‘Ripping up the rulebook’: Experiments in post-pandemic substance use treatment

If we take death as the ultimate harm, the UK has never been a more harmful place for people who use substances. Death rates from both drug- and alcohol- specific reasons are at their highest ever level.

Moreover, some areas are experiencing their worst HIV outbreaks among injecting drug users in 30-years, and alcohol-related liver disease is rising steeply.

As Covid-19 works to ‘expose and amplify’ existing inequalities, the fear is that these deaths/harms will increase further.

However, Covid-regulations have also brought drastic changes to the sector, including long-sought flexibilities in treatment options and regimes.

Prominent practitioners refer to these as ‘ripping up the rulebook’ and a ‘natural experiment’ with ‘potential for a lot of learning’.

This project studies these experimental practices and what they open-up for improving treatment attractiveness and responsiveness.

It maps experiments in service provision through a UK-wide survey and carries out ethnographic inquiry to establish how these practices re-work treatment and the role of service users’ own experimentations in these processes.

Extending this experimentality through its methodology, the project brings together key stakeholders in a theatre-informed workshop to quite literally ‘rip up the rulebook’ (clinical/policy guidelines) to provoke further thinking and action on treatment possibilities.