What is UKESAD?

11th UK/European Symposium on Addictive Disorders –
the UK’s longest-established and largest abstinence-based rehabilitation event.

Each year for over a decade, 500-600+ alcohol and drug-recovery professionals attend UKESAD: training run by people in long-term recovery to support and enhance the work of people whose job it is to guide patients with addictive disorders into recovery – in line with Drug Strategy 2010’s goal of drug-free lives.
Read the 32-page programme for 5, 6, 7 May 2014!

I love UKESAD in May for my annual infusion of recovery treatment energy. Meeting the presenters, sharing and discussing the contents of a book with the author, these are the ways I find enlightening. New ideas, reinforcing old ideas, supervision and challenge for my past years performance from trusted professional. Interaction with experts in the field who are so generous with their time and wisdom.

I love UKESAD for my personal development as a Family Interventionist. The praise and criticism I receive from fellow professional Interventionists, counsellors, psychiatrists, therapists is invaluable as I look to better my self for the benefit of our clients. New skill and techniques presented in a way I can understand and use them. Very good.

I love UKESAD for the treatment providers, rehabs, detox centres who go to so much trouble to attend. Interventions today are a process, not an event. We need relationships with admission teams, therapists and psychiatrists at the point of residential care. I love meeting the people, learning about the treatment providers abilities and also the limitations each facility. It allows me to know who is Intervention friendly, has a multi disciplinary team that can work with outside agencies in a planned care management process.

I love UKESAD for the coffee cup conversation that happen so spontaneously, yet have so much opportunity. The informal sharing of ideas and dreams, problems and solutions, needs and wants. I find it so much easier to present RedChair services and to hear the pitch from treatment providers in an informal loose setting.

I think I will still love UKESAD this year after our presentation on Wednesday afternoon! Not sure I am enjoying the anxiety ahead of it. I do love UKESAD for pushing me to develop my networking skills. I find presenting to a group of clients the most comfortable experience in the world. Presenting to fellow professionals is a killer. Always feel I will be found out, that we are getting it wrong. The reality is that we know have 5 years solid experience in providing Family and workplace interventions all over the UK , Europe and other parts of the world. We know our stuff. So hope that our experience will help others improve.

I am grateful to UKESAD for the opportunity to grow professionally. I am now a fully certified Intervention professional with ethics, supervision, experience, insurance and a good reputation. 

I am grateful to UKESAD for the process that led me to being invited to join the board of the Association of Intervention Specialists as a board member at large.

I love UKESAD for the connectivity and opportunity to reflect on RedChair. How are we doing? What are we doing right? What can we do better? What should we not be doing? At UKESAD I am able to discuss openly what we are doing, have done, and want to do. The feedback, advice and guidance is second to none, freely given and with no strings attached. Us Brits tend to be a bit more more hesitant and territorial with our information, but the American Cousins encourage us to do better than themselves. The generosity of good will is overwhelming.

I love UKESAD for all of the above due to the fact that small business operations like ours can easily be isolated and lonely. That is a fine breeding ground for poor performance and low ambition. The networking is an annual top up that is badly needed. I encourage all lone practitioners, small business owners to come to UKESAD, that you may make your working world bigger. Many of us are in competition to each other commercially, but still support each other throughout the year with advice, guidance and feedback.

More is better at UKESAD. I do hope that individuals and organisations will make the trip to London and I hope to meet as many of you as possible. A personal request is for Treatment centres to bring the admission teams to UKESAD. Do not forget that they are the first people to talk to clients who happen to be at their most difficult time. Interventionist need to have great relationships with the admission teams.

We will be discussing this on Wednesday afternoon.

Bill Stevens

07789480286

When Will I – He – She Be Better?

Recovery is an experience resulting from being in active recovery. Symptoms of active recovery include manageability, emotional maturity, openness of spirit, dignity and integrity.

Experienced persons in active recovery will stress the following.

“It is the journey, not the destination”.

So, whatever you may be doing, be active in recovery today, right now. Look to your recovery principles, guides, rules and boundaries with gratitude and application.

Family, friends, colleagues may have high expectations of recovery. I recent family member was explaining huge disappointment at a loved ones low mood since they left treatment a fortnight earlier. The family was benchmarking this persons progress against everyone who had not just completed a life changing 12 week residential program. They were busy in their own lives and had not been to Al-Anon, did not regard addiction as a progressive illness, nor recovery as a challenging life change. 

I implore addicts and families of addicts to be in active recovery, such that they may not fall into the traps of complacency, disappointment and perceived failure. As long as you are improving, then you are in recovery.

Day 21 – New Years Resolution – Just For Today

Today is the day so many will give up on the New Years Resolutions. That initial effort, that will power and white knuckle effort soon runs its course. You have probably had the initial quick rewards. The lbs that fell of, the clothes that no longer smell of smoke. The encouragement circle of friends, family and facebookers have moved on with the issue of the week. Now is the time to renew the mentality that will keep you going.  Now is the time to renew your commitment and kick in with a new mentality. You may have “stopped” something bad, or “started” something good. Now you change that to “keep going”.

One Day At A Time

Remember, a New Years Resolution is only ever a “Just For Today” programme. You can have thoughts and feelings about the tomorrows and yesterdays, but behaviour is limited to today only. So keep a moment free every morning to commit to your New Days resolution.

Keep Records

Keeping records allows you to value the process and keep perspective on realistic outcomes. Your feelings and thoughts may wander, but a daily inventory, a record of your daily achievement keeps the program of change in the “here and now”.

Maintain The New Routine

What works, works. Look at what you did that got you through the initial period. keep doing the same. The rewards may not be so apparent. The feelings and thinking may start to undermine your desire to keep going. Dont listen to the “stinking thinking”, keep the new regime going just for today.

Be Grateful

The daily Gratitude List is a very powerful way to keep your motivation going. Do not become complacent about the benefits you realise from this change process. The gratitude list is a daily way of being real with the amazing commitment you have made.

Bill Stevens is an addictions therapist at RedChair.

Family and friends struggling with a loved one’s addiction is not unfamiliar, every week there is yet another leading personality battling with addiction in whatever form that may take. This week, for example, it’s Paul Gascoigne – his friends and family are left in despair after he had relapsed. RedChair’s message to the family is that there is always hope.

Although addiction is frustrating you should never give up, always offer help and seek some kind of recovery yourself. The experts at RedChair have found that family members and friends are in turmoil long before an addict is ready to kick the habit. Yet, simply walking away is much easier said than done. RedChair has found that not only is walking away hard but it is also not effective.

 People surrounding those who have an addiction issues, such as friends, family and employers should always seek professional support and guidance. There is a wealth of advice out there, some that RedChair recommends are: accredited family counsellors, 12 step groups like Al-Anon and Families Anonymous, spiritual centres, churches and books such as Love First by Jeff Jay and Debra Jay. This can all seem overwhelming at first so RedChair reiterates the need to find a professional therapist who can then guide people in the right direction.

‘Never give up on the person who is suffering with addiction.’ RedChair’s motto ‘never give up’ does not mean that family members should be a doormat to their loved ones addiction. Instead, it want to encourage solid personal boundaries. Consistently offer help and treatment but always maintain personal boundaries to the addiction and its effects.

Interventionists, such as Bill Stevens at RedChair, continue to guide those affected by addiction in this process of recovery. A common question from those who surround the addict is, at what point do you walk away? Stevens suggests that you never walk away but learn how to detach from the negative behaviour. Studies show that families who engage in intervention, and recovery, experience more loved ones seeking out recovery.

For further information about the family and addiction please contact 0845 224 1967

Here is the link to the article. Hope you like it and it helps

Drug and alcohol addicts and experts hail UK-first ‘interventionist’ treatment now available for Manchester users

Kimberley Bond is a journalist who is developing her career. She made me feel very comfortable at the interview. She has just aquired a 1st at University. Well done. She had to take her work to the editor and he published it without changes, so she was very pleased.

Mancunian Matters is an online publication with 7500 followers on twitter.

15-24% of lawyers will suffer from alcoholism during their careers…

…..while the British Medical Association estimates that one in 15 healthcare professionals will develop an addiction problem.

96% of diagnosable alcoholics are still functioning. Not many make it all the way to being street drunks, homeless, hopeless and helpless. In the early stages of treatable conditions like alcoholism the natural reaction is to minimise, alibi and maybe even sort out some of the unmanageability that is thrown up. In fact it can make a boss, a wife/husband, a friend, colleague or HR person feel good to have been the hero of the moment to sort out the crisis. When others pick up the “problems”, then the drinker will not know of the effects themselves and will continue to progress down the slippery slope.

95% of Interventions are successful

Workplace Interventions require a modern employer to be informed and proactive in preventing a very predictable problem. However, the denial around the drinker has to be lifted. RedChair Intervention specialists know how to guide this process along side the normal disciplinary process.

Our Certified Intervention Specialists utilise a variety of Intervention processes that lead to a person being fully functioning and in a state of wellness. The evidence for the wellness will be very apparent at work, at home and in their affairs.

Escalating a systemic intervention may start with counselling, progress to a a “Pre-Hab” program locally and for some it is into detox and Rehab.

Having a drug and alcohol workplace policy that includes the “Workplace Intervention” service ticks all the boxes.  RedChair Specialist Addiction Services is well placed to assist UK commerce regarding this much needed process.