The Tart, the Mermaid, the Cockfish and the Subutex
This booklet was produced from our own resources. It contains similar information to the first booklet but uses a cartoon narrative featuring a character called “Tommy Tardis Arse”. The leaflet uses the metaphor of the tart, mermaid and cockfish to explain the complex workings of partial opioid agonist-antagonist drugs. The leaflet contains swearing, politically incorrect humour, explicit sexual imagery, inter species sexual scenes, a profusion of unnatural and illegal anal incidents and bum jokes.
It may offend.
Each of these four booklets tells the story of a different character and their experience of using drugs and mental illness. The stories are based on real-life experiences of people in psychiatric treatment and the guides contain advice and information about the effects of a range of drugs on mental illness.
They have been in development for over two years and are the result of a collaboration between Michael Linnell, Lifeline’s Director of Communications and Mark Holland, consultant nurse for dual diagnosis at Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust.
The 12th March issue of Drink and Drug News has an article on the particular challenges of this project. You can download a free copy of the issue containing the article or read a copy of it at Lifeline’s main website. There is also a series of video clips at Lifeline’s website of some of the people involved in the project and commentary from professionals working in the field.