1. Substance Misuse & Homelessness Brian McCarthy: Chair North East Recovery Day

2. What I’m talking about today  Some of the facts  Who cares?  What are the key problems  Suggestions, how to fix the problems  What we agree and don’t agree on  My opinion

3. The facts  8,240 households made a homelessness presentation to Glasgow City Council in April 2012- March 2013. (Scottish Government published the HL1 statistics)  In Glasgow around 13,900 people with problem drug use that is someone who uses opiates and/or benzodiazepines illicitly. ( Estimating the National and Local Prevalence of Problem Drug Use in Scotland 2009/10 ISD 2011) o In Glasgow in 2012, 105 Drug related deaths, usually seen as overdose deaths. (National Records of Scotland Drug-related deaths in Scotland in 2012)  In approximately 3,000 cases people identified that drug/alcohol dependency contributed to their homelessness.  (Scottish Government Homelessness Statistics (April 2012-March 2013)

4. What isn’t known, who cares?  Struggle to work with what we do know  All we need to know is people are still using.

5. What are the key problems?  The window period, how do you get people into treatment at a time when the want it?  Too much time lost to referrals and then waiting time.  Where is the best place for individuals to go?

6. Agree and don’t agree on  Agree on addiction, someone who uses a lot of drugs that causes them problems  Agree on the effects to health service, society, community, individuals and families

7. Don’t agree on  What is recovery?  What drug are you free from and are you totally free?

8. How to fix the unfixable  Traffic light system  Instead competition, cooperation  More understanding from workers about what services offer and deliver  Peer mentors in services  I’ve been there now I’m here

9. My opinions  Anybody can get recovery if they want it.  Unfortunately we will always lose people.  People need to be ready for treatment in order to get into recovery.  To give people a fighting chance we need to get them off everything for a period of time.  Do we ask services how many people they support to get substance free?

10.  Brian McCarthy  North East Recovery Day  northeastrecoveryday@gmail.com