Freedom From Addiction: Marcus Fair

Interviewer David Clark describes how inspired he has been hearing about the recovery-related activities occurring in North Wales, in particular at North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) and Eternal Media. He had always dreamed years ago when he worked in the field in the UK that such exciting recovery initiatives would develop.

After finding recovery, Marcus had felt that nothing good was being provided for people in recovery from addiction. If a recovering person wanted to do an activity, they had to do it with people in addiction. He knew of a treatment service that had recovering people in high-vis tops going around parks picking up needles. It broke Marcus’s heart when he saw that, and then found that the activity was plastered all over Facebook. ‘They’ve found their return ticket from hell, and don’t ask them to go and pick needles up in a park.’ Marcus doesn’t think the person who came up with the idea had his heart in the wrong place, but it just felt so wrong.

David talked about Patrick Biernacki’s research from the mid-1980s which showed that one of the key things for people who had recovered from heroin addiction without treatment was to be accepted by so-called ‘normal’ society as being normal. He points out that the activity described by Marcus just increases stigma.

Marcus and his colleagues set up Eternal Media to show people 'the flip side of life’, how life is when you find recovery. If Marcus had to describe recovery in one word, he would say ’freedom’. ‘Freedom from active addiction, freedom from the chemist, freedom from police, freedom from services, freedom from prisons and methadone scripts and having to lie.’ Recovering people have just got away from the shackles of addiction, they don’t now need the shackles of picking up needles.

David adds to the list, freedom from having people look down at you, and freedom to have your self-esteem and self-worth back. He goes on to describe sitting in group sessions at LEAP in Edinburgh, which was run by Dr. David McCartney, and being asked why he came to such sessions. He pointed out that he attended because he enjoyed seeing people who had been through so much adversity in addiction and were now helping each other. He would rather be sitting in such a group than with a bunch of ‘snotty academics’. Marcus Fair is Founder of Eternal Media. 16 January 2024.