Duh!' But actually, yeah". And, he says, during a time of straitened local authority budgets, it helps that support from mutual aid groups "is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and is completely free of charge".
In his role as England's addiction recovery champion, it's his aim for the country's addiction treatment services to tap into what he sees as an underused resource: mutual aid groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.
He told a global addiction conference in May about his new enthusiasm for 12-step mutual aid groups, saying afterwards: "I bet those doctors wondered what the hell I was talking about: 'What, Public Health England thinks the answer is to go to meetings which have been going since 1935?
But from a public health perspective, if those people are alone, they're in a very dark place, they're in a very recovery-unfriendly place". It was in the north-west that Gilman first became interested in what mutual aid groups could achieve.
As well as getting commissioners and providers on board, Gilman has to persuade the national leaders of the 12-step fellowships and secular alternatives to make closer contact with treatment services in their areas – there are not always links between commissioners and mutual aid groups.
Each client is assigned a mentor in long-term recovery who shares with them how they stayed sober, tries to ease them through some of the challenges early sobriety throws up and encourages them to get to know others in recovery through mutual aid groups like Alcoholic Anonymous.
These services include recovery schools, peer-led programs, recovery coaching, mutual aid groups, housing, education, employment and social resources.
Through encouragement and support, mutual aid groups may indirectly increase the number of patients with breast cancer seeking rehabilitation services.
Those studies were followed by a longitudinal study on how risk evolves, opening the way for mutual aid groups to develop a prevention strategy within an action research framework.
