UMDONI COMMUNITY RECOVERY PROJECT

We believe that addiction is  a symptom of a greater disease, rooted in disconnection,  which affects not only individuals but our communities and society as a whole.

We believe that addicts of all types are those who are most strongly affected by this disease.  Addicts  in recovery are thus an important resource of recovery capital that can be mobilized to serve as recovery carriers within the community.

 We believe that this resource can be mobilised to bring recovery to addicts who cannot afford the enormous costs involved in the treatment system.

We believe that Recovery from addiction is a lifelong process of learning and that present treatment models that see recovery as brief intervention are ineffective.

Our vision is to nurture and support a vibrant recovery community in which individual, family  and community healing and re-connection can take place.

 Our Mission

1.       To mobilise individual, family and community resources to promote a culture of recovery. Particularly to include recovering addicts in the process of recovery.

2.       To make such resources available  so individuals, families and communities are able to get the help they need to recover.

3        To develop and nurture a strong grassroots networks of recovery community organizations offering opportunities for people to make their voices heard, and providing a forum for community service and opportunities for community development and upliftment.

4.       To strengthen and support natural family and community ties as the first line of social support with the aim of creating a healing environment that enhances personal, family and community health.

5.       To bring the message of  recovery to the majority of people who cannot afford the expense of  rehabilitation and treatment programs.

6.       To broaden public understanding of the reality of the disease of addiction and the process of recovery and reduce the stigma associated with addiction

7.       To move beyond an  individual concept of recovery to a communal one, encompassing families and communities.

8.       To advocate for planning and policies at all levels of society to enhance recovery, and for more addiction research, prevention, and treatment.

Practical goals

1. To provide peer-based recovery support services which cover a wide range of activities not generally offered by current treatment providers. Such services may include (but are not limited to)  peer support (e.g., recovery coaching), resource access ( housing, transportation, computers, library) vocational training, community service, employment services, telephone support, access to support groups, system navigation, recovery resource dissemination, life skills training and clean living social activities.
2. To provide information on and facilitate access to existing treatment and recovery resources.
3. To provide a forum for community service. To get recovering addicts involved in community upliftment and development  projects. To challenge the stigma of addiction by demonstration that recovering addicts can be positive role models and assets to their communities. 
4.  To celebrate recovery from addiction through public events.
5.  To act as a catalyst for bringing together  community institutions, government, business, and industry, civic and neighbourhood organization, treatment centres, health and social service agencies, educational institutions, the criminal justice system; religious institutions; sports and leisure institutions; the arts community; and media institutions to find common ground in addressing this issue.
6.  Seek to expand philanthropic and public support for addiction treatment, recovery support services, and recovery advocacy .
7. To  support  research that illuminates the processes of long-term recovery and establishes an evidence base for effective strategies, in particular  peer and community – based support systems.
8.  To provide public education and foster awareness. To put  a face and a voice on recovery to educate the public, policy makers, service providers, and the media about the reality of recovery
9.  Policy advocacy. Challenging the criminalisation of addiction,  the war on drugs and advocating for more effective public policies aimed at supporting peer-and community-based  recovery and treatment. Investigating and encouraging the introduction of drug courts and diversion programs for drug related offences.

In the longer term we also aim to establish:

•  a clean living communal home which will provide a home environment for addicts  in recovery under  the supervision and care of addicts with longer clean time.
• a community centre which will provide a resource centre for the local community and  a place for community-wide sober social activities, workshops, meetings, and resource connections .

Motivation for a peer-based , community oriented recovery paradigm.

The present model of rehabilitation is based on the myth that that addicts can and should be cured by a single episode of treatment in a rehabilitation centre. This simply does not happen. Most addicts will relapse and need several visits to rehabs before they finally get clean. Addiction is a chronic ailment.  As with any other chronic ailments, recovery from addiction is a life-long process and requires ongoing vigilance and commitment to following a treatment regime. Chronic ailments are not cured, but can go into remission and the sufferer may gain a temporary reprieve from  its effects.

William White, a leading expert of the recovery movement in the US[1] claims that the  prevailing acute care paradigm is flawed and sets people up for failure “We are currently placing people with severe, complex, and prolonged addiction careers within treatment designs whose brevity and low intensity produces little likelihood of a positive recovery outcome. When resumption of addiction then occurs, as it does so often, the individual is blamed and punished (via divorce, loss of child custody, revocation of probation, job dismissal, expulsion from school, etc.) on the grounds that “they had their chance and blew [i]it.”

There is, however,  growing evidence that the longer people spend in treatment, the longer they participate in the NA and AA fellowships, the greater chance they have of recovery.

In this country the majority of addicts will never be able to afford rehab and the state does not have the resources to bring even a fraction into state subsidised rehabilitation. Even for the better off citizens who can afford rehab.... the multiple stays that are often required before true recovery starts can be a huge and debilitating drain. Many a family has gone bankrupt trying to get a loved one clean. A new model of sustained recovery management is needed  with increased interest in post treatment support mechanisms and for developing and mobilising recovery support resources within communities.

Often when an addict comes into recovery (or wishes to do so)  they have no resources left. Material possessions  have all  been sold, and  friends and family alienated.  In such a situation an addict may become desperate enough to be willing to go to any lengths to make a change in their life. Or they may simply become hopeless and give up.  If no resources are available the second scenario is most likely. Some resources are necessary for an addict to recover , even it is just a sense of hope or someone who cares enough to help. Initially all resources  need to come from an outside source.

Access to treatment will allow an addict to build up psychological, mental and spiritual resources   -- but where does that leave someone coming out of treatment with no material or community resources available to him? And how does an addict with no financial resources get into treatment in the first place?....Many treatment centres do offer reduced rates or even free treatment for a small number of patients. The state has also begun to open state funded treatment centres. While these initiatives are admirable they are  but a drop in the ocean. According to Davidson and White et al [2]  in the US   only 10% of people in need of treatment for substance abuse receive such treatment annually and only 25% will receive such treatment at any stage during their lives. Given the lower rates of access to health care in South Africa the figures here are most likely significantly lower.

What needs to be explored locally is not only the need for post-treatment recovery support but innovative ways of bringing treatment and recovery to communities and people that cannot afford to pay for extended stays in institutions...

Also important in the South African context is the idea of Community Recovery - not only in the sense of recovery in the community but of the recovery of communities. Communities that have been subject to historical traumas are more susceptible to addiction and drug and alcohol related problems. These communities are in need of healing. They suffer from a range of social ills of which drugs and alcohol are but a part. They do however play an significant  role in exacerbating those problems depriving the communities of  resources and draining hope. On a positive note recovery is contagious. Recovery is spread through exposure to recovery carriers (“wounded healers”)—people in recovery make it infectious  through carrying the message of their personal story of hope and redemption and their love and service to those still suffering. By building up recovery capital in these areas we may be able to make a beginning at untangling the web of interrelated social ills.  Individuals coming into recovery begin to be positive role models for the youth replacing the gangsters and drug dealers as people to be admired and emulated  -- representing the only path to wealth and upward mobility. Parents  begin to spend more time with their family and being a positive influence in their children’s lives. Children spend more time at school and engaged in creative, sporting and learning activities.  Less violence, less crime, less unwanted pregnancy---these could be the result of a fairly small number of people coming into recovery and beginning of a significant shift to community healing.

It has been said that an injury to one is an injury to all. We believe that a healing of one is the healing of all

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[1] ( William L. White. (2007). The New Recovery Advocacy Movement in America. Addiction,102, 696–703.)

[2]  Larry Davidson PhD , William L. White MA , Dave Sells PhD , Timothy Schmutte PhD , Maria O'Connell PhD , Chyrell Bellamy PhD & Michael Rowe PhD. (2010) Enabling or Engaging? The Role of Recovery Support Services in Addiction Recovery. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 28:4, 391-416,

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