Headed into Amsterdam to arrange the rental of the meeting room and was given a tour of the facilities. 

The room is bright with plenty of windows, on the second floor of the address Geschutswerf 12.. Its small for our humble beginnings but as the meeting grows, we can expand to a larger room. 

The area surrounding Geschutswerf 12 was very serene and peaceful today which makes for a lovely location to start DRAE in The Netherlands.

Great News!

The moment we have been waiting for since the inception of this group 3 weeks ago...we have found a location to hold the very first DRA meeting in English.

Please join us on Sunday October 16 from 18.00 - 19.00 hours.

The location is Geschutswerf 12, 1018 BX Amsterdam.

This will be a closed, discussion meeting open to anyone who is chemically dependent and affected by an emotional or psychiatric illness.

Please spread the word around and we look forward to seeing you on the 16th!

DRAE website has officially launched

DRAE has officially launched the Dual Recovery Anonymous English website. As a meeting location has not yet been established, the meeting directory is still in progress. Please feel free to visit the site:

http://www.draenl.org/

A letter to the publisher

Reached out to Hazelden publishing tonight in the hopes a bridge between myself and the DRA World Central Office can be established. I have asked them to pass my details along to one of the co-authors of the books that have provided the framework for dual diagnosis recovery.

Here is an excerpt of the email I sent to Hazelden today which will be forwarded to the author I am hoping to get in contact with:

I am an American expat living in The Netherlands and there are no English-speaking depression/mental illness therapy groups out here. I have run the gamut from doctors, psychologists, institutions to therapists asking where to find dual recovery support groups in English but there are none.

I would like to start a chapter of DRA (Dual Recovery Anonynmous) for the English speaking expats in this country. I have turned to the DRA World Central Office website (http://www.draonline.org/index.html) and have attempted to contact their office by both telephone and email but neither avenues were successful. All contents of the DRA website were copyrighted until 2009 which leads me to believe that there is not an active DRA office at the moment and no webmaster bulding or maintaining the website.

The reason I have asked a representitive of Hazelden to contact you on my behalf is because the DRA approved-literature includes two of the books you have co-authored with Tim Hamilton. I figured it would be a long shot but wanted to know if you have had any contact with DRA World office or can point me in the right direction so I can start a meeting as soon as possible.


Every day we are one step closer to starting the first English DRA meeting in The Netherlands. As soon as I hear back from the author and publisher, an update will be posted.

Reaching out to Dual Recovery Anonymous in the UK

Today DRAE was in contact with DRA UK and they can confirm that they not had any luck getting i
in contact with the US as of the last year.

As this was discouraging news to hear, this does not impact DRAE from starting a meeting. If anything, this reiterates how important it is to keep DRA meetings alive and to breathe new life into the fellowship.

DRA UK provided great suggestions for a meeting format which will be utilised once the meeting commences. All the suggested literature can be purchased online without needing to contact DRA in the US. DRA UK has had a lot of success with their fellowship and DRAE NL hopes to follow in their footsteps.

Roadblocks for those with Dual Diagnosis

Before the English speaking chapter of DRA in the Netherlands can initiate meetings under the Dual Recovery Anonymous format, it is imperative to get in contact and register with the central office in the US. According to DRAOnline: "The Dual Recovery Anonymous name and crest are trademarks protected, and may not be reproduced withotu express written permission of Dual Recovery Anonymous World Network, Inc."

For this reason and because we would like to pass out literature, brochures, meeting pamphlets, and sobriety coins, Dual Recovery Anonymous English (DRAE) must contact the Dual Recovery Anonymous World Network Central Office for permission. Unfortunately, the phone number listed on the website doesn't work and their contact information has not been updated in some time. I've read posts on their Facebook page indicating that other people are experiencing the same issue and unable to contact them by phone. 

There are a few other avenues to get in contact with them but this seems to be an indication of a greater issue. The website does not appear to be maintained; what makes this disturbing and worthy of addressing in a blog post, is that this is supposed to be the World Central Office for Dual Recovery Anonymous. The copyright dates on the website footer are 1993-2009.  This isn't an indication that the website and database are not maintained but one would expect to see a recent copyright date on the website and literature.

If the database on the website isn't being maintained, then there is not a centralised place people can turn to for resources for dual diagnosis support. This is just an example of one of the roadblocks, not just for me, but for other dually diagnosed individuals who are trying to get help for both their addiction and mental illness.

In the future, DRAE would like to be part of a larger movement that helps people to get access to DRA meetings and dual diagnosis recources in general. But as it is said: "One step at a time."

DRA in the Netherlands for English speakers is now DRAE

Already this group is evolving!

Dual Recovery Anonymous meetings in English in the Netherlands will now be referred to as DRAE which stands for Dual Recovery Anonymous English. The reason for this change is for the purpose of establishing said group for English speakers in a country where there aren't any groups of this kind.

We are waiting to hear back from the DRA USA chapter to establish our meeting (which needs to be created after finding a meeting location) and are making contact with the Dual Recovery Anonymous chapter in the UK for assistance as they have been recently established as of 2004.

To visit the UK DRA website: http://www.dualrecoveryanonymous.org/

Please stay tuned for more developments.