ANNEX B
Bill of Rights
Adapted from the Faces and Voices of Recovery Bill of Rights: http://www.facesandvoicesofrecovery.org/about/campaigns/bill_of_rights.php
We will improve peoples' lives, their families and their communities if we treat addiction to alcohol and other drugs as a major public health and social care concern.
To overcome these concerns we must accord dignity to people with addiction and recognise that there is no one path to recovery. Individuals who are striving to be responsible citizens can recover on their own or with the help of others.
Effective help can be rendered by mutual support groups, social care, voluntary sector services, health care professionals. Or any combination of these.
Recovery can begin in a doctor's office, A&E Department, treatment centre, church, prison, peer support meeting or in one's own home. Recovery happens every day across our country and there are effective solutions for people still struggling. Whatever the pathway, the journey will be far easier to travel if people seeking recovery are accorded respect for their basic rights.
1. We have the right to be viewed as capable of changing, growing and becoming positively connected to our community, no matter what we did in the past because of our addiction.
2. We have the right, as do our families and friends, to know about the many pathways to recovery, the nature of addiction and the barriers to long- term recovery, all conveyed in ways that we can understand.
3. We have the right, whether seeking recovery in the community, a physician's office, treatment centre or while incarcerated, to set our own recovery goals, working with a personalised recovery plan that we have designed based on accurate and understandable information about our health status, including a comprehensive, holistic assessment.
4. We have the right to select services that build on our strengths, armed with full information about the experience, and credentials of the people providing services and programmes from which we are seeking help.
5. We have the right to be served by organisations or health care and social service providers, that view recovery positively, meet the highest public health and safety standards, provide rapid access to services, treat us respectfully, understand that our motivation is related to successfully accessing our strengths and will work with us and our families to find a pathway to recovery.
6. We have the right to be considered as more than a statistic, stereotype, risk score, diagnosis, label or pathology unit - free from the social stigma that characterises us as weak or morally flawed. If we relapse and begin treatment again we should be treated with the dignity and respect that welcomes our continued effort to achieve long term recovery.
7. We have the right to a health care and social services system that recognises the strengths and needs of people with addiction and coordinates its efforts to provide recovery based care that honours and respects our diverse backgrounds and cultural beliefs.
8. We have the right to be represented by informed policymakers who remove barriers to educational, housing and employment opportunities once we are no longer misusing alcohol or other drugs and are on the road to recovery.
9. We have the right to respectful non-discriminatory care from all service providers and to receive services on the same basis as anyone else who uses health, voluntary or social services. The criteria of 'proper' care should be decided exclusively between our service providers and ourselves. It should reflect the severity, complexity and duration of our problems and provide a reasonable opportunity for recovery maintenance.
10. We have the right to treatment and recovery support in the criminal justice system and to regain our place and rights in society once we have served our sentences.
11. We have the right to speak out publicly about our recovery to let others know that long term recovery from addiction is a reality.