Daniel Ware

In 2014, Dan Ware (an experienced frontline professional in London Homelessness Services with an interest in Dual Diagnosis and a Degree in Substance Misuse Studies), visited Corbett Monica, (founder of DDA and the 12+ 5 Steps model), in Portland, Oregon, as part of an ‘Emergent Leaders’ Study Exchange Programme (funded by the London Housing Foundation).

Dan was blown away by the DDA meeting he attended and the DDA programme as a whole. Dan gained permission from Corbett to take DDA to the UK and in 2016, set up Dual Diagnosis Anonymous as a non-profit organisation, with his old friend, Alan Butler.

Alan and Dan formed a friendship when Alan was early in his dual diagnosis recovery and was volunteering as a peer support worker at a Day Centre in West London, where Dan also worked as the Substance Misuse Worker. Together, Alan and Dan ‘pitched’ to Ealing’s Mental Health and Substance Misuse Commissioners and were awarded funding to set up 2 DDA meetings in Ealing, West London.

This was an early success for DDA UK because not only had DDA gained funding to run meetings but symbolically this funding had been jointly funded by both Substance Misuse and Mental Health Services!