Breaking Down Barriers (Part 4/5)

Breaking Down Barriers (Part 4/5)

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? In this part of the series, the focus shifts to the people standing beside them – families – and the professionals who either open the door to them or quietly keep it shut. Hosted by Robbie Coffey with guest Daryl McLeister, this conversation looks at why family-inclusive practice so often feels like a lottery.

Some relatives are warmly welcomed, texted, and kept in the loop; others are left chasing calls that never get answered. As Daryl puts it, “the response families get is really, really inconsistent”, and that inconsistency usually comes down to values, beliefs, and attitudes. You’ll hear Daryl unpack how internal values and beliefs show up as outward attitudes – whether that’s respectful and curious, or dismissive and stigmatising.

A stark example from A&E, where a doctor tells a mother in crisis, “This is A&E, not a B&B. Just go back home,” shows how damaging a single attitude can be to trust in services. The episode speaks directly to practitioners, but it’s just as relevant for families who’ve felt shut out.

Daryl talks about common assumptions – that families are “busybodies”, or that all family bridges are burned – and how these quiet beliefs stop workers from even asking about relatives, beyond a tick-box “next of kin, yes or no?” On the flip side, there’s a clear picture of what good looks like: extending the same compassion, professionalism and empathy offered to the person using substances, to their family too. As Daryl says, “Families are not an add-on.

They’re not an extra. They are a core part of my job.” If you’re a worker, could your own beliefs be keeping families at arm’s length? And if you’re a family member, does this conversation reflect what you’ve faced – and what you wish services would do differently?