Current Affairs

February 1, 2012: ARF REPRESENTS THE UK IN EUROPEAN MUTUAL-AID NETWORK OF OVER 1MILLION PEOPLE
Comments: 0 | Categories: Current Affairs , News
After months of liaison, Addiction Recovery Foundation ambassador-at-large Laura Graham went to Brussels in January to meet with the Board of EMNA, the European Mutual-Help Network for Alcohol Related Problems. Their meeting concluded in success, achieving the final step of...

January 16, 2012: PREVENTION MUST BE PUT INTO CONTEXT
Comments: 0 | Categories: Current Affairs , Therapeutic Techniques
A common definition of prevention is “educating youth to abstain” – but this is doubly erroneous, explains Peter Stoker. First, all age groups can benefit. Second, education is only part of a process which also encompasses knowledge, attitudes and behaviour....

January 15, 2012: PREPARE FOR THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF 2012
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Leading personalities in the field of addiction treatment and recovery use their insights and inside information to predict what they consider will be the major opportunities and threats of the year to come. Prepare now. Print-friendly version: Download Addiction Today...

November 21, 2011: REHABS - NOVEMBER 2011 SNAPSHOT
Comments: 1 | Categories: Current Affairs , News
On 7 November 2011 with a deadline of 11 November 2011, Concordat members were emailed the question “How could/does NDTMS* artificially lower your successful completion rates?”. The overwhelming trend was patients waiting too long for referrals to rehab, during which...

August 31, 2011: GRASSROOTS RECOVERY:POCKETS OF GROWTH IN BARREN GROUND
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The oft-quoted recovery researcher, writer and advocate William White interviewed Laura Graham about UK grassroots recovery support and advocacy.Our definitive guide offers a wealth of resources. WW: Recovery advocacy movements can be difficult to track at a global level. They...

July 2, 2011: PSYCHIATRISTS: PROGRESSING AT DIFFERENT SPEEDS TO UNDERSTAND RECOVERY
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The Addictions Faculty of the Royal College of Psychiatrists held its annual conference in May. Laura Graham listened to psychiatrists’ advances in understanding and treating additions. Praise is due to Dr Alison Battersby and Dr Francis Keaney who organised this...

June 9, 2010: THE 'SCIENTIFIC CITIZEN'
Comments: 0 | Categories: Current Affairs , Policies, legislation , Research
THE DANGER OF UNQUESTIONING 'TRUST' by Kathy Gyngell Read the full article here. Summary below. Was anyone else more than a little disturbed by Professor Martin Rees' call in his Reith Lecture for public policy choices "to be leveraged by...

May 2, 2010: "STOP THE TOP": NTA RESPONSE... VS THE EVIDENCE
Comments: 3 | Categories: Current Affairs , National Treatment Agency - DoH , Policies, legislation , Research
Dr Jason Luty revealed research in the March 2010 issue of Addiction Today showing that the National Treatment Agency’s Top Treatment Outcome Profile form is “criminally invalid”. The NTA’s Colin Bradbury gives his defence below - and Addiction Today editor...

May 1, 2010: WHO WILL TREAT THE YOUNG ADDICTS?
Comments: 1 | Categories: Current Affairs , Families and children , News
MEPHEDRONE TOLL MOUNTS In February, the UK’s only rehab for 11-18 year olds was finally forced to shut its doors. Within a month, mephedrone washed over these shores like a tsunami, producing a rising flood of addicted teens – with...

March 14, 2010: NOT SMART: GUARDIAN MISQUOTES
Comments: 3 | Categories: Current Affairs , News
Dr Joe Gerstein, founding president of Smart Recovery USA, was misquoted in the Guardian newspaper on 10 March as attacking AA - and the story was carried across the Atlantic to JoinTogether. He puts the record straight through Laura Graham...

February 27, 2010: "TEEN REHAB SLAIN BY STATE ORTHODOXY AND TARGET TYRANNY"
Comments: 4 | Categories: Current Affairs , News
"I would be dead without Middlegate," a 17-year old former resident of Middlegate told Kathy Gyngell. "I had nowhere to go psychologically, no future. I needed to be shown that my life would be better without drugs. That is what...

February 25, 2010: BREAKTHROUGH TO RECOVERY
Comments: 6 | Categories: Current Affairs , National Treatment Agency - DoH , News , Policies, legislation
As the country awaits a new government, can we hope for improvement in guiding desperate, vulnerable people towards true recovery from addiction? The Conservative Party adopted 70 policies, and Labour 39 policies, from the Centre for Social Justice, founded by...

January 7, 2010: CLOSURE OF ALCOHOL TREATMENT PROMPTS JUDICIAL REVIEW
Comments: 1 | Categories: Current Affairs , News
PATIENT CHOICE IS DENIED The closure of an abstinence-based alcohol treatment course has triggered a threat of judicial review by activists who fear the health service is cutting back on funding for the independent sector within the NHS, reports Owen...

January 6, 2010: MYTHBUSTERS: SEPARATING FACT FROM FICTION IN THE ACMD AND THE MEDIA
Comments: 13 | Categories: Cannabis comment , Current Affairs , Debate , Policies, legislation , Prevention
When Professor David Nutt was sacked by the Home Secretary for arguing against government policy on drug classification, he stated that his proposals were based on scientific evidence. Professor Andy Parrott goes mythbusting. It has been highly publicised across the...

October 28, 2009: THE DODGY DOSSIER OF NON-TREATMENT: 2
Comments: 0 | Categories: Current Affairs , News , Policies, legislation
THE NTA LANCET PRESS RELEASE An NTA article printed by medical journal Lancet led national media andinternational academic websites to the perception that this body of bureaucracy is successfully treating addiction/dependency. Deirdre Boyd reveals the truth behind the headlines. “Drug...

October 28, 2009: THE DODGY DOSSIER OF NON-TREATMENT: 1
Comments: 0 | Categories: Current Affairs , News , Policies, legislation
ANNUAL REPORT and GUARDIAN MEDIA BLITZ The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse spent your hard-earned taxes and mine on paying for positive PR in the Guardian this week, sponsoring a special supplement. "Commissioning editor Terry Kirby" wrote that the...

August 31, 2009: DEATH BY DIVERSITY?
Comments: 2 | Categories: Current Affairs , Policies, legislation
WORKING WITH THE LGBT COMMUNITY Lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender services are a rarity, reports Sarah Graham. At the same time, where gay clubs go, straight ones usually follow – and they are succumbing to crystal meth. Back in 1992 on an OutRage! demo...