Meet the team: Dr Stephen Jurd, Board Director

Stephen has been part of The Sydney Retreat since its inception, when a conversation with Roger Green, addiction specialist and founder of The Retreat NZ, sparked the idea. 

“I knew Roger well and he reached out after he started The Retreat NZ and had a meeting with me and a few other people and talked about how great The Retreat model was. At the time, many of the places that used Twelve Step Facilitation such as the Phoenix Unit and Jim McClean’s program had closed,” he explains.

“Our concern was with how we create something that is invulnerable to the whims of the insurance companies and the public service, that is a not-for-profit and charitable so that our volunteers had no reason to suspect that someone is trying to line their pockets.” 

It took almost a decade after that meeting to raise the $5 million necessary for The Sydney Retreat to welcome its first guests in 2021. 

Stephen, who got sober himself in December 1975 and graduated in psychiatry in 1978, says  

even before he had graduated, he knew he wanted to do something about addiction. 

“In the hospital where I trained, the level of addiction and alcoholism was very high – it was horrible. These incredibly intelligent doctors could diagnose patients, could deal with their acute management but knew nothing about relapse prevention – they told them to stop drinking but they had no idea how. So, I thought why not do something about it,” he says.

Stephen spent the next forty years working in the field of addiction psychiatry, giving lectures on the subject, along with attending regular 12 Step meetings and helping others for his own recovery. 

Stephen comes to The Sydney Retreat once a week and delivers a series of talks for guests about addiction and the brain. Weaving parts of his own story into the talks, he helps provide answers to the questions that bother people the most. 

“The process of diagnosis can be quite helpful. It lets you know what the problem is and what you need to do something about. Every alcoholic is pretty confused about what’s going on and I try to explain stuff to them in a way they can related to,” he says. 

Stephen hopes that the next phase of the The Sydney Retreat will see an increase in bed numbers and sober living houses, and the recovery community flooded with people with a greater understanding of the 12 Steps.

“My hope is that The Sydney Retreat becomes a place where people working with addicts and alcoholics who want to follow the most effective treatment model will come to train in Twelve Step Facilitation,” he says.