Part One
A peer-led handbook for alcohol and drug recovery
Recovery
Is Possible
Honest information, lived experience and realistic hope from Open Hands Coventry. Read at your own pace and begin wherever feels most useful today.
Free to read. No registration. No judgement.
Safety first
If someone may be in immediate danger
Call 999 for an overdose, unconsciousness, difficulty breathing, a seizure or other medical emergency. Alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous and may require urgent medical help.
Read the safety guidanceWhere do I start?
Choose what feels closest to your situation
You do not need to read the handbook from beginning to end.
01
I am still drinking or using
Practical steps to reduce immediate risk and find help without judgement.
Start with staying safer02I want to understand recovery
Learn what addiction changes, why recovery happens and how life can grow again.
Begin with Part One03I am supporting someone else
Clear guidance about families, boundaries, trust and realistic hope.
Find family guidanceContents
The complete handbook
Four parts, thirteen chapters and a closing letter.
Part Two
Building the foundations
Part Three
Living recovery
Part Four
Looking forward
Staying safer while you are still using
Your life is worth protecting today
You do not have to achieve abstinence before your life is worth protecting. Naloxone, needle and syringe programmes, drug treatment, medical advice and other harm-reduction measures can reduce immediate danger.
Harm reduction and recovery are not opposing ideas. Sometimes staying alive and safer today is what makes recovery possible tomorrow.
Read the full safety guidanceReading experience preview
Chapter 1: Recovery Is Possible
People recover every day. They recover after years of dependence, repeated setbacks, damaged relationships and periods when change seemed impossible.
Recovery rarely begins with certainty. More often, it begins with a small opening: a conversation, a moment of honesty, an offer of help or the realisation that life cannot continue as it is.