Ruth Andrews objects to Dr David Best's lecture

Ruth Andrews, a Psychoanalytical Psychotherapist from Birmingham, attended the Welsh Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs’ Inaugural Annual Lecture at the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff on 16th June, 2009. The Lecture, delivered by Dr David Best from the University of the West of Scotland on ‘Evidence of hope – what do we know about sustained recovery from alcohol and drug addiction?’, caused controversy.

In a letter to David Best, Ruth said:

‘On 16th June I attended the lecture you delivered in Cardiff. You presented data from research conducted in Birmingham and made some powerful comments about the staff working in the drug services. I would like to suggest that your comments regarding all staff and service users were based on omission of fact not on substantive data. I have therefore collated data and compiled a document illustrating the work that has been developed over a number of years by the Tier 4 service. Dates, data and comments by service users are included in order to verify the text.

Ruth goes on ‘Your arguments regarding the use of Methadone script is applicable to Tier 3 services and this should have been made clear. The one thing that is very evident with service users we work with, prior to and post residential rehabilitation, is the hope they have and their appreciation of being able to engage in a difficult but challenging life of real growth’.

At the time, Wynford Ellis Owen, chief executive of the Welsh Council, said that David’s lecture was both thought-provoking and informative. He wrote “I was left thinking, at last someone is talking sense here and he’s backed it up with solid evidence – yes, treatment is not good enough and treatment itself is not enough – it is not sufficient in its current form to support recovery. David, however, recognised that recovery does happen but that it happens in community settings where indigenous resources provide the basis for the recovery journey.”

You can access Ruth Andrew’s paper in response to David’s lecture by visiting our website www.welshcouncil.org.uk

The lecture, which was hosted by Gareth Jones OBE, AM, was recorded and can be viewed by sisiting the same websiteand clicking on 'Annual Lecture'.

The Welsh Council’s next Annual Lecture will be held at the Welsh Assembly building in Cardiff Bay on 23rd June, 2010. More information can be accessed on our website from January, 2010 onwards.