are jehovahs witness and those allocating key workers using the same book?

[manus]

The proof of the pudding is always in the eating or, in this instance, how many of the 'mantra repeaters' actually come off. A number here accepted 'reductions', presumably seduced by a glittering vision of a drug free life, only to change their minds completely once the cuts began to bite and they faced a reality of shivering on a corner, waiting to hand over money to sordid black marketeers.

Here, the 'encouragement to abstinence' initiative has been anything but a success. With rare exception, the only 'successful discharges' have been only of people whose habits were so doubtful one wondered what they were doing in treatment at all. Other than they and a few marijuana addicts, the effect has overwhelmingly been to damage, not improve user lives. I very much doubt it's any different elsewhere.

The reality of the situation is that 300,000 UK citizens, of all types, have a taste for opiates, Instead of acknowledging their right to do as they choose to their own consciousness, and perhaps enquiring of their reasons, a powerful propaganda machine works overtime to maintain the illusion criminalisation and opprobium is somehow the appropriate course of action and these 300,000 British subjects are without exception criminal deviants. Narcotic peddlers and contract prison owners alone benefit, the rest of society suffers for the fantasies of a moral minority that does all the talking. There's something very wrong here.

One thing I've noticed, from personal and experience and the public 'friend of a friend' statements of drug commentators like Kathy Gyngell is that, when they talk about heroin addicts, they're really talking about the unacknowledged dark side of themselves. Once that is understood, you see how the rest of the fearful nonsense follows. By all means, be concerned, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, for the spiritual dangers of addiction and try to persuade users to change their ways. But, once you introduce compulsion to fortify your belief, it's tantamount to admitting you're wrong. If it doesn't come naturally, leave it. After forty years of UK Drug Policy straight out of Canute, it's time to allow what may be termed the natural progression of addiction, as evidenced during the Rolleston years, again to take its course. There have been far too many needless drug casualties and the 'drug war' madness needs to stop. Give peace a chance. Now.

Thank you .stop the madness stop the war,for indeed all who do profit are the "moral",minority and the private prison owners along with their good mates the narcotic peddlers.Peace is long overdue in this land.

[OP8S]

If the bulk payment is given when you've been out of services for 12 months, care to guess what will happen?

As I thought. I shudder to think what will happen.
If you give opiate + tests then you're not towing the line = quick reduction
If you reduce to a medication free discharge & present back within 2 hours, well you've simply not tried hard enough.

This IMO is more like past often unsuccessful treatment when you were scared to admit that your dose wasn't holding you & dare to ask to have your meth increased to a point where you reached stability & not using gear. Just your meds, but it sounds as if people in treatment are barely going to stabilise before they are co-erced into an unwanted reduction. Let alone be maintained until they feel ready to reduce if that is the case. Other's who have lived healthy & productive lives while being maintained for a number of years have obviously tried most other options before & should feel in control of their medication.

Why the two can't run alongside each other as they have been forever is beyond me & can only end in a negative outcome. Screwing up many lives while they trial such flawed policies such as PBR.

Peace is long overdue in this land manus, but it's going to get worse before it get's any better.
There are plenty of laws regarding freedom of speech, yet as individual's we're not deemed responsible enough to change our own conciousness's , unless by using state sanctioned substances.
Drug treatment should be in the hands of the NHS & not profit making organisations. It wouldn't happen to any other patient group & I think it's safe to say that drug user's are a lot more vulnerable to bad practice than a lot of those other patient groups.

[sapphire]

Have been told this week that I MUST do groups, in order to keep my script. What a fucking farce. I shall go to their groups, but I can guarantee you that after a couple of times they'll change their minds and decide it's best if I don't go!!

[manus]

As I thought. I shudder to think what will happen.
If you give opiate + tests then you're not towing the line = quick reduction
If you reduce to a medication free discharge & present back within 2 hours, well you've simply not tried hard enough.

This IMO is more like past often unsuccessful treatment when you were scared to admit that your dose wasn't holding you & dare to ask to have your meth increased to a point where you reached stability & not using gear. Just your meds, but it sounds as if people in treatment are barely going to stabilise before they are co-erced into an unwanted reduction. Let alone be maintained until they feel ready to reduce if that is the case. Other's who have lived healthy & productive lives while being maintained for a number of years have obviously tried most other options before & should feel in control of their medication.

Why the two can't run alongside each other as they have been forever is beyond me & can only end in a negative outcome. Screwing up many lives while they trial such flawed policies such as PBR.

Peace is long overdue in this land manus, but it's going to get worse before it get's any better.
There are plenty of laws regarding freedom of speech, yet as individual's we're not deemed responsible enough to change our own conciousness's , unless by using state sanctioned substances.
Drug treatment should be in the hands of the NHS & not profit making organisations. It wouldn't happen to any other patient group & I think it's safe to say that drug user's are a lot more vulnerable to bad practice than a lot of those other patient groups.

Having been there in the days where you were afraid to ask for more(hints of oliver twist)as your dose wasnt holding you and then topped it up on the black market to what did I can certainly see that happening again as fear has really started to take root among many I know so yes it is going to get worseIn terms of groups  vulnerable to bad practice drug users are certainly number one ,with I believe a group I worked with for some time ",adult learning difficulties",being next in line for any sympathy from Joe public.Before peace can come there are going to be many more battles to fight before a war can be one and its not going to be easy.

[OP8S]

FFS!!  Sapph. They've not got you with grinding you down with ECG's, so now you are required to attend group sessions ( wretch ). Does it say ANYWHERE in any agreement's made with your DSP that you HAVE to attend group sessions ??
Treatment should be individualised, herding you into a group full of obedient, or co-erced user's as you are is treating people like sheep. Only you'll probably be more informed about policy & current research than the drugs-worker that is taking the course ( sorry I don't know the Recovery lingo, got told off about using the term service user on another site. It's a service & I use it , I'm quite comfortable with the term, but for some we are all " recoveree's " at our own stage of the journey towards abstinence. A journey which I am quite happy to take, but the day I am totally abstinent from all substances will be the day I'm lowered into the ground.

I'm probably lucky because of work I'm never invited to any basket weaving gatherings, or anything else for that matter. I did for a while have a key who said that I was psychologically stuck on a number when it came to my dose, she was quite keen for me to attend a group meeting. Even though the next time I saw her I had saved up a sufficient quantity of meth to prove that I wasn't stuck on a number. Unhappy with this she persisted so I spoke to my GP who wrote them a letter saying that he didn't think it would benefit me & I would be more suited to see a counsellor one to one & whatever was said on those sessions would not be discussed with any members of staff at the DSP.
That sorted it. I'm a very private person, a lot to do with the community I live in, my job etc. Can't be too carefull when all your mates are known for some drug use at least. 

From the sounds of it you don't want to become a purple groupie either ? You never know though, you could use it to your advantage & create the UK's first physeptomentalist ( a fantastic term thanks to our own physepto ) cell.... 
There will be other's there I'm sure who feel the same as you & like you jumping through hoops for a life saving medication.

[derek d j]

Are Addaction (?) obliged to compel you to attend their classes as a condition of your script? Much as some of these people would like to be, they're not really policemen. I suspect this may be another cunning ruse to increase numbers at classes that, generally, far inferior to what's freely available elsewhere in the adult education system. They will then report their popularity and success and, for lack of contrary voice, receive a mandate to carry on wasting taxpayers money. As the PR men of these corporate charities appreciate, appearance can be more important then substance and what should be a serious business is turned into a very bad joke,

Users can be their own worst enemy. They tend to do what they're told out of fear it'll be worst for them if they don't. The more they comply, in fact, the worst it becomes for them. Moreover, they in effect assist in the continuation of the big lie that's been the mark of U.K. Drug Treatment for decades. Call their bluff, Sapph. Either bill them for your time they waste or turn up and encourage the rest to express their feelings more honestly than they usually do to the ersatz probation officers into which these providers turn not-real-bright 'key workers'. The Emperor has no clothes and will soon run for the hills when enough fingers point his way and laugh.

U.K. users have suffered this cynical nonsense and the 'undue influence of a determined minority' far too long and somebody needs to take a stand now. Remember, there are more sensible Treatment professionals out there and they're quietly fuming at some of these appalling impositions and the way in which patients are being harassed and damaged. You may be surprised at the support you receive. These dreadful people have relied on the silence of cowed users far too long. You're not a criminal deviant, laboratory animal or the plaything of unthinking bullies. You're a freeborn British subject and may not be treated this way.

Let right be done!

[sapphire]

I'm not (thank god) at Addaction, I managed to cling to the NHS service still operating. I now have 2 keyworkers?! One who says I MUST do groups to keep my script, and the other who says that if I don't want to do them, there seems little point forcing me.
Have to wait and see what happens I suppose, I told them to actually talk to each other and show me where in our Service Users Charter it says I MUST attend groups. I've actually (unbeknownst to them) got a copy, and it says nothing about groups being mandatory for keeping your script.

I really do not want to basket weave or listen to a load of old drug war stories with a bunch of local weirdo's thank you very much! (The area I live in is high in the village idiot count, many villages must be feeling left out, that their idiot has left, and moved here!).

[simon]

I'm not aware of any  other group of patients that are forced to do group work.

[sapphire]

I'm not aware of any  other group of patients that are forced to do group work.

It's almost like a punishment really, I don't believe these groups, that are run by people with either no qualifications, or a 3 month basic counselling course, are a help to anyone.

In fact, for people on benefits, if they don't live in walkable distance, it could be really costly to attend, and to attend something they don't even want to go to. Plus if they've got mobility problems oir whatever, well, you get my drift.

I have yet to hear a soul at my DSP say that any of the groups are any good, I have only heard how appallingly bad either the content is, or how they are run, of that the person "in charge" knows as much about addiction as Derek's angry swan!

[physeptomaton]

I'm not aware of any  other group of patients that are forced to do group work.

The only one I've heard of: convicted sex offenders.

[Jim]

to me groupwork only works if people are positive about them.  They can be good for getting peer support encouragement etc.  I am a fan but only if optional.  I would encourage poeple to go but neve force them to - although some local contracts almost require it of you to guarantee it now.  The only time where I have been involved with enforced groupwork is DRR b(although we tried to be flexible) which is supposed to be an alternative to custody so I suppose that is more reasonable. 

Thinking about it poeple on probabtion (and in prison) are often pretty much coerced into groupwork so that is another category.

self help groups are recommended in the NICE guidelines for psycho social inteventions in substance misuse

and if you think about this forum is a self help group!

[sapphire]

A litttle off the original topic, but wanted to know what you guys thought of this.

I have just finished reading a book by Barry Woodward, called Once an Addict.......

At the start it's your typical drug biography, unhappy kid starts taking weed etc, then progresses up the pharmaceutical food chain until he's addicted to benzo's. heroin and crack.

He was also diagnosed by 2 psychiatrists as having schizophrenia, and was taking Stelazine for this.

Three quarters of the way through the book he meets someone on a bus?! who encourages him to go to church. He attends one church meeting and says he feels "called by God".

The book goes on to say that after that ONE church session he was able to come off methadone and benzo's in four weeks with no ill effects.

The more incredulous bit is that after the ONE church session he apparently stop hearing the voices that were a symptom of his schizophrenia.

He went back to church and said he felt God was calling him to be an Evangelist, and when he went home he saw two angels at the bottom of his bed and after this was able to stop taking his schizoprenia meds and apparently had no more symptoms of any psychiatric problems.

Now, I know that for some people having faith can give them a more positive mind set, and enable them to do things, but I highly doubt God can cure schizophrenia?!

Has anyone else read the book, I find the story so incredulous I doubt it's authenticity, or at least the authenticity of some (most) of the details.

What do you think?!

[afcjimwomble]

Thank you Manus..I've had ALL of these people, and I've hated and despised every fucking single one of them. It is a fact that the shit these fools try on with us is not only highly immoral it's also ileagle ! I give you a very small example...key worker suddenly says that due to govt guidelines I must attend every fortnight as apposed to every month...first I ask the prick to show me the guidelines ...idiot cant....then I tell it to fuck off playing games with my mind and I will not be seeing it every two weeks and of it persists I,ll contact my solicitor......result....? ...I get left alone!..they are all utter cunts mate ,..keep em peeled.
Peace.

[derek d j]

The idea is to maintain the illusion key/recovery workers are in some way useful and not a waste of space. A liberal will be told they 'help' addicts; a right winger that they're necessary to 'monitor' their deviant activities. In reality, of course, 90% do neither; it's a job creation scheme and drug workers are as vital as lorry drivers 2nd mates.


Their numbers have increased alarmingly since Blair identified Treatment as a suitable dumping ground for middle class unemployables and the more self-important new arrivals may even delude themselves they're health professionals doing a proper job. Drug users must do their bit for the big society - these unfortunates need you. Their sad little lies and justifications - " I had to feed my guidelines, guv"-  are only because they're in denial; be tolerant and remember that, without their seeing you regularly, they'd be on the street. Be kind but firm and help them address their bad habits. It's a thankless task but someone has to do it.