Ms Aoife Bairéad:

It comes back to integrated supports. We definitely need more residential beds, but it is a question of bed type and the time for which people’s lives allow them to be in recovery or a treatment centre. People should have a choice. At the moment, there is extremely little choice. If you are lucky enough to get a bed, you take the one available, not necessarily the one suited to your needs.

I highlighted here and in other spaces before that for people who use drugs and alcohol in harmful ways but who do not have other complexities or challenges, drug or alcohol treatment and residential treatment tend to work very well. People who go to the Rutland Centre, for example, engage in AA afterwards, and that is often enough to keep them abstaining from drugs and-or alcohol and allow them to return to their lives. However, people with multiple traumas, other vulnerabilities, experiences such as racism and poverty, or mental health difficulties, which may entail a dual diagnosis, are far less likely to remain in recovery. They are more vulnerable to relapse. We have not built a system good enough to recognise that.

People need care that is immediate and available today, regardless of whether they continue to use drugs. They need a system of support that allows them to become ready in the many ways that treatment requires of them – physically, mentally, emotionally and familially. We need adequate step-down care that examines not only a person’s recovery but also the life they need to build for it to be meaningful.

In my day job as a social worker specialising in trauma, I note that one of the most important parts of recovery is people finding meaning in life, the things that make it valuable again and give a sense of importance, including relationships, jobs, education, sports and other activities. We do not have a system that allows for that through-care approach. This means we cannot evaluate our systems in any meaningful way. We cannot examine them fully. A day centre or drop-in centre will come across in a certain way but only in isolation. The people I know through my work who have recovered, whether from mental health issues, drug use or other difficulties, required many small steps before they could take a big one, whether that was going to treatment or engaging with mental health services. All those moments or small interactions with individuals, communities, teachers or coaches were what led them to feel strong and capable enough of taking the big step. Again, we do not recognise that enough. We have not built a system that recognises that the small steps are what make people resilient and strong enough to enter recovery or engage in treatment in the longer term.

Rural communities rely a lot on volunteer groups like the AA or NA for treatment recovery. In the community, it is the GAA and other organisations. We have not invested in rural communities to resource people to live full and healthy lives, whether in relation to mental health, addiction or otherwise.