I’ve added 24 posts to our Recovery Voices this month, which means that the website now has over 220 pages. It’s been a quieter time in relation to viewer numbers this month compared to last, but this is no surprise as I’ve had little time to publicise the website due to my spending lots of time with my son Sam who was visiting from the UK.
Here are the ten most viewed posts this month, in reverse order:
10. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) I write briefly about the relationship between our emotional experiences as children and our physical and mental health as adults. The pioneering research focusing on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) was conducted by Dr. Vincent Felitti and his colleagues in the US in the 1990s. [Articles, 14 November]
9. A Miraculous Discovery!?: David McCartney One day, David found that if he took codeine his craving for alcohol disappeared. He thought he had made a great discovery. Instead, as he freely confesses, he wasn’t smart enough to connect the dots. He descended very rapidly into an opiate addiction. [Stories, 20 November]
8. Working in the Treatment System: James Deakin James Deakin spent a number of years working in the mental health and addiction field before deciding that he had become disillusioned by the organisations and the commissioning process. At the same time, he loved working with ‘clients’ and was inspired by people like Mark Gilman, the late Rowdy Yates and David Best. [Stories, 22 November]
7. Luck, Legwork & The Future: Marcus Fair Eternal Media is not just about making recovery very visible, it is about making it an attractive option for people. People see what Eternal are doing and want to be associated with it and help. The organisation has been lucky, but they’ve put in a lot of legwork in. [Stories, 16 November]
6. Recovery Advocacy, Part 2 Wendy Dossett and Wulf discuss the problems of trying to be an addiction recovery advocate whilst working within the system, where financial interests and status are major factors. Wulf believes that the recovery advocacy movement has receded into small communities and off the national stage. [Themes, 2 November]
5. Ten Most Viewed Posts: 25 September – 31 October The ten most viewed posts on our Recovery Voices website—excluding the main section pages, e.g. Home, Blog—since we first launched the website on 25 September 2023. [Blog, 2 November]
4. 12-Step Fellowship, Part 2: Wendy Dossett Wendy has studied the concept of ‘Higher Power’ for a long time and the key message that she wants to get out there ‘is the diversity and creativity of people who engage with that concept and how they interpret it.’ These people are not sitting back and accepting a 1930s concept, ‘they are engaging with it in active, agentic ways.’ [Themes, 9 November]
3. Life After Prison: David Higham An awesome six-minute film from 2017. David Higham had been in and out of prison since the age of 16 and was a drug user for more than 25 years. He went on to create (in 2012) and develop The Well Communities, an inspiring recovery community located in Cumbria and North Lancashire. [Blog, 6 November]
2. The Lure of the Mountains Like many recovery groups and activities, DARE required the coming together of a group of motivated individuals. In this instance, it began with the desire of some in recovery to do the massive Welsh 15 peaks challenge, and their connection to three ‘friends of recovery’ with a depth of mountaineering experience and skills who wanted to support them to do so. [Blog post by Wulf Livingston, 1 November]
1. Remembering My Friend Bradley Miah-Phillips RIP ‘He simply gave. All that he had been gifted, he gave to others. Those whom he saved; the colleagues he worked with; and the people who loved him will never forget his humility and self-sacrifice. That is how he will be remembered; not for the things he did for himself but for what he did for others. That is how we should all wish to be remembered, but sadly it is a bar set way too high for most of us.’ [Blog, 29 November]
I hope you check out some of these posts, if you have not seen them to date.