On Thursday, September 12, 2024, free coffee was given out in Guildhall Square, Portsmouth, by the B-More group. This is a new group of
people in recovery from drug and alcohol dependence. People getting a free coffee were encouraged to talk to group members about their recovery journey.
people in recovery from drug and alcohol dependence. People getting a free coffee were encouraged to talk to group members about their recovery journey.
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00:00Hi there can you introduce yourselves? Hi my name's Sarah, we're in the city at the moment doing a free coffee event, launching our green market, what we want to do is just bring the cities together and talk about recovery and try and help people.
00:20To show that recovery is possible, people that have been in the drug game and things like that and they want to try and sort themselves out, it's possible, come to these things and we can tell you where the right places to go, put you in the right direction and that, having a free tea coffee event.
00:38My name's Ricky as well, 22 years on drugs, managed to sort myself out on the 23rd of this month, 18 months clean, so yeah, recovery's possible. That's fabulous, well done. So tell me a little bit more about BeMore and why it's so important to have you guys?
00:59Okay so we all came together at the end of March, we've all been recovering at different stages and for various reasons, alcohol or different types of other drugs. None of us knew each other essentially, we met and an idea was thrown at us, we got our heads together, we worked out certain roles, weaknesses and strengths individually.
01:23We're now down to 6 of us as volunteers and then we have 3 other peer workers through the Ambition Portsmouth and we meet every week and we've come up with this idea for Coffee in the Square, so it's just to make everybody realise that although addiction is a problematic thing for everyone, there is a light at the end of that tunnel.
01:48If you really want to grab it, you can, I'm 2 and a half years clean, I was 25 years of addiction, couldn't get clean and I come to Portsmouth and I've stayed since I've been in Portsmouth.
02:01That's so amazing to hear. So tell me what the reaction's been like today?
02:05I'm Darren, I'm part of the BMO group as well, it's been really really positive feedback so far, I think what for myself I was, it's alcohol which alcohol is everywhere and again you do feel like you're on your own so like these guys, they've been part of my unity which unity is a massive thing to getting yourself better.
02:31No one's ever alone.
02:33No, you're never alone and this is where I feel, I've relocated to Portsmouth and basically every city has a bit of a problem we think and the problem is really underlying so we're just trying to highlight the fact that it is ok to not be well and not being well is sometimes to have too much alcohol or drugs or whatever and we need to highlight the fact and crush the stigma on it because there is a massive stigma out there.
03:01People just write you off and they don't realise the underlying problems so unity is massive and yeah that's what we're trying to highlight.