The three most frequently asked questions often prove the most difficult to answer.
Why do people start abusing drugs or alcohol?
Why don’t they just stop?
What do treatment services do to help them stop?
For those at the sharp end, the users themselves, their friends and family, it is often difficult to relate to the answers given by professionals.
Substance misuse and dependence and the problems that they create for individuals and their family and friends are complex and can differ greatly from person to person. Because of this it is often difficult for professionals to explain the answers to these fundamental questions.
Long involved technical answers which make reference to various pieces of research, guidance or jargon can often make the situation seem impossible to understand and the listener feeling inadequate. This can leave people with the impression that the problem is insurmountable and feelings hopeless.
In order to use practical examples to which the questioner can relate to, it can require so much personal information to successfully match the example to the listener that it puts off people from asking.
Yet these questions are so critical in helping people to understand, so fundamental in equipping people to help themselves or others.
Working closely with professionals in communications, illustration, narration and film making we have produced a short four and a half minute film which tries to answer those questions in plain language.
To watch the film click here.
Published 28th April 2015
