Rainbow Recovery Family & Friends Support Service

Rainbow Recovery was started because I had began going to a family support group when my husband had first entered rehab. I didn’t think I needed support, after all it wasn’t me with the problem, but the moment that it was someone else’s thing to deal with, I began to feel. I began to realise how much my life had gone off course. I still loved him but I hated what addiction had done to me.

The group was great. I could be honest. There were other people who had the same experiences, the same chaos, the same fears. They didn’t tell me what to do but shared what they had done and that alone, helped so much. 

8 months down the road, and I am beginning to feel more like myself, but my husband relapsed. I lost my supports at the time I needed them most, and the only reason was because I had young kids and couldn’t go out in the evening to do a meeting. I see that as the point I could see how much the family support had benefited me and I thought then, there needs to be something for families during the day time and I thought it’d be good if you could bring wee ones along.

Fast forward a year or so, and I met Emily at Edinburgh College studying Counselling. When I had secured funding to set this up, I knew Emily would be an invaluable support and she has been. Emily then started working more hours and it felt like a good time to bring on another person to share the load.

Carole joined us in 2019, just as we started at Tynecastle. I met Carole before addiction impacted on my family and truthfully, she was probably one of the only people who got the full version of events. Not once did I ever feel an ounce of judgement for it and what was best, was knowing the worts and all version, she never judged my husband either. It felt right to invite her on board and we are so glad that she agreed to.

We have done CRAFT training which is focused on families and addiction. It can be ran as a course but for us, we use it as a guide. Rainbow Recovery is not associated with a specific method of recovery for us or our loved ones. We feel that is best because it leaves us able to let our group members know of services that might be helpful for them. The way we see it is, however we take the journey, the destination is shared by every service available – Recovery.