Recovery IS possible!

In this episode of Breaking the Stigma, we explore what recovery really looks like... not just in theory, but in everyday life.

Hosted by Faye from the ADP Support Team, this episode features Charly from Dumfries and Galloway Recovery Together (DGRT) and Andrew, founder of Southwest Recovery Cafe.

Through honest and powerful conversation, Charly and Andrew share their own lived experiences of recovery, what it means to them personally, and how recovery communities are helping people across Dumfries and Galloway find connection, purpose and hope.

The episode explores how peer-led recovery groups work, how individuals can get involved, and why having a sense of community can make all the difference. It also highlights the challenges people face, including stigma, and the importance of creating safe, supportive spaces where people feel understood and not judged.

Whether you are at the start of your recovery journey, supporting someone else, or working within services, this episode offers insight, reassurance and a powerful reminder that recovery is possible.

Because sometimes, the first step is simply knowing that there is another way forward.

For more information and local support, visit dgadp.co.uk.

For Southwest Recovery Cafe - Find us on Facebook or call 07858 417137

For D&G Recovery Together - Find us on Facebook or call 07548 309727 or email

Dumfriesandgallowayrecoverytog@gmail.com

Produced by Your Fairy Podmother®️www.fairypodmother.co.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is Breaking the Stigma, a podcast from Dumfries and Galloway ADP. If drugs or alcohol have affected you, your family, your work, or your community, this podcast is here to help. Each episode covers a different part of the picture, from people's rights and family support to recovery and more. These conversations are designed to inform, support, and connect people to the right help.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Hello, welcome to this episode on recovery. I'm Faye and I'm the Recovery Communities Coordinator for the ADP support team. I'm with Charlie and Andy and I will let them introduce themselves.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Hello, I'm Charlie, chairperson and one of the lead peer facilitators of DGRT, which is Dumfries and Galloway Recovery Theater, which is a peer-to-peer-led recovery group that goes across all of Dumfries and Galloway.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Thank you, Charlie. Andy?

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Hi, I'm Andrew. I'm the founder and chair of Southwest Recovery Cafe. We are a supportive network for anyone involved in recovery or anyone affected by addiction.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Thank you. You've told us a little bit about the organisations you're here representing today. Could you go into a little bit more depth? Andy, do you want to just describe what the Southwest Recovery Cafe is to somebody that wouldn't know ordinarily what it is?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

So South Biggest Recovery Cafe is a recovery organisation. We were founded in 2023. We started out of the recognition of the need for people to have a little bit of community and connection in the community for those in and seeking recovery. So we we engage with those in various stages of recovery, those that might be at the early stages of recovery and just getting the idea of recovery to those who are looking to seek to go into residential rehab. And then we also engage with those who are in long-term recovery. And what we do is we try and provide a supportive networking community for those people to be a part of. A huge part of recovery is that connection, is that finding your people and finding your tribe. And then we're just trying to create an environment and as many aspects of that as we can. So Southwest Recovery, we have a cafe that is on the last Wednesday of every month where we do a free meal. People can come along, they'll get some kind of interaction. There's usually a lot of experience share who will share their own personal story and journey of recovery, and that can be really inspiring and provide hope. We have, as I say, we have the free meal, and we have the more important thing is the kind of informal peer support that happens at those creepers, those interactions and those corrections. We also do a couple of recovery groups, so we do one every second Monday, which is a self-facilitation group, so it's peer-led where the guys and girls will come along and they'll take turns at sharing their own experiences and story of recovery. They will get the chance to chair and facilitate the group as well. That hasn't been going very long, but there has been quite a good bit of interest in it, and then it is starting to pick up. We also do a similar thing in Annan that runs every week on a Wednesday evening where we will have the exact same format. It's just those we lived experience and any stage of addiction or recovery coming along and getting kind of supported and finding that kind of community and connection and recovery.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Thank you for that, Andrew. That was really informative. Charlie, do you want to talk a little bit about Dumfries and Galloway Together, DGRT?

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Dumfries and Galloway recovery together is peer-led. So it's individuals that have been on addictions that are brought together to support one another. So we have groups in Castle Douglas, we have groups within the town. A lot of what people have said is it's about taking time up for ourselves. So we work with individuals to hopefully run the rain groups at one point. So at the precise moment we have the Garden, which is a therapeutical side, we have Apson Crass, we have Charts and Drop in within Dumfries and within Castle Douglas. We're looking at mapping out further afield and getting into their areas. People struggling recovery with looking for things today to keep their mind occupied. So what we try and provide is groups that may be of interest to them. We have Apache Land, which is a garden within Sandside in Dumfries, that we use for our therapeutic site. We have some tracks and check-ins in Castle Douglas and Dumfries. We have Arts and Crafts within the stove in Dumfries. We also work within the prison and are very lucky to be invited to the recovery craft once a month, which has been really interesting. We also are at the moment taking quite a lead role in the pairing the lock zone delivery within the region as well. And the important thing I think here is knowing that you don't need to just be within the recovery group, you could be working alongside services as well. The biggest thing I've probably learned is any tool in your toolbox is the greatest gif to have.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Thank you both for introducing yourselves and the organisations that you represent. Can I just ask, obviously, recovery is personal to both of you, what does it mean to you or what does it look like in everyday life, Andrew?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

So recovery to me is very personal. I am a personal lived experience. I was in active addiction myself for 19 years. So recovery is something that I have to work on every single day. A lot of people view this differently, but I have the belief that I'll be in recovery the rest of my life because it'll always some it'll always be something that I have to be conscious of and that I have to work on. So recovery to me means everything. It means life. When I look at where I used to be, and when I look at what my life used to be like, and the kind of darkness and oppression and all the stuff, the challenges that we faced trying to raise a family and stuff like that, and things that just constantly went wrong for us. And then my life in recovery, it's a very different picture. It is life to us, it is everything, so it is something that we see that we have to continually work at, that we will work our programme, as people would call it, every single day. And that means being mindful of the situations and places we put ourselves in. That means being aware of triggers and aware of kind of cravings and how to deal with them, having the appropriate stuff in place, like Charlie had mentioned with our toolbox, just keeping that shield up almost for everyday life as we go through and as we try and navigate our recovery. I see recovery as something that is very much a kind of it's passed from person to person almost like a contagion, like they would say assertive linkage. It's demonstrated there is like an evidence of change people would talk about. So I try and enact that as much as I can in my recovery, and I try and demonstrate my recovery as much as I can because I like to show people or or try and inspire people and help other people into their recovery because I really believe I keep my recovery by sharing it, I keep my recovery by giving it away almost, because someone did that for me, and that's how it was kind of passed on to me. So it means everything, it literally means life. It is work, it can be hard work at the beginning, but it then becomes something that you become incredibly good at. It doesn't get easier, you just get better at it, I would say, um, and it's just it becomes a kind of natural part of your kind of everyday life, and you develop these abilities to sustain it, and these abilities to grow your recovery. But it is literally being mindful every single day of the recovery process that we are in, the kind of journey that we are on, and how to sustain that is critically important. I don't get complacent in my recovery, especially when it's things that would normally not bother anyone, like going to a family function or something like that. If there's going to be alcohol there or if there's going to be certain individuals there, I then have to evaluate whether it will be safe and whether I'll be well to do that. Um so it is that kind of just cautious thought. But as I said, that my recovery is everything to me, and uh I keep my recovery by sharing it with others. That's crucially as important.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Charlie, the same question for you. What does recovery mean to you and what does it look like in everyday life?

SPEAKER_02 8:43

I'd say I agree with Andrew. Recovery is day-to-day. It's as Andrew says, there are days that can be harder than others. Um as a constant battle. Recovery for me is I'm here. I get to see my kids, my grandkids. Where at one point in my life I probably didn't think I would. But I feel lucky at one time be strong enough to get that courage to get into my recovery, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

Yeah, that makes sense, Charlie. Like almost like a celebration of recovery as well.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Yep, yep. I feel lucky that I get to see my grandkids grow up and watch the name everybody who keeps my recovery, watching how lucky I'm to have them.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

Can I ask both of you? Well maybe start with Charlie, what inspired you to become involved in recovery work and developing peer-led recovery communities?

SPEAKER_02 9:28

For me, I've lost a few folk through addiction. And I get the chance to meet Vay. Um went along to DGRT, we'd done freezing galloway recovery together. Went along for a few meetings, got so totally up about their values at that point. It was really good. So believed in it and just trying my recovery started well. Being able to share, been able to share with other people. Like my journey gaining mobby by hope. Because when you're in your darkest ever, you don't think there's anybody out. I can just fight's going behind it, but when you're in your darkest ever, you don't know there's anybody out, and when you're able to do that and then try and get and hope that you can help other people realise life is still there.

SPEAKER_03 10:14

Thank you, Charlie. That's very powerful. Andrew, the same question to you what inspired you to become involved in recovery work? I know we've got a an idea of that already from the what recovery meant to you, but developing pay-led recovery communities as well, specifically.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

I think for me it's very similar to Charlie. I lost a lot of family members through addiction, I've lost a lot of friends. And when you're involved in that lifestyle and people just around about you seem to just constantly are passing away from this disease, and then you manage to kinda break free from it and get your recovery and get it on track. I had a real strong desire to kinda reach back and help other people in that situation. All of those people lost are someone's mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children. All of those people had connections, all of those people that we've lost had people that relied on them or that were there for them or depended on them. And for me, my version and my kind of pathway of recovery was kinda individual and unique, and I understand that. But it worked for me. I had never believed in recovery really before that. I'd believed in sobriety, I'd believed in abstinence, but I had never believed in recovery. So I'd seen what had happened in my wife's life, she had transformed herself. I was experiencing what was happening in mine, and I had a real strong desire to try and help other people in that situation and try and bring those people along that journey. The whole kind of ethos and thing of peer support is when you're walking a pathway or a journey, peer support is basically reaching back and trying to guide someone through a pathway that you have also keen. So that's kind of what inspired me to do it. I wanted to help the community, I wanted to help not only the addict, not only the person in addiction, but also the family members, the mothers and fathers who were crying themselves to sleep at night, worried sick, about where their child might be, what house they were in, what they were up to, if they'd overdosed that night. I wanted to help that situation. And I felt the only way that I really could do that was by creating an environment where people had the ability to share that experience, where people could enact peer support, where people could demonstrate recovery in their own chosen pathway and hopefully inspire and encourage other people to follow or do the same, especially when well it is lived experience recovery organisations, but there is so so many different pathways of recovery represented. Someone will eventually be able to identify a pathway and a type of recovery that they align with and that they feel like they could attain, that they could work towards developing. So I guess that's kind of where my inspiration comes. And it also comes in seeing people come through the recovery network, people whom maybe like myself or others have never actually believed or seen the reality of recovery, and then they experience it from themselves, and you begin to see not just an outward change, but an inward change. You hear the difference in the way that they speak, you see the impact that it's making on their extended family, you see the reconnection with children, the reconnection with loved ones, and that just inspires you to continue on doing what you're doing. So that's kind of where my inspiration lies and where it comes from. And obviously that peer-led community. I think as much as we need the professional input and as much as we need psychological intervention and as much as we need replacement therapies, I think we equally need lived experience recovery organizations. We need people of lived experience in peer roles who can help navigate and show the way. And people very often find that initial connection easier with someone they can identify with or someone they can relate to. So I think that's the the value and importance of a peer-led recovery community is people will find that identification. People will find that connection and then in doing so they might establish an idea of recovery for themselves, and they can then also, while they're doing that, at the same time engage with those professional communities who can help them in those other aspects of their recovery.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

That that was great. Andrew, you touched on it a little bit, but how do individuals become involved in recovery communities? How do they, their friends and families, find out more if they needed to? Charlie, I'll start with you, please.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Andrew is so right. Recovery is unique to every person. Me myself, I actually benefit very much from Southwest Recovery Craft as well. So it's not only just about tapping into one recovering community, it's about using again, and we'll talk about that toolbox, using every tool in your toolbox to actually stay in your recovery.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

I'm wondering how do individuals become involved in recovery communities in Dumfries and Gallery? How do they, their friends and families, find out more about you?

SPEAKER_02 15:45

So um Dumfries and Gallery Recovery Together has a Facebook which shows you what we do on a weekly basis, what we're up to. We also have pop-ups to let people know. If you're working within services, you could speak to your worker there and ask them how you would come along. I think we always popping along and seeing what we do. So the likes of maybe popping along to the garden and coming speaking to one of our peer lead facilitators there, contacting yourself, say you might maybe meet up and have a copy and do an explanation with one of us coming along. Encourage people to come along to the groups. And if it's just to do a bit of arts and crafts, that's fine. If it's just to do a bit of gardening, that's fine.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Andrew, you say yourself, how would somebody find out about your recovery community? How do their friends and family find out what?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

We are on Facebook. We tend to find that's where we kind of get our most kind of online presence engagement anyway. So we are at the Southwest Recovery Cafe on Facebook. Um we have a messenger portal on there as well, so if people want to ask some questions or want to find out where meetings are. We do have a monthly recovery cafe at the YNCA building in Dumfries on the Lockside Road. It's in the actual cafe portion of the YMCA. And we meet the last Wednesday of every month in there, and the doors open at 6 30 pm. There is no invitation needed. Anyone can attend from someone in an active addiction to those affected by addiction to even those with the heart for the addict and want to learn more about the community. So we have that. We also have the, as I said, the Monday group. People can message and let us know they would like to attend, and that is pretty much open to anyone as well, as a kind of self-facilitation and peer-led group. So we obviously rely on that kind of throughput of people coming in, getting involved, and kind of coming through the other uh aspects of our community. The same with the Annan group, we also have um on our posts on Facebook there is phone numbers for both myself and a couple of other members of the team who are also lived experience who can guide you and assist you in any way you would like to get involved. I think the biggest way we see people actually coming to our recovery events and um getting involved in the recovery community though, is actually more to do with other people bringing them. And that's what we try and do the most, is we try and encourage other people that do come to Recovery Cafe, those that do come along to the meetings to maybe have a rethink and if there's someone they know that would probably benefit or that would maybe just like to know some more about recovery and about the community that we have, we would encourage them to bring people along. And that's the kind of the um the human bridge we think that actually engages people more than I guess the Facebook does or when we put flyers places is actually just someone bringing another person. So we encourage that as much as possible that people actively try and engage with those who could benefit in some way or another from our community and invite them along. It's a free meal, it's um it's an inspiring, sharing story in a lovely community. So if people come along and it's maybe not for them, then that is entirely fair enough. And if we are uh all for that kind of person-centred approach and that individual journey, then absolutely we have entirely accepting of that. But I think yeah, we have Facebook, we have our meetings, and then it it's word of mouth mostly.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Thank you, Andrew. So both you are saying that you would welcome friends and family to support people and individuals come along to take them first steps. So that's really the assurance here. Charlie, is there anything you would like to add to that question?

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Or yeah, the free s and gallery we recovered together. I have a dedicated phone line that is all peer-led. We have that from 9 to 6 pm every day of the week. And if they don't get an answer, if they leave a message, we will certainly get back to them as well.

SPEAKER_03 20:00

What opportunities are available for people looking to start their own recovery journey, Andrew?

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yeah, so I think initially there was just that opportunity for a connection and a bit of a community, but then beyond that, we've done in the past some trauma training. We've done a two-day course, not extremely in-depth, but more of a kind of trauma-informed course, so people understand that trauma is a huge part of many people's addiction and recovery. So we obviously have to address that and have some knowledge of that. We also do some very kind of light rehab placement. We have sent away four individuals to rehab so far since we started. We don't have connections and we don't have access to certain types of rehabs, but we're hoping to develop that in the future. As it stands, we can do some rehab placement. And if we can't offer any sort of placement there, we also do signposting to the appropriate agency that probably could. So that is another service we offer. We also have a small pot of money available for those who might require some counselling. So we do that and we do a kind of initial evaluation, and if the counsellor is happy to proceed with that individual, we will allocate maybe six or eight sessions to that person and help them maybe unpack a few things about their kind of recovery, and part of their journey is obviously addressing some issues of the past or some maybe behaviours that we keep falling into in the present. So there's some CBT tools and stuff like that involved in that training, which is extremely helpful and for those trying to begin and maintain early stages of recovery. We have obviously got a very kind of extensive lived experience volunteer base. So there is obviously the ability for people to who come along and are in recovery themselves. They can become involved. We have many members who have just attended the cafe to begin with and are now volunteers for us and help out at the recovery cafe and help out at the groups. We do try and get involved in as many kind of events and things like that as we can. However, at the minute we are just a kind of mostly voluntary organization. Although in the process right now is some kind of strategy development and some funding applications where we would hope to kind of grow and develop into that, where we can do maybe weekly drop-ins or things like that, or daily drop-ins even.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

Thank you. Charlie, the same question: what opportunities are available for people looking to start the recovery genuine DJRT?

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Again, slightly the same as Andrew's. Quite a few of us. I've done trauma-informed training with boarders and recovery, which is really good and a great start to somebody that would like to maybe start looking at the rain group. We also do governance training again. This is about them being able to do their own group. The biggest thing I think is getting them to believe in yourself, getting them to believe that they can do that. For myself, I started the scalaway recovery together and was very quickly had a lot of training opportunities that has got me to where I am today. Probably a lot of training from SRC, that would be like your introduction to being peer-led community. Borderland recovery has a great trauma informed training that we have accessed. What we tend today is speak to the individuals. So say it was somebody interested in the arts and crafts, so we'd look at where we could help them with that training. We actively encourage looking out with the basic free stuff as well. So if somebody wanted to support to attend college and that, and it's very much peer-led that'd be one of us that would stand beside them as they walk along that journey, I suppose. The biggest thing for me probably is an allocation training as well, so that is a big topic at the precise moment. Analoxone training myself and a few others did in October, but that has now encouraged us to move forward to train others in the loxone. So that's been quite a big move forward for DGRT. I think like Andrew says as well, a lot of people in recovery tend to be able to speak to persons with lived experience a lot better than within services. They feel more understood, they don't feel so judged, I think, and this is like what I'm hearing back. Offering a loxone without with services is a really good thing, I think. And we speak to people on a day-to-day basis, and sometimes you don't even need to have that conversation and about even the loxone, and the time you're finished talking, you're quite willing to get an aloxone trained. Because you've sat and listened. Sometimes people don't buy into services, and having the peer-led recovery groups is sometimes their journey.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

I think that's important, Charlie, because not everyone accesses services, so to know that you can access an alloxone out with services and support because sometimes they do that through are very scary.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

And it's sometimes if it's your first time, they'll be really scary.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

Thank you, Charlie. So I'm gonna stay with you and just ask what has been some of your best successes and most difficult barriers you've experienced in your role with as an a pay facilitator within DGRT?

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Successes, I think one of all see the connection between South West Recovery Calf and ourselves. We don't fight for people, we work together, which I think is really good. I feel totally supported by Andrew, and hopefully Andrew feels the same about us. We're Easter event, this is our third year, which is regularly attended, which is a big battle towards stigma. So we hold that in in memory of one of the ones we lost. I think that's a big thing for us. On a lot zone training has been a really big thing for ourselves as well. And being able to become a constituted group in our own right was really big for Duffries and Galway Recovery together. It means that we can make some of our own decisions and path out our own pathway. Being able to be supported by yourself, but then being able to sit and make our own decisions about our own group. The thing with that as well is we get funding for SRC to start up, we also have funded with Access Fund for our venues. Twice in the past two years we've been able to attend stop the death conferences. This has been supported as ourselves being a constituted group. We've been lucky enough to get free, but it means if we'll get funding, if we get funding, it means that we're able to attend these big national events, which are really important because that information we can bring back down and very much do. So we bring it back down we're we speak to our peers round about us, but we also speak to services as well. The other thing I think being able to have the garden was a big positive. Can you tell me a bit more about the garden? So the garden's called Apache Land. It's in Sundry's Road and Sandside. Could be seen as we're base. We're very lucky to have that area. The therapeutic side of that, it's so relaxing, especially for people, whether they'd be in addiction, whether they'd be in recovery. Andrew used the word mindful, LRON, but being able to be mindful of what's roundabout and calming. And we've been a big part of building the garden back up, which I'm proud of DGRT as well.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

Yeah, it's great to be able to use that community space and be able to access that. I think that's something quite prevalent in DGRT as well.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Just been able to offer people a chance to come and say spaces or community spaces that are not clinical or that's described is really big for the people. As I say there, rebuildings are sometimes so scary to go in. It's easier to speak to people that you know you're loving trust. I think the barriers are stigma. And stigma just doesn't extend for the people in the street. Stigma through all organizations sometimes, and sometimes it's a battle to learn that lived experience is really important and powerful.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

Thanks, Charlie. Andrew, the same question to you. What have been some of your best successes and most difficult barriers you've faced?

SPEAKER_01 28:17

So some of the successes has been that when you see someone actually get an idea of recovery that they had maybe never seen or believed in, it's um it's incredibly empowering, it's incredibly encouraging to see someone step into that kind of belief of recovery and start to walk through that. Other successes, I guess, when we also became a concentrated group, when we started to receive little bits of funding, which could enable us to be more kind of present in the community and then begin to deliver our kind of weekly groups, that was a definite success. But when you see people coming week in, week out, when you see that continued engagement and you begin to see that kind of uh that belief that this is a a safe and supported community for them to engage in, that's a huge success. There's nothing like going to an establishment or an environment where you don't really feel comfortable, you don't really fit in. So if we can provide that and people that come along feel safe enough to maybe expose a little bit of themselves in their recovery, then I think that has been hugely successful. Barriers we face is much like Carly said, there is still a lot of kind of stigma around addiction and recovery. There's a lot of institutional stigmatisation as well, and quite frankly, there's a lot of discrimination from certain aspects of the kind of professional organizations. So those still can be very much barriers to those in recovery and to us as a recovery organisation. We do try and inform people of their rights in recovery and inform people that they do not uh they're not just a kind of statistic or a number, that there's a person that they have the ability and the right to decide on their pathway of recovery and their pathway of um sobriety. So yeah, we try and encourage that, but the barriers are still there. Obviously, as an organization we have certain barriers and like we would like to have our own building. We would love to have our own kind of safe and supportive space where we can really adapt and build that therapeutic environment where people not only feel kinda connected but they also feel comfortable and safe. So we would love to see that happen and and dump freeze for ourselves. Other barriers can be, I guess, just initial engagement or point of contact engagement. As I said, it can be difficult. You can get people that will be very good at bringing other people. But the things we have tried, outreach and other aspects, they can be quite challenging, so we did have to do a little bit of work in and around that. So we are just trying to overcome things like that and how we connect with people on that kind of initial point of contact, um, and then try and further that engagement by getting them to come along to maybe one of our um recovery cafes or even the recovery group.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

Thank you, Andrew. So what exciting plans would you both want to see for people in recovery in Dumfries and Galloway in the future? I hear there's a little rumour there could be a recovery walk on the cards. Charlie?

SPEAKER_02 31:37

I would love to do our own recovery walk. We'd absolutely love to be able to pull together, work together, and bring a recovery walk to Dumfries and Galloway. I think we'd be fully supported by family and friends as well within the area. And I think it'd be a great piece of work to work together. I'd also like to see recovering communities recognised across Dumfries and Galloway and what they offer people and their families, because that's important. It really helps you on that road.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

Thanks, Charlie. Andrew?

SPEAKER_01 32:13

Um yeah, I exactly the same as Charlie. I would love to see a more visible presence of recovery in our region and not just in Dumfries but in the wider region as well. It is quite a sparse and quite an extensive region. So I would love to see some investment in our area that would accommodate for that, where we could have offerings of recovery for everyone in every style or variation of recovery that they would like to engage with. I'd love to see kind of meaningful engagement groups start up in Dumfries and Galloway where it might be cold water therapy or it might be walking groups or it might just be arts and crafts or connection groups, somewhere where people can have that informal peer support as well. We are quite a well-connected recovery organisations. We do have the community of practice that I think most of us engage with, and it is very helpful. I would just love to see the growth and development of that. I think we do that quite well in our region. So I would love to see kind of more investment in that, and a bit more kind of connected working maybe with other third sector organisations as well, where we are have that full spectrum, that full offerings of recovery and not just lived experience on one side and professional or third sector on the other, but a joined-up approach where people can determine and choose which pathways and which aspects of recovery they can include in their own. I would love to just see the uh recovery recognised in the community as a whole, for it to be a household name, for people to indemfrice someone suggest recovery, and someone else know of places where that person can go. They can rhyme off or they could name groups or organisations that that person could link in with and attend and get a version of recovery that aligns with their own desires and their own um their own endpoint. I would love to see that. I think we're making strides, we're making steps to get there. I think we are we're developing. It is quite uh uh, as I said, a sparse region, but uh I love the work that DGRT are doing and trying to get out of the West and trying to go kind of to the areas where it might be getting forgotten and where might be getting kinda left out in recovery. I would love to be able to kinda offer something like that in the future as well if we could uh accommodate it funding-wise and volunteer-wise. And I'd love to see that just grow right across the region where we do have all these offerings of recovery, where we're all connected and joined in, working with each other and together, because recovery is holistic. Recovery includes many different things. There is a whole approach, and it's not just one size fits all. Um, but what I love is that we do have that kind of connection. So I just love to see us grow and develop that in the future.

SPEAKER_03 35:15

Thanks, Andrew. That's a really powerful message. And finally, probably most importantly, if someone's listening today and isn't sure where to go to you for help or feeling anxious about it, the first steps, what would you say to them? What would be your sentence of advice that you would give to them, uh, Charlie?

SPEAKER_02 35:33

You can't say drop us a line. If you're in Facebook, send us a wee message or call us. And we will see where we can help. Thanks, Charlie.

SPEAKER_03 35:42

The same question to you, Andrew.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

I would say that there is always hope. There is never too dark a circumstance, no one is ever too far gone. It will be a wee bit of work, there will be a wee bit of difficult things taking a process we can go through in recovery, but will absolutely be worth it. So I would encourage them to look, to seek a recovery organization or a recovery environment that suits them, and get connected, join in, be part of it, and you will be empowered in that and you will grow and develop in your recovery. But the initial thing of just reaching out is huge. It's difficult to ask for help at first. It's not a weakness, it's not a negative thing asking for help. I always thought it was, but just make that initial contact, ask for help, and it is there for you, and you can and do recover.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

Thanks, Andrew. I have to say, as somebody that works within recovery, meets people every day that inspire me. I think hope is a really powerful word to use. And I think as long as we have hope, there's always chances for making situations better and circumstances better. So I feel that's quite a powerful word and a great word to end this podcast on as well. I thank you both for your time and for your really thought-out answers and the inspiration that you give people every day with the work that you do as individuals as well. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Thanks for listening to Breaking the Stigma from Dumfries and Galloway ADP. For support and information, visit dgadp.co.uk. Take care.