While things might have seemed a bit quiet here on mindful monkey, there has been a lot going on. One of these is the arrival of a little person in my life Another was writing up the final part of my MSc, the research on mindfulness in treatment for drug and alcohol use. As far as I know this is the first systematic study of mindfulness with problem substance users in the UK.

I will be reporting on this in future messages but for now here is a summary some interesting results:

That mindfulness seems to improve mental health and wellbeing, helps people reduce drug and alcohol use, and supports continued abstinence.

There were positive correlations between home practice and these improvements, that is, the more regularly participants practised, the more benefits they experienced.

It showed that participants really took to mindfulness and enjoyed learning to practice. It also looked at some of the issues in rolling out mindfulness in Drug and Alcohol Services and pointed to directions for future research.