“I felt they actually cared for me”: Former Nottingham addicts speak out to support work of recovery group
Daniel Jetender Atwal Johal, BAC-IN co-founder Sohan Sahota and Llewellyn Gomes.
By Henry Green
Nottingham people who have faced serious drug and alcohol addictions have been sharing their personal stories of how a support group helped them into recovery.
BAC-IN has now been working with black and Asian people fighting substance abuse problems for more than two decades.
The grassroots organisation was founded in 2003 and supports people through ‘peer-led’ work – where advice and recovery is led by people who have dealt with addiction themselves.
It sets up action plans and runs one-to-one support and workshops for people needing help.
This week it held events to celebrate its 21st birthday.
Sohan Sahota co-founded BAC-IN with two other people in recovery.
Sohan said: “It started off as a mutual aid self help group as we wanted a place where we could connect.
“We come from the backgrounds of the people who are looking for support having been through journeys of addictions and rehabilitating ourselves,” he added.
“We work for the love of supporting our communities because we feel the suffering they go through with untreated addictions.”
Sohan moved to Nottingham almost 30 years ago, during which time he has been clean.
He added: “I want to see some system change. I want to see investment for community led and grassroots organisations.
“Only the communities can fix the issues but they need resources. Communities are being left behind and that cannot continue,” he added.
Daniel Jetender Atwal Johal currently uses BAC-IN to help with his own addiction.
He said: “I first got in touch with BAC-IN when my mom passed away.
“I have been in addiction for a long time with alcohol, crack-cocaine and heroin and it was very hard to get off it,” he added.
Daniel’s addiction left him feeling like “death was an easier option” – but he is now 52 days in treatment.
“It was hard for me to actually reach out and ask for that help and when my mom died I was at rock bottom, my mom was the love of my life.
“I had no one that I could turn to and BAC-IN was the place that I could go and speak to,” he added.
“I’ve tried to go and talk about my problems before with different services and I just felt no empathy and I could feel that BAC-IN actually cared for me.”
Baljeet Sandhu works for the Centre for Knowledge Equity, an organisation working to better understand communities and support a range of leadership development programmes.
Baljeet said: “BAC-IN has been a fundamental element of support for a number of people who are trying to get through recovery services and have fallen through the nets.
“I think what we need to understand is that BAC-IN is putting Nottingham on the map because the services it has created centres the family and the community not just the individual for support,” she added.
A 21st anniversary event for the group, which is run as a non-profit community interest company, was held at the Trent Vineyard conference centre in Lenton on Tuesday.
More than 100 people attended, including people who have been supported by the service over the two decades, and representatives of local organisations who aid its work.
Llewellyn Gomes was born in Bermuda and has been in Nottingham for eight years. He came to BAC-IN four years ago as a volunteer drug counsellor.
The former addict said that people who abused substances in Bermuda would be ostracised.
Llewellyn said: “BAC-IN has enhanced my personal life but has also given me the opportunity to invite people who live in Nottingham but are from Bermuda to BAC-IN so it has helped their community as well.”
He ended up in addiction and went into recovery in 1982.
Llewellyn added: “Black and Asian people in substance abuse are not the majority.
“In some programmes going on in the UK 21-years-ago BAC-IN was needed because as a black or Asian person, you were the only one there,” he added.
“It was created to help us not to feel isolated and to come in and see other people that look like us.”
Associate criminology professor Dr David Patton, from the University of Derby, has worked with BAC-IN for the last five years.
David said: “BAC-IN are an expression of the community so all of that local knowledge is there in their staff base so that people who are struggling with addiction can relate to BAC-IN’s staff members.
“Their jobs not just a job, for them it’s actually a way of life,” he added.
To find out more about BAC-IN, visit the organisations website.
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