Addiction Recovery and Treatment: Professor David Best

David points out that whilst there is some 'incredibly inspiring stuff’ going on in the recovery field, people in the next town don’t know about it. There is a real communication challenge. He’s often asked in communities if they should open a recovery cafe, but he points out that they should be more imaginative and do something different. In Newcastle, they are thinking of opening a sober sports bar where people can watch their beloved football while drinking alcohol-free beer. Wulf points out that the recovery group in Rotherham play snooker, as the sport is big there. In Bangor, they walk in the mountains.
David believes there is a real challenge about the science of recovery because it doesn't include the same principle of replication as when designing a detox, for example, because it's so reliant on social networks, context, assets and resources. What’s good for Wrexham is not necessarily good for Colwyn Bay. He mentions Calton Athletic Recovery Group, set up in Glasgow by the late David Bryce (‘Brycie’).
There is a kind of sneering about recovery by addiction scientists, says David. Recovery is considered to be all about God and wishful thinking. If recovery happens, it’s a rare thing and not worth studying. Pharmaceutical companies aren’t interested, so why should us scientists care? This is a real frustration for David as his main work has been centred around recovery capital. Globally, there are probably only about six people working in that area. Academics aren’t interested, partly because of a lack of funding.
Back in 2007, there was real feeling of hope and excitement in Scotland with the Road to Recovery policy. The Scottish Service Recovery Consortium acted as a catalyst for a lot of recovery-related activity, which was really exciting. The situation was very different in England, particularly in the post-NTA world, with the advent of large charities, decommissioning of lots of services, loss of funding, and all sorts of austerity miseries. Despite this, there was still a significant growth in the recovery world over the next decade.
Wulf believes only Scotland that had any type of recovery footprint. In Wales, there were only two pockets of recovery activity, one in North Wales in which he participated, and the other in Cardiff led by Sarah Vaille. The Welsh government was not involved. Wulf describes England as having fragmented chaos.
For David, the English system remains ‘all show and no action’ in regards of recovery. One of the insidious things that has happened is what he describes as ‘funding or commissioning candy’. Services, calling themselves ‘treatment and recovery services’, employ or have as volunteers a couple of people in early recovery who they send out to ‘tick those boxes’. Wulf points out that organisations are changing their names so they can sweep up any type of money-‘We Are With You’ or 'Change Grow Live’. You may as well call an organisation, ‘Anything You Care To Fund Us For’.
When David worked in Melbourne, Australia, in the mental health recovery movement, they had a great term: ‘spray on recovery’. Nothing had changed other than use of the word ‘recovery’ for everything. He also describes another level of cynicism within the system. As a token effort, a few people are appointed who are dangerously isolated and not supported. Despite all these problems, David and Wulf agree that some of the services do some really innovative work.
David got really excited in 2010 when the new drug strategy came out. It used all the right recovery terms. However, since then, it always got diluted down from the draft stage, so by the time it got to the implementation stage, you may as well say ‘business as usual’. There are whole groups of people who are responsible for maintaining the status quo, including his former employers at the National Addiction Centre.
David Best is Professor of Addiction Recovery, and Director of the Centre for Addiction Recovery Research (CARR), at Leeds Trinity University. He is a founding member of the College of Lived Experience Recovery Organisations in the UK and of the Inclusive Recovery Cities movement. 9 February 2025.