Episode description:

Reclaiming Recovery – Taking Back Best Practice: A Conversation with CEO of FAVOR UK | UHP S4E6

In this compelling episode of The Unnecessary Harm Podcast, Shane Varcoe sits down with Annemarie Ward, CEO of Faces & Voices of Recovery UK and architect of Scotland’s groundbreaking Right to Recovery Bill, the first legislation of its kind in the world, aiming to enshrine the legal right to access all paths to recovery.

Faces & Voices of Recovery UK

Born into a household where both parents were alcoholic, Annemarie experienced chaos, violence, and abuse from a very young age. She had her first drink at 11 and progressed into poly-drug use through her teens and twenties. At 25, she walked into a mutual aid meeting intending to help her mother and hasn’t used alcohol or any other substance since. Twenty-eight years of sobriety through the 12-step fellowship became the foundation for everything that followed.

In this candid conversation, Shane and Annemarie unpack Scotland’s drug death crisis, the worst in Europe, and the ideological grip that harm reduction has taken on the treatment system. They expose how language is being weaponised to control the narrative around addiction, how the term “living experience” was coined to silence recovery voices, and how the bulk of Scotland’s treatment budgets are funding systems that keep people dependent rather than supporting genuine recovery.

But this is not a conversation without hope. Annemarie speaks openly about the generational shift she’s witnessing, particularly among younger people pushing back against managed decline. A must-listen for anyone who believes that true recovery means far more than simply keeping people alive.