When talking to people about addiction, there’s a lot of stigma and misunderstandings.  There are many studies and insights into addiction and recovery, but I think there’s nothing quite like storytelling.  So we are going to profile and make available a number of people’s stories of addiction and recovery.

The aim is to bring hope, understanding and break some of the stigma and shame around addiction and recovery.  How do we do this?  With authentic stories from real people.  But that takes someone brave enough to stand up and be heard in an often judgemental world; someone willing to take the flack and join the others ready to share some of their struggle (and achievements).  Fortunately, people who are working to overcome addiction are a tough sort.  They are determined and have just the kind of strength we need in our communities to pioneer and influence attitudes with their honesty.

But people have their families, neighbours and friends–many of whom are directly affected by the stigma I’m writing about here.  Some of our contributors will choose to keep their names anonymous, or their faces.  We respect that and understand that everyone’s situation is different and we want these stories to be told with audio only when that’s most helpful for brave volunteer.

We will have short and sharp edits of our recovery stories cut into little clips helping us try to imagine what it was like for someone in the throws of addiction.   We want to share practical actions that people took which helped their recovery, with an aim to inspire and spark interest for anyone who sees these stories.  Besides the hard cold facts of how tough addiction is, we want to publicise stories of success and examples of recovery that bring hope.

These stories will be shared on our social media platforms (facebook, twitter, and here, on our website) and I hope you find them helpful.  Please share them to help us spread the word–your involvement can be key in making a difference for good!  Pass them on to people who want to learn more, to people who would be encouraged and helped.

And of course anyone (especially in Cambridgeshire) is warmly invited to contact us if you have an addiction story you want to share with us here at the Sun Network, so we can share it in a way that will help others.

Finally, you can help with our upcoming stories by sharing what you are most interested in hearing.  Add your own question in an email or on our social media, or vote for one of these here:

[Total_Soft_Poll id=”5″]