03 April 2025
I am a ... Post-treatment Recovery Worker
Meet Mark, a Post-treatment Recovery Worker at WithYou.
If you've got a desire to understand people and support people, and if you've got a caring nature and a willingness to support others, then just go for it.
Mark
What made you want to work in this field?
I came through the service myself, getting support for a problem with alcohol. I started volunteering and did that for about a year, and it was always somewhere I wanted to work with and be involved with.
My role, as a post-treatment recovery worker, it’s for people who are either substance free, or have reached their goals with their use of drugs or alcohol (for example, they’re drinking in a controlled manner), and they're getting ready to leave the service. We’re bridging that gap because I think when people have become very used to having the help, it can feel like a huge loss and people have this fear of what’s outside and what’s going to be available for them afterwards. My role is to help with finding things for them in the community, or to get them to attend groups if they haven't been doing that; to try and get them to build up relationships that are outside of the service so they feel happy moving into this community that's outside of WithYou.
What's a typical day like?
It's very varied. You essentially create your own diary of people you've got to see. It's either having telephone call appointments with people or seeing people face to face and if there's an activity or something they'd like to take part in, I can go along with them and help them out with that. If they want to attend a group, and they generally do on their own, we can go along with them to that as well. You get to learn how to manage your own diary, because you are in charge of your own workload.
It's nine to five month Monday to Friday date. My job is slightly different because I’ve done the training to run SMART recovery groups, so I cover those when people are off sick or on holiday. Also, as Shropshire is such a big area there’s two of us doing this role and covering the different areas, so I do one day a week in a different office. I really enjoy it because it's nice to change locations and work with different people.
Which parts of your job do you find most rewarding?
I think just being able to support people. It's rewarding when I can discharge them from being in service, because I see them in that gap where they're closed from active treatment - which is where they receive most of the support, and the most intense work - but before being fully discharged. In post-treatment, with me, there’s flexibility to be able to support them in the community.
What would you like to change to improve the lives of people you work with, and how you can help them?
I’d like to see more acceptance in society, I think, and understanding. People think they know what someone with alcohol or drug issues will be like - they put them in a category, and picture them as someone on a park bench with a bottle. People need to have this understanding that problems with alcohol or drugs can affect anybody from any walk of life and any profession. There’s no age distinction, no class distinction, anything like that. If you start talking to someone on the subject, I guarantee everyone has got either a friend or family member who's had an issue with something.
I'd also like to change the language that’s used around it - like alcoholic, druggie, things like that. They're just negative terms and I don't find them helpful.
What would you say to someone considering a similar career?
Just go for it. If you've got a desire to understand people and support people, and if you've got a caring nature and a willingness to support others. Also, if you've had experience yourself, with either family members or themselves, working at WithYou can be a really good opportunity. There's a lot of emphasis on lived experience here, which they value quite a lot as an organization. A lot of people might be put off but it's actually a help more than a hindrance, and it can help people with their own recovery as well doing work like this, because it keeps you in touch with your own thoughts and your own feelings around problems with drugs and alcohol.
WithYou is a really good organisation to work for and you'll get out of it what you put in. If you put the effort in and you've got that willingness to support and help people, you will get a lot out of it yourself.
It's not just about giving. You can get a lot out of helping and supporting people.
