In June 2021, I was interviewed by Huseyin Djemil of Towards Recovery for his Journeys Podcast. Huseyin took me through various parts of my journey, including my neuroscience career, recovery advocacy work (Wired In), and the writing of an eBook about Aboriginal child artists which relates to the healing of trauma. I later edited the interview into 12 clips which are shown on my People page. Here is one of those films.
Recovering People and Their Stories [11’36”]
Hüseyin and I discuss people recovering from addiction, their journeys, and their stories. Huseyin talks about the aims of the small recovery community he set up, Towards Recovery. He points out that people recovering from addiction have a rich life experience and can benefit the community. Recovering people are an asset. They have generally come through a great deal of adversity and have much to teach other people, not just those trying to overcome addiction.
Huseyin points out that at one time someone at Microsoft said that the company needed to hire people who have been through difficulties and adversity, and had come out through the other side. People with resilience. I emphasise that we can learn so much from people who are recovering from addiction—we need stories about recovery. Such stories drive his passion for the field. We need to be getting more recovering people together, and ensuring that their Stories are disseminated widely.
I make reference to Lewis Mehl-Madrona, the Native American psychiatrist who wrote the fascinating book Healing the Mind Through the Power of Story: The Promise of Narrative Psychiatry. I read Lewis’s words: ‘Stories help us develop empathy…. Stories give cognitive and emotional significance to experience. Stories enhance our creativity and help us beyond the here and now. Stories keep us connected in social networks, which build and shape our brain. And stories unlock the mysteries of psychological suffering that declarative facts cannot reveal.’