There's a moment during my interview with Annemarie Ward when a look of what can only be described as despairing weariness passes across her face.
The Chief Executive of FAVOR, the UKâs foremost addiction recovery charity, is discussing the Scottish Governmentâs attitudes to the swelling numbers of alcohol and drugs deaths north of the border. âSo many aspects of their approach need to change,â she says, âbut if I were to choose one then itâs this: get rid of all the addiction quangos that have grown fat on public money.â
She begins to describe a lucrative, self-serving sector which is in denial about the true nature of addiction and doesnât really believe that people can actually recover. And so they specialise in âharm reductionâ, which she says is âmiddle-class virtue-signalling at its worstâ. Â
Even if you access social media sparingly youâll have noticed Ms Ward; itâs impossible not to. FAVOR is an acronym for Faces and Voices of Recovery and her clarion call âYou keep talking; we keep dying'Â haunts the Twitter accounts of the politicians and a swollen platinum class of apparatchiks who have made rewarding careers from Scotlandâs burgeoning addiction economy.
She doesnât mess around and is often targeted by those she holds responsible for years of policy failure and strategic incontinence in this area. She begins naming the addiction quangos and says sheâll soon be compiling a list of them to show how crowded the field is.
This is where Scotlandâs public sector gravy train can be seen at full tilt, driven by a vast array of political actors who attend all the right networking events; leadership seminars and lobbying dinners.
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âTheyâve become a shadow state,â she says. âTheyâre policy actors with at least one organisation employing 70-odd staff. Thereâs no equivalent to them south of the border because England got rid of them years ago. They simply de-funded them as part of a structural change leading to more funding for front-line services. Â
âAll of these Scottish quangos think theyâre doing something, but theyâre little more than the government lobbying government for no other purpose than to maintain funding levels.â
When I last interviewed her two years ago she made the rather bracing claim that more than a quarter of adults living in the Greater Glasgow area are âproblematic drinkersâ. Even given Glasgowâs wretched reputation as the planetâs drunk uncle these numbers seemed startling, yet she continues to stand by them.
âThey come from the Health and Social Care Partnershipâs own research conducted by social workers and NHS service providers. I wouldnât define them all as having addiction levels of dependency, but theyâre people who have reached out for help because itâs beginning to impact on relationships, finances, health. It directly leads to premature death rates.â
She believes you canât formulate an adequate response to Scotlandâs ruinous relationship with alcohol unless you factor in a class element and the stoicism of working-class families and communities in dealing with alcohol dependency. âFamilies move the goalposts when confronted with addiction,â she says. âWe insist you must be fine if you can go to work. Itâs a perverse sort of working-class pride.
âOne of strongest reactions I got when this was affecting me was âOch, youâre fine: I drink more than youâ. When someone says theyâre in trouble, others start comparing themselves. Itâs a form of collective denial.â
Scotland seems to have specialised in talking about the nationâs alcohol issues periodically over several decades. Weâve been here before and many times: the stark headlines; the documentaries; the grim case studies; the cultural and civic leaders discussing it sonorously and seeking an explanation in a familiar suite of causes: de-industrialisation, climate, geography. So, what needs to change if weâre to break this pattern?
âIt goes back to that collective denial,â she says. âWe donât want to look too closely at it as it means weâd need to take collective responsibility. From a cultural, spiritual, mental and emotional perspective this comes back on us all. It means saying unequivocally that those communities where addiction is most prevalent have been totally decimated by inequality and multi-deprivation.
âIâm frightened by how fast inequality is rising and at a rate faster than any other time in our history. And since Covid, thereâs been a profound shift in favour of the asset class. The political classes donât see it at street level. The only way this will shift is if we begin to address inequality and the profound spiritual decay that underpins it.â Â
When she talks about the spiritual disconnection, she cites a constant need to be distracted which has become worse since Covid. âI was talking to a friend who told me sheâd binge-watched 18 episodes of a drama on Netflix in one weekend. This is a spiritual dislocation, yet we donât talk about it in these terms as âspiritualâ is too big a conversation for people to have in modern Scotland.â
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She despairs of the Scottish Governmentâs refusal - and that of its favoured agencies - to recommend the 12-step programme of AA. âIt works for many people,â she says, âand it doesnât require government expenditure. It teaches all the best bits about religion such as forgiveness; healing and perseverance, but itâs in no way religious at its core. Yet in Scotland, the addiction sector thumbs its nose at it. In England, they have no such hang-ups.â
Ms Ward believes that lying at the heart of this reluctance to recommend the 12 steps is what she calls âThe God Wordâ and a deep-rooted antipathy to religious faith. âHarm reduction is the ideology of the Scottish Government which it preaches with a religious fervour,â she says. âWhen they see âGodâ in the Third Step they get jittery. This is where AA asks you to explore youâre own concept of God. The premise is one of âyou got yourself into the problem but you may not have the tools to get out of the problem, so it might be an idea to seek help from somewhere outwith yourself.
âItâs also an intellectual snobbery. People who believe in God are a bit deluded and thick. Iâve experienced that a lot. They also come at me with the predictable âsheâs raging because sheâs not got one of their big jobs. But I know who they are: theyâre all Scottish Government stooges.â
Ms Ward has already been approached by senior figures in Scottish Labour seeking some guidance on formulating their own anti-addiction policies. It makes sense. If the party does form the next Scottish Government they could probably do without being regularly spanked by Ms Ward about a supine approach to alcohol and drugs deaths. Â
âIâm willing to work with Labour. I want to contribute positively; I donât want to be the one whoâs always screaming. But if they donât get rid of these quangos then I know theyâll just continue with the grift of government lobbying government.â
What is actually meant though, by âfront-line servicesâ? She begins to list them: âCommunity rehab, actual rehab, detox services; helping those communities worst afflicted in general. Devising a way of plough back some of the alcohol industryâs vast profits. They could put it to good use in youth clubs, local sports facilities. These communities are often the first to lose their libraries and swimming pools.â
In recent weeks, sheâs become a harsh critic of the Scottish Governmentâs Minimum Unit Pricing policy which seeks to discourage people from buying alcohol. âIt simply doesnât work,â she says, âbecause those making the policy have no clue about the reality of the lives of those who are worst affected by alcohol addiction.â
She points out something that the Scottish Government and its advocates donât want the public to hear, that the dramatic hike in alcohol prices have done little more than boost the profits of the alcohol industry to the tune of about ÂŁ70m.
âItâs not the alcohol thatâs attractive,â she insists, âitâs the oblivion. In the face of alcohol price rises people will simply turn to the cheapest methods of oblivion. The political actors and their middle-class policies have no idea of the inadvertent consequences of these actions, which is people turning to cheaper alternatives for oblivion. And why are they looking for that? Because theyâre in pain. And why are they in pain? Because of grinding poverty and inequality.
âI read 40 studies around this and only seven were looking at health-based outcomes. Then I looked at who commissioned the research on all the studies and the only one that was positive about MUP was a researcher from Public Health Scotland. And it was Public Health Scotland who were writing the report. So you wonder if thereâs some jiggery-pokery going on here.Â
Read more in the series, Scotland & Alcohol:
Scotland & Alcohol: Find every article in the series here
âThese people donât live in the real world. If they were, theyâd looking at the correlation in the rise in drugs deaths since Minimum Unit Pricing was introduced in 2018. It doesnât need a genius to work out why. And in the meantime, Iâm still burying my friends.â
She believes that the alcohol industry has a part to play in addressing problem drinking and that if the Scottish Government and its client policy actors in the addiction sector were serious about doing so theyâd be partnering with the the big drinks players. Itâs a controversial view and one that would scare an administration obsessed with the optics of every step they take. Yet, from a social responsibility perspective there are benefits accruing to the drinks firms from such an approach.Â
âI think theyâd step up if they had the chance. But the government and their acolytes are frightened to be in bed with the alcohol industry. Yet the whole of Scotland is already in bed with the alcohol industry. Even half of one per cent of their increased profits could make a huge difference to communities worst affected by alcoholism if they were re-invested there.
âI donât even see the problem with booze adverts. I donât care about âthe opticsâ of a swimming pool sponsored by Tennentâs lager. The Government thinks the people in these communities are stupid and that weâre easily influenced. Theyâre obsessed with channelling ethics but what theyâre doing in facilitating the already vast profits of the booze industry is grievously unethical.â
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