New Zealand biker run for addict's families..

A biker run of the country this month is for families hit by the addictions of family members.

The Great New Zealand Ride was the brainchild of a supporter of Christchurch's 15 year old Familial Trust who organised a 9 day bike route that is promoted as “not for the faint hearted.” The ride starts on 23 October.

Familial Trust co-founder Graeme Watson who is taking part in the epic fundraiser for the trust says that he falls into this category.

“I'm more than just faint hearted, after over 30 years off a bike you could put me down as just plain terrified” says Graeme.

He could not turn down the idea of taking part because it was such an “exciting way to raise funds and awareness for the family members of people with addictions.”

In post quakes Christchurch the demand for the services of the trust had never been higher with staff working at capacity for several years now.

As demand has soared and cases become more complex the work involved in getting the funding to run the trust has also got more prescriptive and labour intensive.

“The rest of New Zealand assumes the worst impacts of the quakes are over but I can tell them for family members of addicts that's not the case at all,” said Graeme.

Crowded poor quality housing rental housing and high rents had acted as a pressure cooker of families with addiction issues.

The double whammy of an upsurge in demand and more stringent funding systems had distracted from the main work of the Familial Trust.

“We realised that if we want to focus on doing what we do best we will need to become self-funding in the long term.”

The Great New Zealand ride was a way to begin this journey toward eventual self-sufficiency.

A recovering alcoholic and gambler himself Graeme and his wife Karen set up the trust 15 years ago to try and provide a support and recovery system for the family members of addicts.

They have been supported and mentored in their project by experts from as far away as the Betty Ford clinic in the United States.

“We have a very simple story to us really,” said Karen.

“We were very unwell with active addiction, now we are better and we want other families to have the chance to heal like we have.”

They have set up the Familial Trust Give A Little Page: https://givealittle.co.nz/org/familialtrust/pages

ENDS

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