Dr David Patton, Peter De Silva and Dot Smith, CEO of Recovery Connections
It feels to me as though there’s a real connecting of the dots going on in addiction recovery arts. I say that as an artist in addiction recovery myself, and one that had no idea this sector even existed until I met Dr Cathy Sloan on a Zoom call in December 2021. Three years, eight issues of Performing Recovery, five addiction recovery arts events and one ARA Network later, I know better.
Talking of joining the dots, Dot Smith of Recovery Connections (Dad joke, I know!) is one of the trio of people key to making these connections happen. Along with Dr David Patton and artist academic John D. Freyer of VCU School of the Arts in Virginia, these three connectors have, for several years, been plotting two Recovery in Practice conferences. The events have been taking place this week at the University of Derby and Teeside University in Middlesbrough. I was lucky enough to attend and perform a spoken word call to action advocating for arts in recovery at this Monday’s conference hosted at Derby, where David is Associate Professor in Criminology.
What an incredible afternoon it was. Lived experience and human connection took priority, with the usual PowerPoint presentations, where used at all, applied sparingly and effectively. During the day, it struck me how essentially queer recovery spaces are: there’s no formality or need to adhere to dusty academic procedures here. Recovery rooms are the original safe spaces – critical rooms that people only enter on reaching the point of near ruin. There’s no time for hierarchies when individuals have to rebuild their lives. The unspoken code is about giving each other space and support, and that was evident in this conference room.
I know how amazing and life-changing universities can actually be. But I have also coordinated several university events involving ‘non-academics’ whatever that’s supposed to mean. Doing this, I have seen how our academies can be daunting and off-putting for people who don’t have previous university experience. With this in mind, all credit goes to Dot, David and John for creating and curating this event that welcomed and held everyone in this environment.
What we were all part of in Derby yesterday was incredible. Neil Ainslie of Jericho House in Derby introduced a group of young men in early recovery who presented theatre at its best: funny, smart, and humane.
I’m still laughing about the bad Dad joke about ‘denial’ (‘is that a river in Egypt?’). They were nothing short of brilliant.
Sam Delaney and Sean Cooney were storytellers of different sorts. Creative Start Arts In Health is creating enormous and breathtaking murals that are transforming Grimsby.
Founder Sam Delaney told me afterwards how they see themselves as a design agency. One look at the collective’s work and it’s hard to deny their outputs match their ambitions.
Sean Cooney spoke about collectively composing a folk song with people in addiction recovery. Listen to this, ‘See Me’, it’s extraordinary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ3b1dpNMcI
Professor Wendy Dossett encouraged us all to write poems in response to recovery wisdom. Of the four poems of her own she shared, it was Those Two Fucks that I’ve been thinking about most since. In expressing that moment when someone close to you cuts right through to the bone, the poem was written about when she felt really heard by a close friend’s response to hearing the news of when Wendy’s mother died.
John and Jay of SUIT both overcame their stage anxiety to share their poetry. Christiane Jenkins shared her passion and told us about the fantastic things that SUIT is doing in Wolverhampton.
SUIT’s founder, Marcus Johnson, spoke of how Geese Theatre transformed his life. This film that Christians made of SUIT’s work is a piece of art in itself, it is so beautiful to watch and listen to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuPuNbMu3Z4
Even though poor John D. Freyer could not make the event. You have to pity the guy – he’d been stuck in an airport for 48 hours and was pretty much surviving on caffeine by the time he was Zoomed in to start the conference. His intervention was still nothing less that profound.
Opening the afternoon by tasking us all with sharing a turning point in our lives to someone we didn’t know, I don’t think I will ever see a Mayoral presentation again like I did yesterday. Huge respect has to be paid to The Mayor of Derby for standing up in front of 150 people in recovery and undergraduate students for sharing his personal connection to addiction.
This candidness was the theme and the power of the day. For the closing panel, David and Dot shared the stage with Peter De Silva, one of the authors of an imminent New Central Media book, and the integrity of handing the researcher’s pen to the people who have the lived experience is radical and bold. David wrote about this venture in Issue 4 of Performing Recovery.
Hosting us at the University of Derby, David held the event with equal measures of eloquence and sincerity. Much like the city’s mayor informally shared his story at the beginning of the afternoon, David closed the afternoon by sharing his, too. It reminded us all that addiction, for all its unnecessary shame in our society, has likely affected us all, either personally or it has affected someone that we love in some profound way.
For my slot, I took it upon myself to make a call to action for what art can do for us. Our erstwhile editor Alex Mazonowicz read my script and suggested I highlight this section:
But what I think is so special about art, about the act of creation, is this. We can say and explore difficult things. Work through them. Self-therapize with them. Surprise, delight, and if we choose to, we can horrify people with what has happened to us and the terrible things that we have done.
We can ask questions. Is it ok that we live in a world that normalizes alcohol and drug consumption yet shuns and shames the addict? I don’t think so. I don’t buy the AA line that we should have to tolerate a world where alcohol is mainstream. I think that art can be that place where we can question these normal narratives and create new worlds where we can be well, happy and be better people for it.
What I want to advocate for today is this. Go and create. Draw. Make. Write. Move and shake. Take action. Don’t get stuck in thoughts. Paint and pour and spew those thoughts out, and make them into something that is outside of you.
This feels like a fitting way to conclude my reflections on the Recovery In Practice conference. It was an honour and privilege to be part of it.
Thank you to Christiane for the use of SUIT’s photos from the day
leon clowes
