The
concept of recovery has become the popular
'buzzword' of 21st Century mental health services -
beloved by survivors and politicians alike.
However,
the notion of 'recovery' is hardly new.
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics
Anonymous (NA) talked about 'recovery' more than
70 years ago.
Two
things are of particular interest about the
influence of these social movements (AA and NA).
First, they believed
- rightly or wrongly - that 'alcoholism' and
'addiction' were 'illnesses' or 'diseases', both of
which were part of the lottery of life. Second, they
believed that people could deal with such
overwhelming problems, by talking about them;
by asking for support from their fellow women
and men; by acknowledging that they were
powerless to resolve such problems. Within such
humility (powerless) lay great strength (the human
collective).
However,
AA and NA found it very difficult to solicit
support from the mainstream 'scientific community
for their philosophy of recovery. Undoubtedly, this
was because of their associations with religious
ideals. It is clear, however, that AA and NA,
and the different '12 step' programmes' which they
promoted, have been great successes. They 'believed'
that people with alcohol and drug problems could
recover. All they had to do was accept
that they had a problem, seek the support of
fellow 'sufferers' and allow their 'god' to guide
them back to meaningful living.
Clearly,
the contemporary mental health 'recovery' movement
is a child ( or grandchild) of AA and NA. Mental
health survivors have, in different ways,
gathered together, shared their 'stories'
of distress, difficulty and inappropriate
'treatment', discovering within this 'story telling'
great comfort, companionship,
mutual support and hope. The similarities
to AA and NA are clear.
We
believe that the key to 'recovery' is to be found in
'story telling'. By 'bearing witness', or 'telling
my story', people discover the 'personal truth' of
their own life - as opposed to the artificial,
theoretical 'truths' offered by different
psychiatric professionals.
By
talking about what has happened to us, how
it affected us and what it meant to us,
we begin to move towards talking about what might
'need to be done' to deal with, respond to, or
otherwise overcome the problems of living that
others call madness, mental illness or psychiatric
disorder.
People
'reclaim' their own story as a first step towards
recovering the life that they have lost.
Reclamation is
the necessary work of the
recovery project. By reclaiming the fundamental
story of our lives, we take back everything that we
are - as persons; the good, bad and indifferent. We
reclaim all of 'who' we are, so that we can begin to
establish what we can do for ourselves and what we
need help with. No person is an island so there is
no shame in accepting support. However, to ask for
help we need first to know we are alone, and we need
to know that we are in difficulty. The hard work of
recovery involves 'letting go' our distress and
difficulty, as much as trying to control or contain
it.
