The Case for Celebrating Recovery, Out Loud
Here is Professor David Best, speaking for the Scottish Recovery Consortium as part of Recovery Month, explaining why recovery from addiction deserves to be celebrated, not just quietly achieved.
In the video, David opens with the idea that there's something incredible in the collective victory of the human spirit, not just an individual overcoming adversity, but the way that determination spreads through a community, and how people give back once they're through it.
He then tells the story of Fergus Ewing, a Scottish government minister who went into a Recovery Walk event as a self-declared skeptic, and came out having watched buses of people arrive from across the UK, calling it "an astonishing event" and a vindication of years of work.
From there, Best lays out three reasons why celebrating recovery publicly actually matters:
1️⃣ It marks real achievement. Treatment usually just ends quietly, recovery is a culmination of community growth that deserves recognition, not a quiet exit.
2️⃣ It builds social capital. Drawing on Robert Putnam's work, celebrating recovery together bonds the community, protects each person's support network, and creates a self-reinforcing cycle of growth.
3️⃣ It makes change visible. Public celebration shows people still in active addiction that change is possible, and it pushes back on the stigma that someone is "always an addict," repositioning recovery communities as an active, positive civic force rather than a marginalised group.
Recovery isn't just personal. It's civic. #RecoveryMonth #InspiringHopeTogether
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