This site provides positive solutions-based support for families and friends who suffer because of their loved one’s use of addictive substances and activities.
Think for a moment about volume of music you've listened to in your life so far. This is my play list of recovery tools. Like my favourite music it is the work of others more talented than me. My intention is to share what works for me and hopefully some of it will work for you and your loved one.
Our local Brett Young Carers Hub have kindly provided facilities for us to host initial one to one meetings.
The centre is warm, friendly and their staff offer a range of specialist support for carers.
To locate the Brett Young Centre please follow this link.
Get Directions.
If you would like to attend, please email us so we can book a room.
Our email address is: alternatives@gmx.com
Online meetings are a great way to get support if you don't have a face to face family and friends meeting nearby or are unable to attend one because you work during the day. All meetings are open and free to attend
You will usually find that the meeting room opens 15 minutes early so that we can help you with any technical issues. Our Alterat+ves meetings run on the the Zoom platform. We aim to encourage the group interaction that we enjoy in our face to face meetings. So if you are able to, download and install the free Zoom app and join the meeting on a laptop or desktop PC.
You can join the meeting and just listen in, or by using a headset with a microphone, you can fully participate as you would in face to face meetings. You don't have to switch on your web cam but many participants do. Body language is an important component of communication in peer support, smiles are contagious!
The chat box is a really useful advantage that online meetings have. We use it to share links to modern recovery websites and resources. Participants can ask questions and support each other throughout the meeting. During the meeting we share simple presentation slides illustrating such things as the stages of change, positive communication and motivational interviewing. Short videos may be shared to demonstrate the techniques.
Clicking on the "join by browser" option, without installing the app, will work fine but you lose some extra features. Many people also join from their cars, using their phones, unfortunately the phone app doesn't offer the "save chat" function. However chat links can still be opened and bookmarked to be explored after the meeting.
Click on the this link at 6pm (UK) to join our Sunday or Tuesday Alternat+ves Family and Friends online meeting.
(The following welcome speech is read out at the beginning of each meeting).
The purpose of this group is to bring about positive change. We will first prioritise our own safety and well-being, and then the safety of our loved ones. In these meetings we will learn better ways to support ourselves and our loved ones.
Regardless of what we may think or have been told, we are not responsible for the choices and behaviour of our loved ones.
Nobody is completely "powerless" over addiction. Everyone can change including us. When we learn to respond rather than react, our loved ones notice.
Our loved ones are much more than their current problematic behaviour, so we avoid disrespectful and stigmatising labels such as “alcoholic”, “druggie”, or “addict” in our meetings. Equally "enabler" and "co-dependant" stigmatise family members. Labels are for jars - not people!
We will learn from, rather than dwell on, the bad things that have happened in the past, so we avoid “war stories”. You can’t make progress if you are glued to the rear view mirror.
We don’t wait for our loved ones to reach “rock bottom”. We encourage and reward non-using behaviour, whilst allowing the natural, negative consequences of their using to happen sooner rather than later.
Positive change takes time and requires effort. Like any training, the more meetings you attend and the more you learn and practice between meetings, the sooner your life will improve, regardless of whether your loved one chooses recovery or not.
We want this to be a safe place to share our experiences and be listened to non-judgementally. We will respect confidentiality, unless you indicate you may harm yourself or others. In this case, for safeguarding, we will seek professional support.
Thank you for joining us, we hope you find tonight’s meeting supportive and helpful.
If you find our group helpful and would like others to have the opportunity to join please share our
details.
Download social media image
Alternat+ves Social
Media (jpeg)
Download poster
Alternat+ves A4 Black and White Poster (PDF)
Download Leaflet
Alternat+ves A5 Black and White Leaflets (PDF)
Please copy and paste our Alternat+ves Parents Meeting Zoom Link -
FaceBook works across all time zones and is useful for families to connect, ask questions and share resorces between meetings.
This public group is for people that are comfortable breaking down the stigma associated with SUD.
Here we can network with other families and share how CRAFT and ITC helps in practice..
Alternat+ves Open Group
This private group is for people that have attended two or more of our Alternat+ves meetings.
ITC Member Resources, like the all ITC short guide chapter pdfs, are available via this group.
Alternat+ves Private Group
We live in the UK and both recently (2021) retired from our full-time jobs. Dave was an engineer and Tina has had various jobs in the health and education sectors. We have both had to overcome many difficulties in our lives, so the arrival of our two amazing boys was a very happy time for us. Our own journey of recovery, from the effects on our family of our eldest lad's co-occuring conditions, started in 2008. We have attended hundreds of family and friends peer support goups run by Al-anon, UK Smart Recovery and a local charity called Datus. The support their volunteers have given us has helped us get our lives back and find new purpose. Thank you and keep doing what you do guys, you help so many.
Once we were back on our feet, we naturally wanted to give back and started volunteering so that we could help others. We have taken our turn presenting to Al-anon groups and also manned their out-of-hours UK National helpline. We then both completed the UK SMART Recovery training, for both facilitating recovery sessions, for those seeking recovery from substance use disorders, as well as the additional training for facilitating their family and friends support groups. Dave has co-facilitated the Monday night online SMART Family and Friends group, whilst we have both facilitated face-to-face SMART Family and Friends meetings in the West Midlands. During the first two years of Covid 19 we facilitated the parents meeting for SMART Recovery USA and Canada. We have now moved on to facilitating our own meetings using the latest Invitation To Change (ITC) approach developed by the Center for Motivation and Change in New York.
We also attend NA, LifeRing, Recovery Dharma and SMART recovery groups when we are able. Dave worked close to a CGL Recovery Centre and was able to attend three SMART sessions per week in his lunch hours in order to gain an understanding of the difficulties faced by people in recovery. One of the three groups was run by a Datus employee explaining the family side of addiction to those in recovery, which was really beneficial to everybody. This gave Dave the confidence to facilitate the groups when needed.
We learn so much from so many attending the various groups, which we both appreciate. Our group, Alternat-i-ves integrates the wealth of knowledge we have gained. We are always humbled by the support of people who attend our groups and the positive comments given to us. We are proud in what we have achieved so far in being able to provide free support by families for families at very little cost to us except our time and commitment. Our greatest aim would be to inspire others to the same.
Any personal information trusted to us will always be dealt with sensitively and confidentially ie we won't be passing on your name, email address or phone numbers without your consent, in line with our understanding of current GDPR Regulations.
Our aim is to combine the zero cost and longevity of traditional step groups with the best modern recovery methods used across the mental health and addiction services.
Our groups are peer volunteer lead. Group facilitators have direct experience of caring for loved ones with substance use dependancy.
We use the term "family" to cover anyone that is concerned and cares about another's well-being. So for "family" please subsitute partner, son, daughter, sister, friend, neighbour, sponsor, care worker etc. You may also come across phrases like "Concerned Significant Other" (CSO) in books, but we rarely hear these terms in group discussion.
Family members struggle with the same issues, regardless of which drug their loved one chooses to use. So in these groups we don't discriminate against our members because of their loved ones's choices. Families dealing with alcohol, drugs, gambling and other addictive activities are all welcome.
Three quarters of our loved ones with substance use dependancy also have underlying mental health issues. They often fall into the gap where they can't get support. We aim to learn the best way to help these people, no one is on our "too difficult" pile!
Whilst we support and may recommend them, we are no longer affiliated with other recovery groups such as SMARTRecovery, Alanon, AA, NA etc. All our resources go into family support. We don't require funding and won't be employing anyone or charging licence fees. We don't need to send out "please donate" emails, use internet cookies or paid advertising.
We plan to use the same open source model that makes the internet work. We will generate and freely share our own support guidance on the internet based on our experience of what currently works best in our peer support groups. We welcome support and guidance from professionals and other groups if it can be freely shared online and in our groups.
