A Guest post from Delamere Rehab
by Martin Preston, Founder of Delamere
Many of us in The Sober Club have never hit rock bottom, we are incredibly grateful that we haven’t, and yet mindful that we could have…..Many of us know of others who need full support and knowing where to recommend those people is tough. Since coming across Delamere though, I am totally sure that their holistic approach works. I invited the founder Martin to share some reflections from their annual day where former guests return.
Words can not do justice to the strength of feeling we share when we welcome former guests back to Delamere for our annual celebration of recovery. But, I’ll do my best to set the scene and share just what the day means to me.
As rain gushed down the window panes, more than one hundred guests walked down the tree lined path toward the sheltered entrance of Delamere to be greeted by the team. But this time, they were all in recovery. As the music played softly in the reception area, cohorts of guests of differing ages, interests and backgrounds, caught up like the oldest of friends. Connected forever by virtue of being at the same place, at the same time.
Recovery is different for each of us, and so we asked guests to tell us what3words defined theirs. Confronting, feeling, liberating. Freedom, loving life. Resilience, faith, trust. The combination of words changed but the sentiment was always the same. Freeing yourself from addiction creates a life worth living.
Over an indoor BBQ lunch, people reminisced about the highs and lows of their time, they shared new news and reflected on how it felt to be back. Safe, warm, home. Everyone in the room was truly present with each other. Leaning into the occasion in order to get the very most from the experience and be there for the people around them.
This year five of our former guests shared their inspirational stories of recovery. Each in a different place on their journey. Each hoping that by sharing, it would help someone else. They spoke of the dark days before they arrived at Delamere, identifying traumas at the root of their addiction. The days they spent being cared for by our Delamere team, the sanctuary of the space, the support of the professionals. They talked about how they threw themselves into the activities, even when they didn’t feel like it and that with the patience and kindness of our team, they found an inner strength and bravery they didn’t know they had.
If recovery starts at Delamere, it continues in the community. The speakers put just as much focus on the power of the realistic recovery plans they made during their time with us which now act as a blueprint for how they live their life.
They talked about the community around our Bloom aftercare programme, which allows guests to become part of a community of people with shared experiences who can support them. It also allows them to remain grounded and connected to their Delamere team in their recovery journey. After the speeches, I asked people to raise their hands if they’d been in recovery for 12 months or more. Counting down month by month, more and more arms were raised in celebration. A guest who had completed her stay with us the day was the last to raise her arms as cannons showered our community in purple confetti. The strength of shared emotion in the room was almost overwhelming.
Then, after a little more time to talk, there was nothing left to do but cut the cake, say our farewells and clean up the confetti. The team at Delamere needed to get back to helping current guests to make their own way on the path to recovery.