History of NDSAG
The function of the group is to enhance our understanding of the nature of drinking and drinkers.
This group was originally formed in the mid 1970's as a forum for people who had an interest in controlled drinking as a treatment goal for people with alcohol problems. So its first meeting in Dumfries was very small, consisting of practitioners, researchers (and one client) who were committing what in those days was a heresy; enabling people suffering from "alcoholism", the disease, to go on drinking but in a managed, sensible manner.
Over the years the group has expanded, both in its membership and its focus of interest. But it remains still at its heart a talking-shop where people can present their new ideas, however ill-formulated, in a safe but sensibly critical environment. That environment is predominantly the annual conference, which takes place in the spring usually in some large seaside hotel over a long weekend.
Over nearly quarter of a century, the group has seen come and go many new ideas and approaches, and is very good at questioning the validity of somebody's new idea. It does so in an informal and accepting way. The group is an educational charity and is financially totally independent. The attendees at conferences finance themselves, either out of their own pockets or by claiming study leave from their employers, or by obtaining bursaries from other organisations . Nobody is paid a fee to speak and expenses are paid only to non-members whom we invite because a member has heard them or heard of them and thinks their contribution might be of interest to the rest of us. Those contributions have come from people from all sorts of backgrounds both within and without the addictions field: anthropology, criminology, education, management, nursing, clinical psychology, organisational psychology, psychiatry, sociology, social work among others.
Of course we are not blind to other 'addictive behaviours' such as illicit substance misuse and gambling. They help also to shape our understanding but are not our prime focus, which is drink! NDSAG Conferences are not training events and it that way they are different from the old Alcohol Education Centre summer schools, whose role has been very much taken over by The Addictions Forum's Durham meetings in September. Nor are they conventional scientific meetings, such as the Annual Conference of the Society for the Study of Addiction. They are much looser in structure than either. We do have formal presentations, but often with shabby, hastily prepared hand-written overhead projector slides!
The ways of exploring our areas of interest have been very diverse, from doing and analysing our own drinking diaries, to playing complex organisational "games" lasting all afternoon. We present "first thoughts" discussion papers, and "this is what I think is the matter with "(insert the name of any currently popular idea in the alcohol field here)" papers. We have formal debates. We are our own harshest critics, but the criticism takes place in a supportive peer group. The group atmosphere creates "mates" who are also critics. So it's a very good test bed indeed, particularly as there is a good mix of practitioners and researchers from many disciplines there. Looking back over the conference programmes, the NDSAG has attracted, perhaps as short-term fellow-travellers, perhaps as long term habitues, the vast majority of leading thinkers in the addictions field in the UK, and some from abroad. It has acted as an important intellectually coherent counterbalance to "the alcoholism movement" and has furthered alternative approaches and techniques.
Although the life force of New Directions is conveyed via the annual conference, the group publishes its "booklet", which is an informal publication containing some of the conference presentations and other submitted articles which are not subjected to too vicious a peer reviewing process. It also presents an annual D.L.Davies prize, named after our first honorary president. It is worth £100 and goes to the best paper/essay/commentary/review submitted. That normally gets published in the booklet too. As well as that, the group has published two books: The Misuse of Alcohol, Crucial Issues in Dependence, Treatment and Prevention. Eds. Nick Heather, Ian Robertson and Phil Davies (Croom Helm 1985), and Counselling Problem Drinkers. Eds. Robin Davidson, Stephen Rollnick and Ian MacEwan (Routledge 1991).
Although it might appear that the group is terribly erudite, intellectual and serious, that is not true. Its purposes are, but they are met with a spirit of good humour and bonhomie. This is no place for the snide or the sneerer or the precious. It is a place for people who enjoy ideas for ideas' sake and are happy to play with them, often late into the night over a few drinks. In that way, it has become an informal leading edge in the alcohol field.
Douglas Cameron
“25 Years of New Directions” special edition of the NDSAG Journal in PDF format
|
