Staff featured in this video (in order of appearance):
- Dr Cosmo Duff Gordon, Founder and Service Director
- Dougie Dudgeon, Team Leader and Counsellor
- Dan Stanley, Team Leader and Counsellor
Dr Cosmo Duff Gordon
At Start2Stop, we understand addiction to be a multi-dimensional, multi-faceted problem. Our main focus really is what you can do about it, and here is a pathway out of that problem.
Our treatment approach really is what’s called the Minnesota model. Minnesota model treatment understands addiction to be a chronic relapsing illness with biological, psychological, emotional, spiritual elements to it. We try and address our clients holistically in all these areas. The foundation of Minnesota model treatment is abstinence from not just the drug of choice, which could be, let’s say cocaine, but globally.
It’s trying to treat the whole person mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and it’s very community based. Minnesota model treatment at its heart is about the understanding that the isolation and loneliness of addiction can be… in fact the way I would put it would be in addiction one has a relationship with the substance. Minnesota model treatment is trying to replace that relationship with the substance, with the relationship with other people and with oneself. We believe that that can happen within the context of a therapeutic community.
It’s about connection and it’s very much about our clients getting the 12-step fellowships. Alcoholic Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and all the other 12-step fellowships. Here at Start2Stop we’re ideally placed for that because we’re in South Kensington and many, many, many of these fellowships were founded in West London. Within a 10 minute walk of Start2Stop’s clinic and of our residential houses, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of meetings. It’s really possible for our clients to really get into recovery as a lived culture, as a lifestyle because it’s just so convenient. It’s all in the doorstep.
Dougie Dudgeon
When you’re in a recovery community, the community get to challenge each other. The community get to work through problems and issues with each other, which are really just a microcosm of the kind of things that you have to deal with out in the rest of the world.
Dr Cosmo Duff Gordon
The Minnesota model is the most mainstream treatment methodology there is in the world. The reason it’s the most mainstream addiction treatment methodology is because it is effective. There’s a lot of evidence for that effectiveness.
Most recently in 2020, the Cochrane Institute, who specialise in producing absolute gold standard medical research, they investigated addiction treatment. The question that they looked at in the Cochrane Institute was, what’s the most effective modality for treating addiction? They compared motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and what we do 12-step facilitation or effectively Minnesota model treatment. They looked at 10,500 people, which is a massive study size who’d been through these three programs. The finding
was actually that the 12-step facilitation or Minnesota model treatment had a 42% success rate compared to CBT, which I think was 35%.
Dan Stanley
The identification between two people that suffer with addiction is one of the things that heals the shame. The empathy that happens there is really where the magic happens.
Dougie Dudgeon
The final picture of addiction normally, and yes, there are always exceptions, but normally is one person on their own in a room using. That’s what life shrinks down to. You know, one person, one chair, one table. That’s it.
Dan Stanley
Addiction is very much about isolation and disconnection and about shame and about the darkness really, that comes from all of that, the depression that it brings about, the emptiness, the despair. 12-step recovery really changes all of that. It brings about connection. It brings about healing from shame. It brings about freedom. It brings people into the light.
If you would like to find out more about our approach to treatment and how Start 2 Stop can help then please get in touch here.