up the pieces.

I’ve always been proud of the staff team at Western Counselling, but just recently they’ve surpassed themselves.  We deliver more and more on a daily basis for less.  Funding is stretched to the ‘nth degree, we are asked to achieve incredible outcomes in a fraction of the time for more and more damaged and fragile individuals.

Our Counselling team has over 100yrs of sobriety/clean time and our Support Work team has abstinence demonstrated too.  All the teams are committed 100% to abstinence based recovery.  Danny, one of the Support Workers is South West Chair for the Rehab Grads – they visit services, service user groups and commissioners explaining the benefits of residential rehab as individuals who’ve experienced it and turned their lives around.

One third of our staff team are in Recovery, a third represent as family members and a third are passionate informed individuals, who work in residential rehab as they know how important an element of treatment provision in the UK it is. We work hard, we look after each other and we also have fun but most of all we work together to change lives, both those we admit into treatment and those families affected.  So I’d like to say

 “Thank you, you’re amazing!”

To them all, and I mean it, everyone works to a common end – Recovery, and no one is more important the client.

AUSTERITY = enforced or extreme economy

• Why has the Government removed the ring fencing on drugs and alcohol treatment monies?
• Why are there continued reductions to the amounts of money available for treatment? 
• Why, if alcohol and drug abuse are recognised as a huge health and social issue and are reductions are being made in treatment budgets?

But at the same time we hear so much about people dying from alcohol related diseases, and the billions spent in the UK because of alcohol and drug abuse.

AUSTERITY. Yes – don’t you just HATE that word?  I know there must be financial prudence – but if alcohol and drug abuse is costing the UK billions why are we spending so little in treatment?  The NTA has recently produced some compelling data* about the costs to society of withdrawing investment in treatment:

1. Disease goes up – potential 25% increase in blood borne viruses
2. Drug deaths go up – possible twice the number of deaths from overdose
3. Welfare dependence goes up – estimated annual bill £1 billion
4. Crime goes up – estimated 5 million more offences per year

And the associated costs also rise. Clearly, there are cost savings from supporting treatment. Recovery and abstinence is at the heart of the Governments Drug Strategy, yet they spend substantially less on treatment year on year.  I fear when we move to the new commissioning practices, addiction treatment will lose out again to more comfortable and fuzzy requirements.

As rehab services we are now facing Payment by Results (PbR); this means treatment services will be paid for an outcome not a duration of treatment.  It has its merits, however I have not doubt it will prove to be hugely bureaucratic, and incur enormous back room function costs, rather than concentrating money where it’s needed – at the service end of treatment delivery.

Yes I have a vested interest. Residential rehabilitation may be a casualty of these austerity measures.  Believe me to work in this field you must have a passion for Recovery because there isn’t a huge profit margin to keep you going! And everyone at Western Counselling has that passion.

And the associated costs also rise. Clearly, there are cost savings from supporting treatment. Recovery and abstinence is at the heart of the Governments Drug Strategy, yet they spend substantially less on treatment year on year.  I fear when we move to the new commissioning practices, addiction treatment will lose out again to more comfortable and fuzzy requirements.

As rehab services we are now facing Payment by Results (PbR); this means treatment services will be paid for an outcome not a duration of treatment.  It has its merits, however I have not doubt it will prove to be hugely bureaucratic, and incur enormous back room function costs, rather than concentrating money where it’s needed – at the service end of treatment delivery.

Yes I have a vested interest. Residential rehabilitation may be a casualty of these austerity measures.  Believe me to work in this field you must have a passion for Recovery because there isn’t a huge profit margin to keep you going! And everyone at Western Counselling has that passion.

THE LAST RESORT? Currently residential rehab is commissioned only for the most vulnerable, entrenched and chaotic individuals.  Sadly, it’s considered the very last resort by many workers who prefer to keep the client in structured day care in the community until it becomes totally impossible to continue.

Imagine the outcry if we did this for heart disease

Envisage the same scenario for an individual with heart disease. Imagine the national outcry if we openly acknowledged that we only gave the heart disease patient a substantive chance of recovery when they were almost too ill for it to be effective. But hey, it’s ok because I’m talking about addicts and alcoholics?

So I ask again, “what price a life?” How can we justify spending cuts for a recognised national problem?

C’mon! I bet if it was your son, daughter, mother, father, sister, brother, husband or wife you’d be just as angry as I am!

Great Stats for us: Anyway….. I’ve completed the stats and it’s great to see that yet again we’ve made improvements in retention and engagement.

• 92% of clients completed their detox at Western Counselling

• 98% referred for an alcohol detox completed their withdrawal programme

• 85% completed Secondary Care (meaning they actually completed 6 months in treatment)

These figures don’t include those who decide they had sufficient residential treatment and wanted to conclude their recovery programme in the community.

92% of clients completed their detox

Naïvity of NTA : It’s frustrating to hear that the NTA (National Treatment Agency) considers that residential treatment sector is not achieving positive outcomes compared with structured day care in the community. The NTA make this decision based on the data they receive through National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS): data that all services in England are required to complete for each client that enters the treatment system.

What the NTA have naively miscalculated is that NDTMS doesn’t really “fit” the residential sector.  The data we are asked to input is flawed –  as it doesn’t include some of the untidier aspects of the work we do. For example, how to take into account how physically and mentally unwell clients may be on admission…how we only have a limited period to work with these individuals (compared with the community who may be seeing clients for years)… and the fact that clients are away from their families and friends which can be quite unsettling for some etc. etc. …..

Why do commissioners waste public funds?

Our Detox is FREE and succesful

When our detox is FREE and successful.  We can clearly demonstrate that 92% of clients referred to us for a detox successfully completed their withdrawal programme (a stat many a detox ward would love to produce) and our detox programme is actually free of charge. But commissioners continue to prefer to purchase detox using public money from their local hospital or inpatient detox provider.

How daft is that? We are FREE and obviously successful but public money is being spent delivering services that are already being offered as part of a residential programme at no additional charge.

Maybe we should start charging for this service, would that give it extra kudos? If I’m paying for something these days I want best value and best quality, I think I have evidence that we are providing just that!!!