ADDICTION RECOVERY IS A BUMPY ROAD..I SHOULD KNOW

GP who overcame battle with booze launches new scheme to help others

- MARK MCGIVERN

ONE of Scotland's most influential experts on drink and drug rehabilitation has told how his own battle with addiction inspired him to help others to recovery.

Dr David McCartney recently marked 20 years of sobriety after falling into alcoholism as a GP in Edinburgh.

He faced a mountain to climb to put the addiction behind him and get his mind and body back on track.

He says residential rehab was a key building block of his journey.

Dr McCartney used his own trauma as a vital tool in helping other addicts. He completed a master's degree in alcohol and drug studies before forming the Lothians and Edinburgh Abstinence Programme (LEAP), Scotland's only NHS therapeutic community rehabilitation centre.

The doctor yesterday announced details of a groundbreaking "peer bridger" programme - recruiting six workers with lived experience to bridge the gap between community treatment and rehab.

The peer bridgers' most vital resource is their own experience of addiction. They provide support, advice and practical help in keeping appointments and maintaining a smooth flow of information, before, during and after rehab.

Dr McCartney, 63, acknowledges how it was relatively easy for him, as a well-off GP in 2003, to seek help compared to the clients he sees coming through LEAP.

He said: "I feel inspired on a daily basis and I do identify with the struggles people have.

"I feel very much that people with experience of addiction have a lot to bring to the field, in terms of credibility and knowledge, and we hope to see very good results. A lot of our patients don't have the kind of resources I had when I went to treatment, which was very open to me as a GP.

"So I do feel their achievement seems much, much greater, although I'm not diminishing what I've been through."