"Made my recovery harder. "

I feel uncomfortable posting this as I don't want to put people off, but I also don't want others to, as I did, believe the promises and then feel badly let down. I would just say do reach out for help, but that there are other ports of call, many of whom are hopefully more reliable than North Tyneside Recovery Partnership is.

Unfortunately, my experience with them has only made my recovery more stressful & harder to achieve.

Each of the 4 times I've called, the young woman who answers is clearly too busy to even do the niceties of saying goodbye at the end of a call - I get hung up on every time.

A family member had the same experience & he won't go back, based on feeling rushed & dismissed.

My initial assessment was carried out by someone very young & not very professional: I got the impression she didn't know what she was talking about, but was pretending she did.

She promised faithfully that a support worker would call me exactly one week later, naming the day. I ensured I had privacy that day to take the call - it didn't happen.

It didn't happen the next day, the next week, or the next.

3 weeks later, I finally get a call and a meet with my support worker.

That meeting went well & I felt more hopeful about the service, but actually the only advice I was given in total, throughout my whole experience with the 'recovery partnership' was how much to cut down by, and to reduce slowly.

I wasn't told who to call in an emergency, wasn't recommended any reading material or support groups, wasn't told how to deal with cravings or how to stop myself from slipping.

I was promised a phone call one week later - it didn't happen. I believe it was two weeks later, then another false promise of a call in a week. I gave up waiting for that call after ten days. Don't make promises that you can't keep - it doesn't help people trying to get help with their addiction.

The lack of support and guidance was a huge letdown - without my amazing friends, I would have given up.

The nice offices (albeit in a horrible area) give the false impression of professionalism, but the partnership's staff reviews explain why this isn't the fault of my support worker, who is probably overworked with too high a caseload. I imagine the NHS contract, that I assume is why they are recommended by NHS staff, pays well, yet those of us who need the service aren't getting the benefits, and I susoect the suport workers aren't either, which probably explains their high staff turnover which again must be a huge letdown for service-users.