Southmead Project Bristol

Our mission is to tackle reoccurring problematic drug/alcohol misuse and other ways of self-harming by addressing correlated causal factors such as historic trauma. We aim to provide:

• Specialist counselling services for those who have experienced abuse and trauma.
• Support for parents and carers of substance misusers.
• Training to generic drug workers and other practitioners in addressing the disclosure of abuse and associated trauma.
• Strategic development of preventative services specific to domestic and personal abuse.
• Evidenced based material on the impact of childhood trauma and its correlation with later problematic drug use and other forms of self-harm.

Dealing With Addiction

“I feel I was ripe for addiction because of certain stuff in my childhood. If I hadn’t been given to my Nan; if I didn’t have an alcoholic father who beat my Mum… These things fuelled my need to kill the pain. By the time I took heroin, no matter what kind of environment I was in, what was going on in my family, the heroin just killed it. It made me oblivious; I didn’t care. It was beautiful.”

Research Participant

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