About this event
This workshop is part addiction recovery group and part creative arts workshop for people who struggle with finding fellowship and healing in other recovery groups.
Many, including many LGBTQ+ people, also want or need alternatives or supplements to these groups. In taming our 'addiction monsters' whether it is become and stay abstinent or reducing the harm from our using, it can be helpful to engage in constructive activities with people on a similar journey.
We will start with a brief meditation, and then we will spend the first half of the group sharing our experience of current accomplishments and struggles, or our story so far with addiction and recovery.
Then after a short break we will engage individually with some structured creative exercises, to produce 'totems' and 'texts', in the form of images and poetic or prose texts that creatively express aspects of our experiences of addiction and recovery.
The emphasis is on the process of making and on using writing prompts and automatic drawing exercises to unearth images and stories that can comfort and guide us in our healing. At the end of the group there will be the opportunity to share our 'Artefacts of Addiction and Recovery'.
A bout the facilitator:
Jeffrey Baker (aka La Chiva; they/them) is an artist, social worker and meditation and yoga instructor; they are also in recovery from addiction.
They write songs, plays, make performances, moving pictures and visual art; and have worked for many years with people struggling with mental health problems and addiction in jails, hospitals, schools, the family court and in the community.
Accessibility:
The Centre's accessibility statement is here.
Covid and mpox safety at the London LGBTQ+ Community Centre:
To keep our community safe, we ask that all visitors do not visit the Centre if they are feeling any Covid-19 and/or mpox symptoms including headache, fever, sore throat, consistent cough, chills and unusual spots, scabs or ulcers.
You can wear a mask if you feel more comfortable. We also have masks and hand sanitiser available at the Centre.
For current information on Covid and mpox please visit the NHS website.