One North East London (1ne) provides abstinence based treatment for addicts wishing to maintain a drug and/or alcohol free lifestyle. The charity was established in 1987 by Fiona Dunwoodie and her mother after losing both her father and brother to alcoholism. The primary purpose was to work with alcoholics.
Addiction is a terminal illness and we are passionate in the belief that the only option for a full recovery is total abstinence i.e. totally drug/alcohol free. Originally based in Waltham Forest, after losing our contract to a national provider in 2008, we relocated to Redbridge at the request of the local authority. It was at this time that we opened our doors to drug users as an alternative to methadone maintenance programmes. It is estimated that for every addict 6 other people are affected - it is often referred to as 'the family illness'. In 1992 we introduced our Relatives service offering support for anyone affected by another's addiction. In 2007 we established NE Teens, a service providing education, counselling and support for young people affected by addiction within the family. In 2014 we again lost our contract to a national provider, however we are still the only agency in the area that provides abstinence based treatment.
Weekly our treatment programme provides eleven therapy groups, four relaxation sessions, two long term evening support groups, one afternoon aftercare group and a Saturday therapy group. Our service user group raise funds to provide additional support such as weekend workshops and mediation days as well as social activities including quiz nights at the centre. Clients must commit to attend the programme for a minimum of two weeks after which an individual care plan is negotiated with each client depending on their needs. As we see addiction is a life long illness and given that it takes time to recover our treatment is not time limited and the average stay on the full time programme is sixteen weeks. When clients are ready to return to work they can access evening support.
Our Relatives service offers individual counselling, couples counselling for parents of addicts, group therapy, evening support and social activities. As an extension of this service we established NE Teens. The service provides education, individual counselling and support for young people affected by addiction within the family. Most of this work is carried out at two local schools and has been so successful they are funding additional days counselling for their students.
