Aug
31
2010
0

August books

Welcome to the Real World by Carole Matthews is a kind of X-factor book. Fern Kendal is a barmaid working in a grotty pub and doing a bit of singing on the side. She gets a temp job working as a PA to the world-famous opera singer Evan David. He has a sad history of bereavement which makes him reluctant to commit to any relationships but Fern charms him. All is going well until she enters a singing competition and finds out he is a judge. She can’t deal with this and does a runner. A fun read, with a happy ending.

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Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani is a rather sweet little book. Set in the 1950’s Lucia Sartoria is the youngest child of a large Italian family who live in New York. Her father owns the grocery store and she works as a seamstress is a prestigious department store. She works hard and is excellent at her job and wants to meet a man who will let her continue with her work. The story shows her battle for love, as well as retaining some of her independence.

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The Real Deal: My Story from Brick Lane to the Dragon’s Den by James Caan was on my reading list of the Dragon’s autobiographies. Born in Parkistan James moved to London when he was small with his parents. Fighting aginst the constraints of hus culture he left home at 16 and started doing menial office jobs. He became a seriously successful entrepreneur and made millions. What really impressed me though was his love for his family and his commitment to being a businessman with integrity. He has invested millions in charity, but has been very specific about how he would like his money to be spent and he seems to be a nice bloke who means who wants to make a difference. A good read and I liked him!

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The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble isn’t quite what I expected. The story is about a bunch of friends who meet together as part of a book group. Each had pretty sorted lives and the novel follows the unravelling (and in some cases the re-ravelling of their personal circumstance.) Whilst I did enjoy the book there were so many characters in the story, not to mention their partners and children, that I found myself getting lost with who was who. It was only the last 5 chapters that I gained any interest in how things were going to work out in the end.

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I found The Diplomat’s Wife by Pam Jenoff a very enjoyable read, despite there being major accuracy errors throughout the book. A sequel to the book Kommandant’s Girl which I listened to on audio CD back in May 2009. Following on after the war the book takes up the story of Marta, a Polish girl who was involved in the Resistance movement. She ends up in a concentration camp before being liberated by a handsome American soldier who she rather predictably falls in love with. There ensues a tale of lost love and tragedy! I enjoyed the read but one of the things that annoyed me so much was the extraordinary and stunningly unlikely coincidences which meant this story held together.

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I can honestly say that Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz is one of the mpst bizarre books I have ever read. Moments before he is born Jimmy Tock’s grandfather predicts that he will have five terrible days in his life, and then his grandfather dies. At the maternity unit whilst he is being born a psycho-clown goes on a rampage, killing the medical staff. The story of this book is the story of those ‘five terrible days’ and how Jimmy Tock and his family go on to survive it. Just a bizarre story, but a good read.

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The Self-Preservation Society by Kate Harrison is about Jo Morgan. Probably one of the most irritating characters I have ever read about. She is convinced that the world is going to end in some terrible nuclear holocaust so right from when she is a little girl she is preparing for such an emergency. As an adult she works in risk management or something. Everything changes when she is involved in an accident with a cyclist and starts becoming a bit of a risk taker. I think I might have preferred it if she never emerged from her coma!

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Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult is quite an interesting book. A woman, Cassie, is found in a graveyard suffering with amnesia. She is rescued bu a police officer who has recently moved to Los Angeles from an Indian reservation. Cassie is ‘claimed’ by a famous actor, her husband, and she tries to remember what led up to her losing her memory. What she finds out means that her life begins to unravel again. Quite a good read and I thought how the story worked out was interesting. A good beach book!

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Up and Down in the Dales by Gervase Phinn is a really lovely read. Continuing his reflections of life in the Yorkshire Dales working as a schools inspector. His wife Christine is now expecting their first child and he gets into all sorts of problems when he realises he has demolished a very old Quaker meeting house which was in his garden. I love these books. They are so gentle and so funny. Now I live in Yorkshire I hear the voices in my head so much better. Great books and well worth a read.

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I, Alex Cross by James Patterson once again features Detective Alex Cross. This time the case he is working on is much more personal. His niece has been murdered and his investigations lead him to find out that she was a high class prostitute. She, and several other girls were murdered by a serial killer and the story takes him on a dangerous journey to find the killer. Fast paced and exciting I thought this was quite a good read.

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Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: ,
Aug
20
2010
2

Hurray!!

Well people I am going to disappear for a couple of weeks. We are off camping today for a few days and then off to Greenbelt for Bank Holiday weekend. I can’t wait, even thought the weather report is pretty dire!

So. see you when I get back, when I will undoubtedly have lots of photos to share!!!

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: ,
Aug
09
2010
2

Cameron and drugs

The Guardian newspaper at the weekend produced an article entitled “David Cameron shifts drug addicts treatment to live-in schemes” which stated that the Prime Minister has requested a revised drug policy to be in place by the end of the year.

They report that in PM Direct debate this week David Cameron stated…

“The last government became too target obsessed. It was all about how many addicts are in touch with treatment agencies, and this, in too many cases, really meant the addict was talking to someone and maybe getting some methadone, which is a government authorised form of opium, rather than heroin. It did not really address the problem – that [the addict] had a drug habit.

“I would like to … try to provide – difficult though it will be given the shortage of money we have been left – more residential treatment programmes. In the end, the way you get drug addicts clean is by getting them off drugs altogether, challenging their addiction rather than just replacing one opiate with another.”

I thoroughly agree with Mr Cameron that the last government was totally target obsessed, something that I have blogged about in the past, but I cannot agree with the idea that we need to promote residential rehabilitation over substitute prescribing. We also aren’t very good about moving people through the treatment system and pursuing abstinence. However, it is not quite as straightforward as Mr Cameron would like it to seem.

Dealing with addicts is a tricky business at times. They are often very opinionated about the type of treatment they would like to have, they can be difficult to engage and they are often very resilient. As individuals they can be extremely challenging, which in a weird way is one of the joys of working with them.

There are several difficulties with promoting residential rehabilitation as the primary form of treatment.

1) The cost. A stay in residential rehabilitation will cost approximately £8000 – £12000 for a 6 month stay, and that is a conservative costing. In 2008 the National Treatment Outcome Research Study estimated that methadone would cost on average £55 per person per week. A cost of £2,860 per person per year. Whilst we may not always like it, substitute prescribing is far cheaper than residential treatment.

2) The readiness of the client. When I used to send people to residential rehab I had to do loads of preparation work with them. We had to consider whether they were suitable for inpatient treatment and what might be the right resource for them. We expected them to be stable in treatment and engaging in group work in the community. In reality, not every client is ready to go to rehab. They need to find the point when they are prepared, physically and emotionally, to enter ongoing long term treatment. For some people this will never happen.

3) Maintenance treatment reduces crime. People who are maintained on methadone need to engage in less (ideally no) criminal activity to fund their habit. This benefits the wider community.

4) Maintenance treatment improves healthcare in patients. If individuals no longer have to engage in unsafe injecting practices they are less likely to be hospitalised with major illnesses and injuries caused by illicit drugs use. This could be anything from overdose to DVT’s to falling off a bridge whilst under the influence etc.

These are just a few issues related to the maintenance in the community vs. residential rehabilitation debate. However, I feel I should add a caveat to this. My comments here might lead some people to think that I would rather see people opiate dependent than becoming drug-free. This is categorically untrue. One of the biggest pleasures I had was seeing people progress through rehab and become drug free. Those people undoubtedly had the best chance of achieving lifelong, sustainable change and being able to be a fully functioning member of society. However, I also had to recognise that some people just were not in the place to be able to make those changes. They hadn’t reached the stage in their lives where they were able to consider a life without drugs.

To quote David Cameron again when he said

“It was all about how many addicts are in touch with treatment agencies, and this, in too many cases, really meant the addict was talking to someone and maybe getting some methadone, which is a government authorised form of opium, rather than heroin. It did not really address the problem – that [the addict] had a drug habit.”

If the government want to invest in making positive changes to drug treatment then they should be providing the funding for services to be able to train their drug and alcohol workers to make them highly professional and specialised workers. It is almost impossible to underestimate what a difference a really fantastic worker can make to the client. That therapeutic relationship can really lead to change, whether it be motivational work in order to help people progress onto more intensive treatment, or whether they are discussing harm minimisation practices. A good drug worker is part of the journey, they are not just “someone to talk to”; they are treatment in and of themselves.

Anyway, I don’t know what I am ranting about this. They are going to reduce investment in drug treatment in 2012 so there will probably be no changes anyway!

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: , , ,
Aug
08
2010
12

You are my rock?

“You are my rock in times of trouble.
You lift me up when I fall down.
All through the storm
Your love is the anchor
My hope is in you alone.”

It’s all very well singing this when life is ok but it is much harder to sing this when life is a big tougher. I am happy to believe that god is there in the good times but I struggle to believe that he is holding me up when the ground feels like it is falling away.

This week my younger sister has told me she is pregnant again. Last time she was pregnant I practically had a nervous breakdown. I will admit that I am both annoyed and jealous. I had hoped that I might get pregnant before her this time!! It’s so hard to believe that God is good when you see him blessing other people with the things you most want. Of course what makes this even more difficult is that being jealous of your sister seems to be perceived by others to be totally unacceptable. Being told by family members and friends to ‘deal with it’ and to ‘think of all the good things you have’ just isn’t helpful.

Life is good but there are also moments when it is tough. I hope I am strong enough to deal with this… and I hope the Mister is strong enough to deal with me!!

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags:

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