Throughout our work in Comas we have noticed that recovery and developing connections with the community can be more difficult for people who struggle with forming positive bonds with others – this struggle affects family life, friendships, relationships and life at work. It also affects recovery. Findings from our work suggest that people who feel isolated may be more likely to relapse when life in recovery gets tough, because they have no-one to confide in. They may also find ‘coming back’ from relapse harder, because they have not formed strong bonds with others in the recovery community.

“Attachment disorder” is experienced in different ways. Some people avoid close relationships and appear emotionally remote; some people cling to and smother people, effectively scaring others away; and some people swing between remote, needy and challenging in ways which simply confuse and exhaust others.

Because resilience highlights the importance of friendships, a sense of security and social competence, we are exploring why some people struggle to connect with others. This is what we have found:

• Some people feel a strong sense of stigma. For example, people who have in the past been addicts, imprisoned, looked after (in care), feel different, and lack a positive ‘story’ for their past to use in social interaction
• Some people have experienced very traumatic incidents in their pasts that remain unresolved, causing problems with trust and developing closeness to others
• Many of the people we work with, both people recovering from addiction and parents struggling to bring up their families, have had difficult family lives themselves during their childhoods.

At present we provide 1:1 support for people struggling to find this through social interaction or through their community.

We hope that our work with STRADA and partners on the proof of concept for Circles of Care for people in recovery from addiction will teach us something about how we can help people form enduring and supportive community connections.

However, we are currently exploring funding options to develop and pilot a programme to help people to resolve trauma, stigma and shame and learn the skills to form and sustain healthy relationships.