A Bermudian criminologist with lived experience of the justice system and recovery told of the challenges associated with addiction — as well as the hope and opportunity that recovery represents.

Frankco Harris, a researcher completing doctoral studies at Oxford University, received a standing ovation at the end of his near 40-minute speech at a breakfast hosted by Focus Counselling Services yesterday.

The event at Pier Six was held to recognise recovery month, celebrate recovery and reduce the stigma surrounding it.

Mr Harris spoke about his life up until this point — going to prison, moving to Britain, attending rehab, enrolling in university and returning home.

Carrying the theme “Hope, healing and community”, more than 100 people came together on the morning.

Attendees included community leaders, government representatives, treatment and recovery partners, corporate and philanthropic supporters, families and members of Bermuda’s recovery community.

Mr Harris said: “There’s tremendous hope in recovery. My life is evidence of that and there’s evidence of hope all around this room today.

“But hope does not require us to pretend the work is easy. Absolute freedom is on offer through recovery, but freedom isn’t free — you have to work for it.”

He added: “There’s really no us and them when it comes to the problems of being human.

“Some of us are recovering from addiction, from grief, from trauma, relationships, some from the things that were done to us, some from the things that we’ve done to others and some of use are probably still trying to find out exactly what it is we’re recovering from. Nobody escapes in this room.”

Mr Harris continued: “For a period of life, drugs and alcohol worked. They did something for me. That is precisely why I kept using them.

“Alcohol gave me courage, it gave me confidence, it numbed things, it turned sadness into anger, it helped me belong and it helped me escape, until eventually the thing I was using to survive started to destroy me.

“That distinction matters, because if all we ask is, why are you taking drugs? Sometimes we’re asking the wrong question. Sometimes the better question is, what is the drug doing for you? What pain is it quieting? What need is it meeting? If we take the substance away, what are we putting in its place?

“I was a young man who was spiralling. I didn’t know how to ask for help.”

Attendees heard about Mr Harris’s prison sentences in both Bermuda and Canada, dealing with the loss of a close relative and moving to the UK.

He said: “Eventually I reached a point where I could no longer continue living the way I was living. I surrendered. I went into rehab, I arrived broken, exhausted, angry and, to be perfectly truthful, quite irritated with myself.”

He went on to attend university and study law. It was here where he became fascinated with “the questions underneath” and started doing research.

“Rehab, university, Oxford, career, home, clap clap. Those things are not my recovery, they are gifts of my recovery,” Mr Harris said.

“The real work of recovery is often much quieter. That boring part, disciplined part — the part nobody puts on social media.”

He said he was proud of the people engaging in and on recovery in Bermuda and “quietly doing the work”.

“Recovery is possible here, we have living examples of that all around us today. I know it’s not always easy.”

People in recovery were not people “to be managed by risk” but instead “assets”, “colleagues”, “friends, “volunteers” and “neighbours”.

“Recovery has given me myself back, and perhaps more accurately it’s allowed me to meet myself for the first time.”

Mr Harris said: “I don’t walk into a ministry or agency or community believing that I’m the saviour and thinking I’m going to solve Bermuda’s problems. Absolutely not.

“I stand on the shoulders of giants, people who have been in the trenches doing this work for longer than I have.

“People with knowledge I do not have, people with lived experience I do not have, people in our communities who understand things that no textbook or university degree could ever teach me.”

A line from Nelson Mandela was used to bring his speech to a close: “A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”

“I will broaden that idea this morning. The strength of a community is not measured only by those of us who are doing well. It is also measured by how we respond to those who are struggling most,” Mr Harris said.

“Bermuda’s work is not finished, and our responsibility to one another is not finished.”

Leslie Grant, executive director of Focus Counselling, had earlier welcomed everyone to the event, while Lived Experience Champions were also given an opportunity to speak about their time with the organisation and their paths to recovery.

Mr Grant said: “At Focus, we believe a person is always more than a diagnosis, an offence, relapse or a housing problem.

“Every person has a story, every person has friends, every person deserves dignity and every person should have the opportunity to have a future.”

He added: “We are celebrating Recovery Month, but more importantly we are celebrating people.

“When one person finds recovery, people become stronger, families become stronger, communities become stronger and Bermuda becomes stronger.”