Rehab beds will give drug addicts sense of hope amid spiralling death count

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With drug deaths expected to rise again this year, the pressure is on the Scottish Government to take meaningful action. And so it should be.

While parliamentary time is wasted arguing about flags this week, the bodies of drug addicts will continue to drop at a rate of about three-per-day.

As the SNP prepares its budget for the coming year, many in the recovery community have called for proper investment in rehabs and have asked MSPs to consider the merits of ratifying a budget that does not contain this essential funding.

Drug death action group Faces & Voices of Recovery Scotland (FAVOR) this week called for the Scottish Government to invest at least £15.4million in drug rehabilitation beds in this year’s Scottish Budget.

A glance at the figures and it’s not hard to see why.

In 2007, Scotland had about 352 rehab beds across 22 facilities. At that time, there were 455 drug deaths in a year.

By 2018, the number of rehab beds dropped to fewer than 70 across three facilities, while drug deaths soared to their highest ever number, with 1187 people dying in just one year.

FAVOR Scotland is asking that every MSP commits to only supporting the Scottish Budget if it includes £15million for drug rehabilitation beds.

Given the Scottish Government has underspent by around £450million in each of the last two years, £15million for rehab beds is a paltry sum of money.

What rehab offers someone struggling with addiction is some much-needed time away from the stressful environments and negative social attachments that drive drug-use.

A place where they can be safely detoxed before addressing the true nature of their problems.

Rehab is not a silver bullet. It works in conjunction with other approaches, like harm-reduction and the recovery community, and there are sadly no guarantees that people who are admitted to rehab won’t relapse at some point.

However, what rehab offers is a solid foundation in recovery. The first chance many people will get to begin visualising what sobriety looks like.

Rehab broadens an addict’s field of vision, allowing them to see beyond the horizon-line of a sea of despair and dysfunction to the dry land of sobriety.

It is often the first place an addict develops a sense of hope, as they begin to educate themselves on what they truly suffer from

and become connected to a community where sobriety – not drug use – is what life is all about.

Without adequate funding for rehab beds, I’m doubtful we can make a serious dent in the drug-death figures. Which is why many of us will be watching this coming Budget closely, hopeful that the Scottish Parliament will do the right thing.

Therapy provides route to solutions

Last year, I spent some time in rehab. It was a private rehab called Abbeycare in Wishaw, Lanarkshire.

After two-years of struggling in my recovery, I had no choice but to take drastic action.

I do not recall much about the day I arrived there but as my head cleared over the subsequent days, I do remember being overwhelmed by the sense that I was, finally, safe. It is then that the window of recovery opens.

When you have conceded that there is a problem, you become more open-minded to possible solutions.

And in rehab, the solutions are wall-to-wall. Every day, you take part in group and one-on-one therapy.

But what I noticed more than anything is that in rehab, many of the approaches that compete with each other, often aggressively, in wider society, work in perfect harmony.

Nobody is invested too much in their particular approach beating out the others.

The psychological, physical and spiritual dimensions of recovery are all accounted for but are never in tension.

That’s because in rehab, the goal is to get people sober – not to prove to everyone that one way of doing it is the right one.

We beat struggles on way to big day

In two weeks, I’ll be getting married. Last week, a friend asked me how I’m getting on with my “pre-wedding jitters” and it was then that I realised I have not yet experienced any.

In truth, I couldn’t be more excited to be spending the rest of my life with my wonderful partner.

It isn’t always easy but that’s life. It’s about what you do when you’re up against it that defines your relationship.

In the past couple of years, we have crammed a lot into our time but we’ve confronted these challenges together, with commendable humour and grace.

Maybe this is unusual but if my partner is even half as thrilled to marry me as I am to marry her, then I’ll consider that worth the price of the cheeseboard alone.

Award missus target

Hell froze over this week when Mrs Brown’s Boys beat Afterlife and Fleabag at a prestigious television awards show, proving beyond all doubt that the British public, who voted for the awful sitcom, cannot be trusted with the remote control, let alone the direction of the country.