No one on the allotment has much time for irony. That heroin, alcohol and many of their sinister siblings can look back to an ultimate source in the botanical world just doesn't warrant headspace. But recognise it or not, when it comes to narcotics, plants pack a punch.

 If you want them to that is. At Acre Field allotments in Swansea their role is different. Here, becoming more lifeline than torpedo, they are the substance with which to learn new skills. Alternatively they may form a background against which clients can chat through their individual problems or, if they need to, just relax. All are positive stages in the struggle to get clean. And on this allotment, with the participants sheltered as much from themselves as from the salt sea wind, getting clean is what its all about.

 Lawrence was among the first to become involved. Born near Swansea docks he spent his early working life as a mariner. Ten years deep sea trawling out of Hull was followed by six years in the merchant navy. He coped well with the demands of a challenging work environment but was not so successful in his personal life.

 Although clean since 1996, by his own admission Lawrence has been lucky to survive. Thirty years of alcoholism and drug abuse have left him quite clear about the nature of his vulnerability. 'Today I am a recovering alcoholic.' he says 'Tomorrow I could be a using alcoholic.' 'When I knocked on the door in 1996 my drinking was totally unmanageable. I needed help.'

 And help is what he got. As a client of West Glamorgan Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse he was encouraged to become involved in a new horticultural therapy initiative. WGCADA had rented an allotment and needed bodies on site to work it. Despite a healthy scepticism and an inherent reluctance to volunteer for anything, Lawrence found himself helping in the clearing and cultivation of this first plot. And then he helped with the second.

 By the time they had taken over their third plot the confidence of Lawrence's client group had grown to the extent that they managed to design and build their own greenhouse. 'This was an achievement,' he says. 'We came from a background where we had done a lot of destroying. Other peoples lives. Our own lives. To do something in reverse was quite amazing for us. It might not have sounded a lot to another person, to an ordinary person, whatever ordinary is, but to a recovering addict or alcoholic it was pretty amazing stuff. A lot of emotions came out. We were proud. Embarrassed because we asked ourselves did we really do this thing? Are we this good?'

 Their success was such that a second group was formed. The allotment was now being worked two days per week. It was at this stage, when his territorialism over the work he and his fellow clients had achieved began to surface, that Lawrence got a chance to explore his personality.

 'I used to be a very angry person,' he says dispassionately. 'I was basically a loner, I didn't like working with people. I didn't like people full stop. The Domino helped me to become a team player and helped me with the chip on my shoulder. I wasn't the only drug addict alcoholic on that allotment. There were other people in the same boat as me which I found (he chooses the word carefully) different. I found that I started to think differently. I wasn't only addicted to alcohol and drugs. I was addicted to my personality. I had an addictive anger. I didn't get occasionally angry. I was addictively angry. I felt unstable in calm. I felt safer in anger. My anger was my shield. It said "stay out of my space".'

 Lawrence doesn't think he would have found his way through the changes he describes without the support of the DOMINO Project, as the horticultural initiative became to be known, and the treatment at WGCADA. 'Out there in the real world,' he says 'why would I need to look at myself?' When his treatment was completed he stayed involved. He worked firstly as a volunteer staying around people he felt were safe. He freely admits that by helping others he helped himself stay clean and sober.

 DOMINO, an acronym of Development Of Motivation In New Outlooks, was developed to support the work of WGCADA who are based in St James Crescent in Swansea's Uplands. Their core service requires total abstinence and combines the Minnesota Model with William Glasser's Reality Therapy aligned with the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Originally funded by the National Lottery DOMINO was intended to help alcoholics not yet able to achieve the abstinence demanded by the primary treatment and to prevent relapse in those in early recovery. To accommodate the mushrooming availability of a wider variety of mood altering drugs, these days its doors are open to abusers of heroin, cocaine, crack, benzodiazepines and cannabis as well as alcohol.

 The project has responded positively to this increasing diversity. Since its launch in April 1997 the range of activities it offers has been expanded and now, in addition to horticulture, clients can take advantage of instruction in cookery, guitar playing, information technology and stress management as well as financial life skills. 

One of the project's strengths is that a high proportion of staff have walked the path of substance abuse themselves. This allows them a useful level of understanding with the clients. At the same time the personal success of people like Lawrence is proof of the project's effectiveness.

 His volunteer role became increasingly responsible and he was eventually offered a job as a pre treatment worker in an 11 week programme of education about alcohol and drug abuse and its effects. Working here and helping others gave Lawrence the opportunity to come to terms with his new personality. 'Maybe even get one when I think about it,' he says with unnerving honesty. 'I had lost my personality in the desperation of alcoholism.'

 By contrast Keith the current Project Co-ordinator left his drink and drugs identity behind too early to benefit from the DOMINO's effect. He has been clean now for over 7 years following a similar period trying to shake himself free from his habitual narcotic abuse. Nonetheless he is as enthusiastic about the project as his colleague. 'Clients want help immediately,' he says. 'They are in crisis when they arrive but the waiting list for places in primary treatment can be up to two months. The Domino keeps them engaged until there is a space for them.'

 After a few early raids on his parents' cocktail cabinet Keith remembers first getting drunk at the age of eleven. 'I loved it,' he says. 'I thought this is where I want to be. I didn't want to go back to school. I just wanted to get drunk every day. As a kid I was kind of shy. Booze stopped me from being shy. I could be on equal terms with everybody else if not superior to everybody else for a change.'

 Eighteen years of disrupted education and antisocial behaviour later he realised that his chronic abuse of alcohol, cannabis and LSD was a problem he needed to be free of. And to his credit, with help, he has dug himself out. He is now building a career helping other drug victims fight their way to freedom. His current post is his second within the organisation.

 Keith's role is to co-ordinate the various courses offered by the DOMINO and make sure all runs smoothly. Like Lawrence he remains keenly aware of his vulnerability to drugs. 'I have no problem taking drugs,' he says 'I just have a problem stopping. I'm too scared to start again because I realise how fast I lead from one to the other.' Keith's determination to stay clean at any cost has even lead him to refuse anaesthetic for an extraction at the dentist. 'I switch so fast and my denial is so great that I cannot see that I am taking more or for what reason so therefore if I cut them all out I don't have to analyse it or anything,' he says 'I just don't take them.'

 He explains that once clients are engaged in the DOMINO, or 'hooked in' as he puts it, they are helped through various stages of recovery. Those who are still using can work with those who may be two or three years clean. Keith sees this interaction as a major advantage because it helps fresh clients to realise the nature of their problem. By mixing with people who have emerged from drug misuse the newcomers can see that they may also find the road to recovery.

 To maintain an adequate staffing level this system relies heavily on successful clients returning to work as volunteers. Unfortunately this number is falling. Keith's concern at this highlights the project's vulnerability. As WGCADA Chief Executive Norman Preddy explains, for twelve months after the initial three year funding ran out the staff and volunteers kept the initiative going in their spare time. Although it currently receives grants from the National Assembly of Wales and has also received a significant contribution from the Trustee Savings Bank, the project could hardly be accused of being awash with cash. When Norman is asked about the shortcomings of DOMINO he immediately cites the erratic funding structure as being top of the list. 'We need a team of three or four full time workers,' he says, 'securing the necessary money is a major challenge.'

 Norman too has had his share of experience at the sharp end. 'Its a kind of eerie thing in one sense,' he says reflecting that in 1979 when the parent body was being set up he was tackling his own addiction to alcohol in Somerset's Broadway Lodge. 'On the other hand it gives you a bit of a thrill, knowing where I am today.'

 He says that people abuse drugs and alcohol for a variety of reasons. These might include unemployment, stress, boredom or bravado. 'People just don't realise how dangerous experimental use of drugs can be,' he says. Pain, loneliness and bereavement can lead to relief drinking and misuse of other substances such as benzodiazepines. A propensity for substance abuse may be genetic and is certainly not age specific. But according to Norman DOMINO has looked at not so much 'why' but 'what can we do about it?'

 This pragmatic, forward looking approach links in neatly with other agencies. Social Services offices and homelessness projects have visited DOMINO and are happy to refer clients. So are the Swansea Drugs Project and the Community Drug and Alcohol Team, two specialist local substance misuse agencies.

 In what can only be seen as a serious act of affirmation South Wales Police, with whom project staff meet regularly, have commissioned and funded WGCADA to run an arrest referral scheme. Today everybody arrested on a drink or drug related issue in Swansea gets the opportunity to see an arrest referral worker for an assessment. Clients in Neath and Port Talbot benefit from a similar scheme funded by the Home Office. Norman feels that these schemes are very important as they link into a difficult client group who are not ready, or maybe do not even want to give up completely.

 Usually from their first assessment clients are referred on into one of the projects on DOMINO for contemplative time or until they become more confident about facing a further assessment or the primary treatment program.

 Whether they are referred by other agencies or arrive on their own initiative clients' reasons for initial contact are varied. They may have no intention of giving up drink or drugs. Their motivation may be to 'get themselves out of trouble'. Alternatively they may be tired of breaking the law and want to learn how to stop.

 Despite the dovetailing of local efforts and the co-operation with the police Norman thinks the problem is getting worse. Between January and August 2002 WGCADA assessed over 900 new clients. This he feels reflects an increasing accessibility of drugs on all fronts. While he by no means dismisses the damage caused by other substances Norman is adamant that alcohol abuse is the biggest problem.

 He quotes recent statistics from Alcohol Concern which show that at least 1 in 13 people is dependent on alcohol in Britain, twice as many as are hooked on all other forms of drugs. Yet just over £1 million is spent per year on the prevention and treatment of alcohol related problems compared to nearly £92 million on other drugs. And that £1 million looks even smaller when compared to the £227 million that alcohol suppliers pump into the advertising industry annually to promote their products.

 Norman also refers to the amount of revenue that the drinks industry generates for the government and cites the case of the insidious marketing of alcopops which targeted young inexperienced drinkers and which netted the state '... £29 million in the first year. Within a year there were approximately 60 different varieties of alcopops available which were competing with the drug world by using drug linked labelling.'

 These figures reveal the arena in which Norman considers the drugs debate must be thrashed out. For him, as no doubt for the sellers of narcotics of whichever description, it is a matter of economics. He refers to the recent National Treatment Outcome Research Study which shows that every £1 spent in treatment leads to a £3 saving in the costs to society for picking up the pieces. 'What about the cost of the heart operations, cancer treatment, social welfare provision, traffic accidents, lost work time, crime and violence that are linked to alcohol,' he asks? 'If the true figures for these were known the public would be horrified.'

 Every addict, he claims, negatively affects five other people by his or her addiction. Parents, partners, and possibly most vulnerable of all, children. He draws attention to the potential for inter-generational drift by quoting from a study of 24,000 new clients in a small area in the north east of England most of whose primary drug is heroin. 'These people have at least one child each,' he says. 'This represents at least 24,000 children under the age of eighteen being brought up in this environment with all its inherent risks. From this we can estimate that there are several hundred thousand children in the UK who have one or both parents with a serious drug problem. Funding must be found to deal with this situation.'

 It is no surprise that among those on the allotment who have made it through primary treatment there is little support for the currently fashionable legalisation argument. Reference to the recent relaxation of the law relating to cannabis is greeted with incredulity and concern. Here there is scant room for the distanced liberalism of affluent politicos. The word on the street in response to Mo Mowlam's call for total legalisation supported by the establishment of treatment centres to deal with the casualties is a very emphatic 'Get real.'

  Dave, the Neath and Port Talbot project worker and himself a recovering addict, is concerned that heroin spreads fast enough as it is. The small communities in his area are especially vulnerable. 'Once something like heroin appears and becomes fashionable it takes hold in these areas. It seems to snowball within the community.'

 Dave first asked for help in 1994 and it is only now in 2002 he says 'that I am starting to grow again.' He recognises all those wasted years. Now 53 years old, he has just been awarded a merit in his Diploma in Health and Social Welfare and is putting all his efforts into helping others win their struggle against the morass that robbed him of so much of his life. He is convinced that treatment of addicts through detox is successful. 'Heroin is in the mind,' he says in a language that non users can find difficult to follow. 'When you take it away the mind is what you have to fill again and ideally thats what we are here for.'

 So thats what the DOMINO project does. It entraps, enables, empowers and entices addicts of all ages out of their isolation. Then it shows them the possibility of a life without the drugs that are costing them so much money and unhappiness. On shoestring funding the workers help those who can't get clean on their own, don't think its a possibility or maybe don't even know they want to. For those whose personal development has been distorted or put on hold by drugs the shelter and comradeship of DOMINO provides a stepping stone away from that ugly dream. By bringing struggling individuals into contact with the quietly healing world of plant growth they may be encouraged to regain their confidence and self respect and, with the support of their fellow ex-addicts, volunteers and staff, have one more go at living.

© Patrick Ellis 2003
 
 
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