OPEN LETTER: On Peter Krykant, Power, and the Cost of Co-Option

I’ve read Darren McGarvey’s piece “The dark Truth” more than once, and I think it’s the most honest account we’ve seen yet-not just about Peter Krykant, but about the broader addiction policy circus in Scotland. And yes, it’s uncomfortable. It should be.

Peter was a deeply intelligent, driven, and courageous man. He had been through hell and found recovery through abstinence-11 years of it. That should never be forgotten or erased. But somewhere along the line, as the cameras came out and the policy invites started flowing, he drifted-not just from his 12-step recovery, but from the very community that once held him together. And instead of pulling him back, too many people around him encouraged the drift. Because it suited them.

When I first met Peter, it was at the Cocaine Anonymous convention in Athlone in September 2018. I had been invited by a sponsee who was a member of that fellowship. Peter approached me almost immediately and, with confidence, began offering advice on how I could strengthen the charity and improve my approach to the work. I was a little taken aback-not offended, but genuinely surprised. Here was someone I’d never met before, offering fairly direct input on how to run an organisation he wasn’t connected to. Still, I received it in good faith, assuming he was well-meaning.

What did strike me, though, was how surprised-and slightly irritated-he seemed when I didn’t recognise him. He told me he was a well-known circuit speaker in Cocaine Anonymous. I explained, politely, that I wasn’t a member of that fellowship, so I wouldn’t have known that. It was a brief exchange, but with hindsight, I think it revealed something subtle about his desire to be seen and recognised - a need that became more pronounced in the years that followed.

As Darren’s article mentions, Peter began joining us at events under the 'You Keep Talking, We Keep Dying' campaign-events that were gaining significant press attention and starting to shape public discourse. His presence grew more visible as the campaign gained momentum. While Peter seemed confident in the limelight-comfortable in front of cameras and eager to take the microphone-many of the rest of us campaigning alongside him were quietly distressed, even terrified, at the prospect of being interviewed on television or radio. We weren’t media-trained or image-conscious. We were there out of desperation and grief, and the spotlight felt exposing, not empowering. For Peter, though, that space seemed to spark something deeper-a comfort with visibility that, over time, became a kind of fuel. I began to notice how much he responded to the attention these events attracted. In truth, it seemed that the spotlight itself became a kind of lure. The little tastes of public and media recognition appeared to have a powerful pull on Peter-something I now believe paved the way for him to be seduced by the wrong people, whose attention came dressed as opportunity but carried a much heavier cost.

Peter with other campaigners before the drug consumption idea took hold

When Peter first relapsed, some of us recognised it almost immediately. Not through hearsay, but through a kind of recognition that only lived experience in recovery can bring. Some things, sadly, you just come to know. Peter was the kind of addict who couldn’t use safely-we had seen that before. The signs were there, clear as day. And so, quietly, respectfully, I raised concerns. I spoke to people in the media, I tried to alert policymakers. I shared what I feared could unfold.

But the warnings were dismissed-brushed off as if they were driven by personal or professional rivalry. Others in the recovery community saw the same danger. But time and again, our concerns were dismissed or pathologised as jealousy or moralism. That was painful, and yes, it was obscene. But perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised us. People without deep experience of addiction, and even less of recovery, often struggle to tell the difference between care and conflict. What we were offering wasn’t rivalry-it was recognition. We saw a man in danger, and we watched as applause drowned out alarm. The risk was obvious. And sadly, to all of us watching the nightmare unfold, it felt inevitable-that it would end in tragedy if Peter didn’t find his way back into recovery.

Peter lashed out at me and others in the recovery community publicly. He tried to bait us-pulling us into ideological spats that served the narrative he was being fed. For my part, he attempted to draw me into the old harm reduction versus abstinence debate. I chose not to respond-not because I lacked a view, but because I could see that he wasn’t well. He was in trouble, and others were feeding that trouble with false affirmation. They encouraged him, validated his drift, and rationalised his behaviour. Even as the scaffolding of his life began to fall apart, they kept telling him what he wanted and needed to hear in order to continue using .

I was, and remain, friends with his wife. I watched, helplessly, as Peter turned on her too, publicly and painfully, playing the victim as his addiction deepened. That pattern is painfully familiar to anyone who understands addiction: the secrecy, the blame, the emotional chaos projected onto the very people trying to help. It was heartbreaking to witness. Watching her endure it all in plain view was agonising. Addiction often turns on those who love us most. Many reading this will know that experience all too well.

The curse of Icarus feels tragically apt. Peter already had purpose, respect, love. But it was quiet. Anonymous. He wanted to matter publicly, too-a very human longing. That need for recognition became the crack in the armour he had built up through years of recovery. And the wrong people saw it. I had met many of them when I first entered the international conference circuit in 2011. Over the years, as I crossed paths with them again and again, they repeatedly tried to sell me the idea of opening an illegal drug consumption room. Peter, sadly, was more trusting. And they saw that, too. These same actors don’t just target vulnerable individuals in recovery-they prey on grieving families as well. They exploit grief, disorientation, and the unbearable question of 'what if.' They offer a seductive narrative: that if only drugs had been legal, regulated, or available in safer ways, their loved one might still be alive. It's a comforting illusion in the face of unimaginable pain. And for many, in the fog of fresh bereavement, it feels like something solid to hold on to. It can even give purpose to their pain.

But it’s a manipulation. A political project disguised as personal solace. The bereaved are rarely told the full story-the evidence, the unintended consequences, the hard realities. Instead, they are handed slogans and false hope. It’s an insidious form of emotional blackmail, weaponised and dressed up as compassion, but ultimately in service of an ideological goal.

I watched him get swept up-championed by organisations, political figures, and media voices. Not because he was grounded or supported in his recovery, but because he was useful-an articulate figure who could be elevated to represent an ideology, even as his own foundations were beginning to crumble. He became a symbol for an ideology. And when he faltered, they didn’t step in. They handed him another microphone. And when he spiralled further-too deep into active addiction to be useful, too raw to parade-they abandoned him. No longer the polished spokesperson they needed, he became an embarrassment to the cause they once used him to promote.

Peter when he was well

Darren was far more gracious than I could have been, especially towards those who used Peter’s image and story to further their own agendas. My patience with them wore out long ago. I will not sit quietly while people in crisis are turned into political props, particularly in the service of drug legalisation, sanitised and rebranded as 'decriminalisation' to make it easier to sell. All while active addiction is reframed as empowerment, and those who speak out are dismissed as 'moralising' or 'stigmatising.'

And all of this is happening in a system that no longer even pretends to offer people a meaningful way out. Treatment pathways have been gutted. Support has been bureaucratised beyond recognition. Recovery has been reduced to a self-identifying label, something anyone can claim, regardless of whether they've actually broken free from addiction.

Darren’s piece gave language to a grief many of us have carried silently for too long. And yes, it should cause discomfort. Because something is profoundly broken in a system that rewards performance over wellbeing and co-opts the vulnerable for political theatre. Peter’s story is a warning-not just about addiction, but about what happens when power flatters, exploits, and discards.

There is a deeper moral confusion at play. We mistake affirmation for compassion, and tolerance for virtue. But real compassion sometimes demands challenge, not affirmation. And true tolerance as Aquinas taught is not the celebration of error, but the patient endurance of it while speaking the truth. That is forbearance.

This kind of love the kind that offers clarity, not comfort is something the recovery community has long understood. Those of us in 12-step recovery have a duty to each other: not just to be kind, but to be honest. We don't affirm each other into ruin. We say "no" when it's needed. We draw lines. We encourage each other to live not to languish. It’s not always easy, and it’s rarely applauded. In fact, it’s often unwelcome. It is not for the faint of heart. But we do it for each other, because if we don’t, too many of us lose our lives. For many of us, addiction has stripped away our instinct for self-care, if we ever had it to begin with. That part of us takes time to heal, if it ever fully returns. Our self-destruct button sits far too close to the surface, too easy to press when we're in pain. That is why we need each other to hold the line, to say the hard things, and to offer the truth when no one else will. That is the truth we live with and the truth we must keep telling. This rigorous honesty is what keeps us alive. As the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says, "Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves." It continues, "They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average."

As the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text puts it: “We must be done with lies. We must be done with excuses. If we are to make any progress, we must be totally honest with ourselves.”

In recovery, honesty isn’t a virtue it’s a necessity. It is how we survive. And it is how we protect each other, too.

Peter needed that kind of love, steadfast, courageous, and boundaried. He needed people who cared enough to challenge him, enough to protect him. But once he was in active addiction and distanced from those who truly loved him, what he got instead was applause, hollow, public, and performative. The kind of applause that fills a room but leaves a man utterly alone.

Peter in one of his last interviews with STV, 6 months before he died.

If there’s one thing we must learn from this, it’s that recovery is not a public performance. It is not a brand. It is a lifeline not a lifestyle. It demands clarity, humility, and honesty. When power recasts addiction as empowerment, and scorches abstinence as moralising, as though advocating for recovery were somehow a 'Tory' position or a conservative hang-up it shows just how distorted the public discourse has become. This is the whole bit with these ‘anti-stigma’ takes. The underlying message seems to be that if you question someone's 'personal autonomy' even in the context of addiction you’re some kind of judgemental conservative. It’s become a knee-jerk, dogmatic view. But that kind of thinking completely ignores the real-world damage addiction causes: the chaos, the heartbreak, the violence it brings not just to the person using, but to their family, their neighbours, and entire communities. It’s not about denying anyone dignity, it’s about recognising that no one suffers in isolation. This liberal fantasy of absolute personal freedom detached from consequence is grotesquely misplaced in this conversation. It can only be forwarded by people who have never sat at a kitchen table begging someone completely blind to the harm they are causing to get help, or who have never seen a child weeping over a parent who promised they'd stop. The cost of addiction is never borne by the 'individual' alone. It doesn’t save lives, it gambles with them. And when the bet fails, it leaves the rest of us to bury the dead.

Peter needed help, not headlines. Forbearance, not flattery. Compassion with clarity, not politics with applause. And now, too late, we are left to reckon with the silence of those who knew better and did nothing.

That silence, the silence of those with access, with influence, with power, is perhaps the hardest part to forgive.

But recovery also teaches us something else. That if we do not learn to forgive those who harm, we risk harming ourselves with the bitterness their actions leave behind. Forgiveness is not about forgetting, nor is it about excusing. It’s about refusing to carry their burden any longer.

I hope Darren’s piece opens the door to more of this truth being told.

Peter’s legacy matters. But so does the truth. And the truth is, he needed help. We owe him and everyone else caught in this broken system the honesty to say that.

And may those who used you sit with that. And may those who truly loved you find the grace to forgive.

Rest in peace, Peter. Born 13 November 1976; Died 9 June 2025