Making the world a better place
You never know who might be quietly trying to make the world a better place. Carly Thomas finds her rural neighbour is doing just that.
David Gibson lives in a sprawling old villa north of Feilding. It’s been a do-up work in progress for 10 years. There’s a bull in the front paddock, his daughter’s pet rabbit escapes often and it is all very idyllic.
But he has another life, one not all of his neighbours know about. It takes him north to Auckland regularly and it takes over his mind constantly.
Gibson is the chairman of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre called The Retreat in O¯ ta¯ huhu. It is a one-of-a-kind in New Zealand centre offering support to people with addictions from people who have been through them.
There are no psychologists and physicians at The Retreat, just people who have been there, done that and now want to help others get the beast off their back.
Gibson is one of those. He shook his alcohol addiction many years ago. He was a lawyer in Scotland and when his lifestyle started to impinge on his work, he sought help. He says the Scots are are respectful and hard-working; ‘‘until addiction kicks in’’. Sobriety was the only way that would work, and he attends AA meetings to this day.
In the years before he moved to rural Manawatu¯ , he took people into his home in Wellington, helping them and supporting them to face their addictions and get to the other side. It’s where he learnt what worked and what didn’t and it’s where he started to put together a solid philosophy on how addictions can be tackled.
‘‘One of the things I learnt never to say, and it is one of the common pieces of advice, is: ‘Look how you are ruining your health, you have to stop’. That’s completely useless in the case of people who have subconsciously decided to die.’’
It wasn’t an ideal situation opening up his home. Gibson was trying to hold down a job and a life and he says The Retreat was a way to bring resources together under one roof.
‘‘Essentially, The Retreat is a substitute for our own homes. All we do in there is just like what happens at Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s about community and support and people getting together. Meetings over the coffee table or in the corridor are often the most important ones.’’
At The Retreat he found a likeminded ethos and a firm friend in the centre’s founder Roger Green. Originally from Hunterville, Green, like Gibson, has a large personality. Get them together and the booming non-stop banter reaches a fever pitch – two fizzing, eccentric intellects who don’t do things by halves.
Green has lived quite a life. He started off as a sheep farmer who represented the Junior All Blacks and, once he left for London on his big OE, he fell into acting and did that for seven years. It was a life full of parties and an excess of alcohol, and 38 years ago he decided enough was enough and went into rehab.
Like Gibson, after he was sober he wanted to help others and he became a qualified and respected addiction practitioner. But he found there was nowhere he would recommend sending people who came to him for counselling. So he did it himself, translating what he learnt through his own addictions journey to make it work here.
Green had experienced The Retreat in America and he was impressed by the simplicity, the way it stepped away from the clinical approach and by the fact it cost half as much.
‘‘The medical model costs so, so much more and I don’t think that addicts respond very well by the clinical model of addiction therapy. It’s the human-compassion approach which works.’’
Green has helped hundreds of people and now at 81-years-old he has taken a step back from the dayto-day running. But Gibson is still there, making regular trips to the South Auckland retreat that sits in a cul-de-sac sliced through by a view of the Ta¯ maki Estuary.
Gibson has helped Manawatu¯ locals too, in his over-the-fence style. A man who met Gibson through AA meetings called on him for help when his son hit rock bottom. Joe* says his son is a decent man, ‘‘affected by a dreaded addiction to alcohol’’.
‘‘Being an alcoholic myself, having not had a drink for a few years, I knew about The Retreat. The key was his desire to stop drinking.’’
His son woke one morning from an alcohol-induced blackout and found his partner had taken the kids and left him. He says he wanted to crawl into a hole but instead his family sent him to The Retreat.
‘‘It was the best things that I ever did. Being at The Retreat took me completely away from the situation I was in and focused all of my attention on addressing my addiction 24-7. The other addicts were all good people. People who, like me, had problems, but I got to see the good side of them. We all supported each other and that support was key to my recovery.’’
Another local woman contacted Gibson when she started to fear for her alcoholic daughter’s life. She too sent her to The Retreat, where she went through the 30-day programme and then stayed on an extra month. Now, on the other side of her addiction, Gibson takes her to AA meetings, after which she sometimes bikes the 30 kilometres home.
Gibson says the approach is not complicated but it’s one that scares health professionals because of the lack of ‘‘so-called professionals’’.
‘‘Ask any of these beautiful people that we have working and volunteering here what they learnt at college or university that will help them change the mind of an alcoholic that is suicidal or an addict who’s thinking of going back. They will look at you like you are mad. These people may not have a professional qualification, but they are the people that can make a difference.
‘‘Government pays professionals to help, and that is honourable. But the scale of the problem here is so great, it is going to be solved by involving ordinary people or it isn’t going to be solved. Our ideas are not rocket science, they are common sense. They are based on an awful lot of experience.’’
Right now, The Retreat’s little population of people overcoming their addictions is mostly made up of methamphetamine addicts. It’s not the usual, but Gibson has taken the opportunity to talk to them about their experiences of the New Zealand justice system. Some are there on electronic bail and deeply entrenched in the system.
Gibson has seen the cycle of reoffending that happens when addicts don’t get the help they need and, with the Government announcing a need for the system to be overhauled, Gibson has become a dogged crusader for the way addictions are dealt with in society.
‘‘In my head, given that addictions drive bad behaviour, I actually have difficulty separating addiction from crime. Mostly, you look at the person and think: ‘If this person had no addictions and wasn’t around other people’s addictions, they wouldn’t have done this’.’’
He remembers years ago as a lawyer visiting a home in a failed industrial city where floorboards were burned to keep warm and the space between the joists was full of empty bottles and cans.
‘‘Someone said to me: ‘‘A job? A job? I don’t even know anyone who has a job, except policemen and b ...... s like you’. Addiction had taken away his hope and allowed anger to flourish.’’
Gibson has heard the stories of reoffending criminals who have been in and out of New Zealand prisons for most of their lives. A current resident says he would get out of prison with $300 in his pocket and his phone with all his old contacts in it. He’d get into town, buy clothes and figure out where he could sleep for the night – usually a halfway house, a haunt of drug dealers and criminals.
Nathan’s* old life would open up its arms and, with ‘‘no support in place’’, with his money spent, he would be reoffending within 24 hours, ‘‘just to get on my feet’’.
‘‘Sort out the addicts,’’ Nathan says. Taking on addictions is a proactive way of tackling the crime, because otherwise, it’s a ‘‘mad, crazy cycle of reoffending’’.
‘‘It’s not hard to see that the system is screwed’’.
The numbers say the same. The prison population grew by more than 700 over the past year, the equivalent of a medium-sized prison.
Gibson wants the Government to look at The Retreat model, which, he says, stands in total practicality. By putting addicts into normal circumstances where they can have normal feelings and reactions, the grim statistics would change. If painting them pink would help them recover, ‘‘you would see a lot of pink people’’.
‘‘New Zealand could have the most successful addiction treatment system or justice system in the world and set an example for other nations. We aren’t doing that. In fact, we have more people in jail than most countries. If we change things, it won’t be by sitting on our backsides complaining about how things are. Because things are bad. Addiction is kicking our teeth out and overflowing jails are a symptom. Change will come through work. This is necessary and this is very urgent.’’
Nathan is determined to stay on the outside now and Gibson is committed to helping him. But it’s not Gibson’s style to save just the individuals who stand in front of him. He wants change on a national scale. He is a big thinker and even though he admits the challenge is huge, he thinks it is achievable.
‘‘The belief that change can happen is enough to make it worthwhile – and necessary. Outcomes are changed by motivated people who are prepared to work hard. This is as true of addiction treatment or the justice system as it is of the All Blacks. It is a matter of goals, disciplines and work, work, work.’’
He says The Retreat is not revolutionary, but is actually ‘‘pretty simple’’. It costs the Government nothing, is funded by the community and although keeping it going is a constant that never sleeps, Gibson says it keeps him going when the rate of success is good. Unlike some other programmes, The Retreat is measured in long-term rehabilitation, ‘‘not just a quick fix that isn’t sustained’’.
In an independent evaluation report by Recovery Resources two years ago, there was a follow-up on people who had been through the residential programme.
After at least 12 months, 53 per cent reported abstinence, 92 per cent reported a better quality of life and 84 per cent were still involved in recovery.
The report concluded The Retreat is no doubt changing people’s lives at an extremely high rate and, with 84 per cent of people reporting involvement in AA. The results are positive.
‘‘Significant improvements were found across all key indicators at the time of departure, including relationships, quality of life, physical health and ability to effectively handle problems.’’
They need more beds, more centres, The Retreat needs a more sustainable future and they need the Government to listen.
Gibson is a man who has a lot to say.
He has had his struggles, his demons to slay and he has walked with others who are doing the same. Gibson has seen, he has listened and now he is ready to be listened to.
He also has a knee-high lawn to mow, a young daughter to wrangle and, more often than not, a plane he needs to run to catch.
*Names changed to protect people’s identity.