City Beacon featured in the Guardian

Nov 13 | City Beacon Team • 11:07

A working life: the addiction counsellor

(This report was written by Jill Insley and taken from www.guardian.co.uk)

Addiction counsellor Richard Kingdon works with City clients in a world where it’s acceptable to drink heavily or take drugs – but not to seek professional help

You don’t have to be a drug addict or an alcoholic to be an addiction counsellor, but it certainly helps.

“If you were an addict desperate for help, would you want to turn to someone who has learned it all from books?” asks Richard Kingdon, managing director of City Beacon, an addiction counselling service based in the City of London.

Kingdon has plenty of experience of addiction. He started taking drugs – “anything but heroin, I never injected” – at the age of 12, was homeless and living on the streets of Soho by 16, and says he has done “everything” to fund his addiction. Then, at the age of 26, he had a breakdown, or “breakthrough” as he prefers to term it, and ended up in a psychiatric unit suffering psychosis.

More Information

New Online Coaching Service

Nov 3 | City Beacon Team • 15:09

We now offer a 24 hour on-line coaching service.

The service currently comes in three different subscription models:

Silver 28 Subscription – 28 day recurring subscription to our Silver service. The service includes ONE email consultation with Richard Kingdon per month.
Gold Subscription – grants you unlimited email contact with Richard Kingdon for 28 days with a maximum of 24 hour response time.
Platinum Subscription – this is our Premier on-line service. Not only do you get unlimited email support but your emails are given priority so we guarantee you will get a response within 12 hours. You are also entitled to four hours telephone support with Richard Kingdon.

You can sign up here

Gambling problems on the increase in Britain

Feb 16 | City Beacon Team • 23:14

Nearly three-quarters of Britons engaged in gambling last year, a survey has concluded.

The survey of 7,756 people done for the Gambling Commission found the amount of betting has increased to levels last seen in the late 1990s.

The proportion of what the regulator calls “problem gamblers” has also increased.

The report estimates that 451,000 people have issues with betting, a rise on previous surveys in 2007 and 1999.

The analysis, entitled The British Gambling Prevalence Survey, was drawn up by experts at the National Centre for Social Research.

It found the number of people gambling in the UK is on the rise.

Nearly three-quarters of adults – 73% – gambled in the previous year, a rise from the 63% who were betting at the time of the last report in 2007.