GP's own recovery from alcoholism inspired a career that helped hundreds of Scots

dailyrecord.co.uk:

One of Scotland’s most influential experts on rehab has told how his own battle with addiction inspired him to help others to recovery.Dr David McCartney recently marked 20 years of sobriety after falling into alcoholism as a GP in Edinburgh.He faced a mountain to climb to put the addiction behind him and get his mind and body back on track, with residential rehab a key building block of his recovery.Dr McCartney used his own trauma as a vital tool in helping others, completing for a Masters degree in alcohol and drug studies before forming the Lothians and Edinburgh Abstinence Programme (LEAP), Scotland’s only NHS therapeutic community rehabilitation centre.The doctor announced details of a groundbreaking “peer bridger programme” - which has just recruited six workers to help steer people out of their addiction with intensive support before, during and after rehab.Dr McCartney, 63, acknowledges how it was relatively easy it was for him, as a well-off GP in 2003, to seek help compared to the clients he sees coming through LEAP.He said: “I feel inspired on a daily basis and I do identify with the struggles people have.“I feel very much that people with experience of addiction have a lot to bring to the field, in terms of credibility and knowledge and we hope to see very good results.“A lot of our patients don’t have the kind of resources I had when I went to treatment, which was very open to me as a GP.

So I really do feel their achievement seems much, much greater, although I’m not diminishing what I’ve been through.”Dr McCartney his own rehab was hugely impactful but, despite having been a doctor and trying to support people with addiction, he realised he knew very little about the physical and social pricesses that