RIOT (Recovery Is Out There) is a service user group run by service users who are known as recovery champions. Our recovery champions have lived in addiction, gone through every possible way to try to get their lives sorted but nothing seemed to work for us. Until we entered the BAC O’Connor center. We detoxed, went through a 14 week intense therapy programme, put our skills we learned in treatment into society. We also had an opportunity to apply independent living skills into our life style by staying in the BAC’s supported accommodation for up to 6 months.

We have walked the path of addiction, now we walk our own path in our recovery, spreading the message that recovery is possible into services such as the NHS (Community Substance Misuse Services), Addaction, CRI, Adsis, the Probation Service and Prisons. We also deliver personal life experiences of our drug and alcohol addiction to schools across Staffordshire with the Tamworth police. This offers young people an awareness of the real dangers of addiction and gives them the opportunity to make their own choices at this critical time in their personal development.

Riot radio has been set up by recovery champions for another way to get across to people who are still in addiction that there is a way out. We are here to give our experiences and bring others together that have been in addiction and now live free from drugs and alcohol.

The riot radio will also enable people in recovery to develop a transferable skills set and the opportunity to find employment and also to break stigma to show the community that we can and do become productive members of society. We offer options, support and also a way out in the services we work in and now our radio project is giving us another way to give you a chance. Our goal for riot radio is to be a voice of the recovery community in the UK.