I Shall Be Clean

I have worked in the substance misuse field as a therapist, couples counsellor and family behavioural therapist for ten years and I feel that I have learned a lot about this client group and addictions, both from my colleagues and from my clients. It's very easy to get involved with drugs in this day and age, there is likely to be a 'dealer' within a mile of anyone's home. No matter what type of area you come from drugs are not defined by class. It is extremely hard to come off drugs, once you are entrenched in them, by yourself. It takes motivation, willpower and it needs to be because you want to stop, not other people wanting you to stop. Some people would define substance misuse as an illness, for me that is difficult to accept. Illnesses are things that happen to us that are out of our control. For example illnesses like diabetes, colds and flu, thyroid disorders and cancer. We don't ask for these illnesses, they just come. Whereas substance misuse is self inflicted, we choose to take drugs, we don't choose to get cancer. So maybe we could call it a self inflicted illness. I do believe however that what maintains people's use is ill health i.e. emotional or psychological ill health and/or mental illness. Either due to life events/experiences, issues caused by their drug use or issues that were pre existing their drug use therefore they self medicate. People take illicit drugs for all sorts of reasons, some of which I will be exploring in this book, but what I have learned most from my work with substance using clients is that for whatever reason they started taking drugs, i.e. to experiment, to manage painful emotions, to manage mental health problems, peer pressure and so on, they then continue to take them to obliterate the past, the shame, the guilt for starting drugs in the first place and for all the hurt that they feel that they have caused themselves and others. This then becomes a block to recovery, facing all the people who they have hurt can be pretty challenging when they are clean. What I have also learned is that the media, and society in general have a lack of empathy and can be quite judgemental about drug users. On the contrary they have been some of the nicest people that I have met. My motivation for writing this book is that we are living in an age where therapy is becoming more and more difficult to access, waiting lists are far too long and 'brief' therapy appears to be the answer to everyone's problems, I learned during my own therapeutic journey both as a client and as a therapist many tools that can help us to begin to learn more about ourselves and change the 'things' that are impacting on our lives in a negative way. As in my previous books "I shall wear purple" and "I shall be blue" I wanted to share the tools I have learned and developed over the years that have helped clients to make changes in their drug using behaviours, with therapists and clients to support people in their struggle with substance misuse. Although this book is by no means a tool to replace therapy, nothing can beat the process of a good therapeutic relationship and the excellent work that therapists worldwide do. Nor is it a tool to replace medical intervention, or the great work that drug workers do across the country. It is a tool to start you on that journey, to give you an insight into different therapeutic models so that you can decide which therapeutic model feels the right one for you, (we are all different and what works for one, does not always work for another) and to give you an appreciation on what therapy is about, how it works and how it can change your life and the way that you function as a human being. This way you are in charge of your own treatment journey and can decide which treatment model will work best for you. I hope that this book offers you the above and more.