Drama group in Glasgow supporting drug and alcohol addicts secures £400,000 in funding to expand service

Recovering drug and alcohol addicts will be able to attend a drama therapy programme designed to support people in recovery as the scheme is rolled out in three more Scottish local authority areas.

Exactly £400,000 was awarded to Creative Change Collective from the Scottish Government to run the scheme. Creative Change brings together professionals from creative industries to help inspire positive change.

Recovering Voices is led by Creative Change Collective project director, Mark MacNicol, who lost his younger brother Jason to a heroin overdose at just 30 years old, in 2007.

The Recovering Voices programme already supports participants through residential community alcohol and drug recovery programmes in Glasgow. The group currently works with people in North Ayrshire, West Dunbartonshire, and Renfrewshire.

The additional funding will allow the groups to be rolled out in Saltcoats, Erskine, and Clydebank.  Earlier this week, Drugs Policy Minister Angela Constance congratulated the charity after watching a performance by members of Glasgow’s recovery community.

The Oran Mor event was delivered as a variety-style mix of sketches. It gave participants the opportunity to demonstrate their achievements, celebrate their success, and share their lived experience through theatre - with friends, family, support staff, and policymakers.

Participants read poems and performed scripts that drew on their lived experience and addressed issues around the stigma of addiction and how their illness has impacted their family members.

They also heard from friends and family of those battling addiction, who told of their pride at seeing their loved ones entering and staying in recovery.

Speaking at the event, Constance praised the programme for making recovery ‘visible’. Angela Constance MSP said: “We know people are individuals and one size doesn’t fit all, so this project – like many other projects – is helping people discover their own recovery path.”

A previous participant in Recovering Voices described the sessions as the ‘highlight’ of their week, while another said it had “definitely helped” their recovery. Creative Change Collective, formerly Street Cones, uses film and theatre type activities to help participants on the charity’s programmes achieve more positive outcomes in their lives.

Mark MacNicol, Creative Change Collective project director, said:“We are pleased that this funding will allow us to take our Recovering Voices project into three more local authority areas. Our sessions are designed to support people in their recovery through drama therapy activities.

“By expanding this programme, we hope to help more people to stay in recovery – potentially saving lives.

“We were incredibly proud to see members of Glasgow’s recovery community performing at Oran Mor this week, after taking part in the Recovering Voices programme. I have been working with Creative Change Collective, formerly Street Cones, for a few years mostly in the justice space and have seen the brilliant results projects like this can have.

“Losing my brother Jason to addiction has been a big motivating factor for me. If there is one person helped as a result of this then there is a family out there who doesn’t have to go through what ours did.”