Melissa Rice and Jade Wye, two former clients of Action on Addiction’s residential treatment centre Clouds House and community recovery café The Brink, have launched a new BBC podcast today (16 October 2019).
Hooked: The Unexpected Addicts is an eight-part series that aims to debunk the stereotype of addicts and show how ‘everyday people’ like them - a teacher and a mental health nurse - can develop addiction problems.
Clouds House Treatment Consultant Michael Rawlinson joins Melissa and Jade for the first episode of the podcast called ‘Rock Bottom’.
During the episode, the two women reflect on their respective ‘rock bottoms’ and experiences of treatment and recovery, and in particular their time at Clouds House. Michael reflects on the experiences and emotions many people go through on their journey from addiction to recovery and explains the effectiveness of the treatment model at Clouds:
“The treatment model is based around boundaries, because addiction is chaos and there’s no structure. The point of the boundaries, rules and timetables is to make people feel safe enough to do the talking work or the writing work they need to do to develop resilience.
“Our house rules are designed, even in just a tiny way, to encourage clients to take responsibility, because in active addiction often people think there are no consequences to their behaviours, when there are. The whole programme builds confidence by taking responsibility.”
At the end of the interview, Michael concludes: “It is such a privilege to give people the opportunity to change. Take away the substances and put them with other human beings and people blossom … they live life in the way they want to live.”
The podcast has been produced by the BBC after Melissa and Jade won the first BBC Rachael Bland New Podcast Award with their pitch to create a podcast that tackled the stigma of addiction and offered hope to those seeking recovery.
The award was launched in January in honour of the BBC Radio 5 Live newsreader and presenter who died in September 2018 from breast cancer. Rachael was the creator of You, Me And The Big C, which won praise for tackling the subject of cancer in an original and unsentimental way.
You can listen to the podcast via BBC Sounds.