Believe in People: Addiction, Recovery & Stigma

This short episode of Believe in People EXTRA features a short focused clip from our conversation with Dr Caroline Copeland
Dr Copeland is a Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology & Toxicology at King’s College London, and the Director of the National Programme on Substance Use Mortality. Today she explores ketamine use, polydrug risks, drug adulteration, and the growing dangers within today’s drug supply. 

Dr Copeland will be joining Believe in People for a full-length episode in the coming weeks. 

#believeinpeople #believeinpeoplepodcast #believeinpeopleextra
Click here to text our host, Matt, directly!
🎧  If this episode connected with you, please subscribe and review. It directly helps us reach more people affected by addiction, trauma and stigma. 
🔗 Then share this episode with someone who needs to hear it!
Browse the full archive at 👉 www.believeinpeoplepodcast.com 
Believe in People is a platform for lived experience, recovery insight and honest conversation. Whether you’re in recovery, supporting someone who is, or working on the frontline, this podcast exists to inform, challenge stigma and inspire change.
If you or someone you know needs support with drugs, alcohol, housing, domestic abuse, or mental and physical wellbeing, free and confidential help is available via Change Grow Live:
📩 Contact: [email protected]
🎵 Music: “Jonathan Tortoise” - Christopher Tait (Belle Ghoul / Electric Six)
Listen & Subscribe:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts
🎙️ Facilitator: Matthew Butler
🎛️ Producer: Robbie Lawson
🏢 Network: ReNew

She had the “perfect” life on paper and still didn’t want to wake up. 
In this episode of Believe in People: Addiction, Recovery & Stigma, Cara Cox joins us to discuss trauma, addiction, repeated relapse, and long-term recovery. We explore how childhood loss, family alcoholism, emotional instability, and internal loneliness shaped her relationship with substances from an early age.
Cara speaks openly about drinking to blackout as a teenager, using cannabis and ketamine, and later progressing into heroin and crack use. She reflects on the devastating impact of her mum’s alcoholism and suicide, the instability of moving between schools as a child, and how substances became both escapism and a way to feel confident, connected, and temporarily at peace.
This episode also examines the realities of ketamine addiction, including physical harm, rehab admissions, near-death experiences, psychiatric units, and the mental health crash that often comes when substances are removed. Cara shares what changed after years of relapse, how connection and fellowship helped her recover, and why creative recovery, peer support, and lived experience now shape her work through Chase Recovery and The Detox Factor.
This episode offers practical insight for people in recovery, family members, frontline practitioners, and anyone interested in real stories of change.
Search terms: addiction recovery podcast UK, ketamine addiction recovery, trauma and addiction, lived experience stories, relapse and recovery, peer support, substance misuse, Believe in People podcast.
Click here to text our host, Matt, directly!
🎧  If this episode connected with you, please subscribe and review. It directly helps us reach more people affected by addiction, trauma and stigma. 
🔗 Then share this episode with someone who needs to hear it!
Browse the full archive at 👉 www.believeinpeoplepodcast.com 
Believe in People is a platform for lived experience, recovery insight and honest conversation. Whether you’re in recovery, supporting someone who is, or working on the frontline, this podcast exists to inform, challenge stigma and inspire change.
If you or someone you know needs support with drugs, alcohol, housing, domestic abuse, or mental and physical wellbeing, free and confidential help is available via Change Grow Live:
📩 Contact: [email protected]
🎵 Music: “Jonathan Tortoise” - Christopher Tait (Belle Ghoul / Electric Six)
Listen & Subscribe:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts
🎙️ Facilitator: Matthew Butler
🎛️ Producer: Robbie Lawson
🏢 Network: ReNew

In this special episode of Believe in People: EXTRA, we present a unique collaboration with Apple Music and the Radio Academy Award-winning podcast Classical Connections, hosted by world-renowned pianist and composer Alexis Ffrench.
Originally broadcast as part of the celebrated 60-Second Sonata segment, Alexis invited host Matthew Butler to share a deeply personal reflection on trauma, addiction and stigma. In response, Alexis composed an original piano piece that can be heard at the end of this mini episode - a bespoke composition capturing the emotional weight, hope, and humanity within Butler’s story and why non-judgemental listening remains one of the most powerful tools in recovery.
In an extraordinary gesture of support for the recovery community, Apple Music has donated both the composition “Believe” and the full interview audio for wider public use - helping bring conversations about stigma, compassion, and addiction recovery to new audiences.
Listen to the full conversation with Alexis and Matt here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4qpy20dulem9zFfDc6R1Fh
#believeinpeople #believeinpeoplepodcast #believeinpeopleextra
Click here to text our host, Matt, directly!
🎧  If this episode connected with you, please subscribe and review. It directly helps us reach more people affected by addiction, trauma and stigma. 
🔗 Then share this episode with someone who needs to hear it!
Browse the full archive at 👉 www.believeinpeoplepodcast.com 
Believe in People is a platform for lived experience, recovery insight and honest conversation. Whether you’re in recovery, supporting someone who is, or working on the frontline, this podcast exists to inform, challenge stigma and inspire change.
If you or someone you know needs support with drugs, alcohol, housing, domestic abuse, or mental and physical wellbeing, free and confidential help is available via Change Grow Live:
📩 Contact: [email protected]
🎵 Music: “Jonathan Tortoise” - Christopher Tait (Belle Ghoul / Electric Six)
Listen & Subscribe:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts
🎙️ Facilitator: Matthew Butler
🎛️ Producer: Robbie Lawson
🏢 Network: ReNew

In this episode of Believe in People: Addiction, Recovery & Stigma, Neil Firbank joins us to discuss heroin addiction recovery and how connection and purpose can transform lives. 
We explore themes of addiction recovery, trauma, peer support, mental health, and the lived experiences that shaped Neil’s journey - from homelessness, injecting and suicidal thoughts, to treatment, group work, and building what became the National Recovery Games. 
This episode offers practical insight for people in recovery, family members, frontline practitioners, and anyone interested in real stories of change.
Search terms: addiction recovery podcast UK, lived experience stories, peer support, trauma and recovery, substance misuse.
Click here to text our host, Matt, directly!
🎧  If this episode connected with you, please subscribe and review. It directly helps us reach more people affected by addiction, trauma and stigma. 
🔗 Then share this episode with someone who needs to hear it!
Browse the full archive at 👉 www.believeinpeoplepodcast.com 
Believe in People is a platform for lived experience, recovery insight and honest conversation. Whether you’re in recovery, supporting someone who is, or working on the frontline, this podcast exists to inform, challenge stigma and inspire change.
If you or someone you know needs support with drugs, alcohol, housing, domestic abuse, or mental and physical wellbeing, free and confidential help is available via Change Grow Live:
📩 Contact: [email protected]
🎵 Music: “Jonathan Tortoise” - Christopher Tait (Belle Ghoul / Electric Six)
Listen & Subscribe:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts
🎙️ Facilitator: Matthew Butler
🎛️ Producer: Robbie Lawson
🏢 Network: ReNew

In this episode of Believe in People Extra, Bea Wood joins us to challenge one of the most common myths about Tourette’s - that it is simply about swearing.
Bea explains the difference between coprolalia and the more common motor and vocal tics that shape everyday life and the need for constant safety awareness. 
The conversation explores intrusive thoughts and urges, why suppressing tics can make them worse, and how anxiety and social context can intensify symptoms.
We also examine the emotional toll of stigma, including the distress of taboo or racial tics, and the difference between laughing with someone and laughing at them. 
Bea reflects on how media portrayals and selective editing can reinforce misunderstanding, while highlighting practical steps that communities can take to offer meaningful support.
This episode offers practical insight for people living with Tourette’s, family members, frontline practitioners, and anyone seeking to better understand the neurological reality behind the condition.
You can listen to the full episode here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5MpnmlSImp2ebYTkUXdVCb?si=F3YszPa2RLiMt9sbRnDx3g
#believeinpeople #believeinpeoplepodcast #believeinpeopleextra
Click here to text our host, Matt, directly!
🎧  If this episode connected with you, please subscribe and review. It directly helps us reach more people affected by addiction, trauma and stigma. 
🔗 Then share this episode with someone who needs to hear it!
Browse the full archive at 👉 www.believeinpeoplepodcast.com 
Believe in People is a platform for lived experience, recovery insight and honest conversation. Whether you’re in recovery, supporting someone who is, or working on the frontline, this podcast exists to inform, challenge stigma and inspire change.
If you or someone you know needs support with drugs, alcohol, housing, domestic abuse, or mental and physical wellbeing, free and confidential help is available via Change Grow Live:
📩 Contact: [email protected]
🎵 Music: “Jonathan Tortoise” - Christopher Tait (Belle Ghoul / Electric Six)
Listen & Subscribe:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts
🎙️ Facilitator: Matthew Butler
🎛️ Producer: Robbie Lawson
🏢 Network: ReNew