About This Webinar
Welcome to the third session of the NHS APA Virtual Conference 2025. This session is presented by Navi Dhesi, who is the founder of No More Pretending, a non-profit organisation that is dedicated to supporting people with experience of alcohol addiction in South Asian communities. In this session, Navi looks at how culture, identity and community influence alcohol recovery - namely, how these forces influence when, how and whether people seek help. Navi invites us to rethink our assumptions, look beyond clinical models, and recognise the importance of cultural safety and representation in building recovery spaces where people feel they truly belong.

The session will conclude at approximately 11.40am.

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Presenters
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    Navi Dhesi
    Founder, No More Pretending
    Navraj Dhesi is in recovery, celebrating 14 years of sobriety. An active member of a 12-step fellowship, Nav served as Birmingham’s first Cultural Liaison Officer — a role he helped establish to bridge cultural understanding and improve accessibility within recovery spaces. He is also a founding member of South Asian–specific 12-step meetings in Birmingham, creating spaces where people could recover without feeling like the “only one” in the room.

    Building on this work, Navi founded No More Pretending (NMP), a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to amplifying lived experience, connecting South Asian communities with recovery, and challenging stigma. Through NMP, he combines storytelling, advocacy, and community-building to show that recovery is not only possible but thriving.
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    Danny Hames
    NHS APA Chair
    Danny Hames has 18 years’ experience working in the public and voluntary sectors, within criminal justice, long terms conditions and the drug and alcohol treatment sector. He has worked as a Practitioner, Operational Manager and Head of Development. In September 2018 he became the Head of Inclusion which is part of the Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust. Inclusion is the largest NHS provider of drug and alcohol services in England working in both prisons and the community. Inclusion also provides sexual health and Improving Access to Psychological Therapy services. Danny is an accredited PRINCE2 and MSP Practitioner and holds a PG Certificate in Drug and Alcohol Policy and a MA in Voluntary Sector Studies.

    Danny initiated and is a founding member of the NHS Substance Misuse Provider Alliance which was founded in 2016. This is a collaboration of thirteen NHS trusts that provide drug and alcohol treatment services with the aim of supporting and developing best practice in the sector, this included, with Collective Voice producing “Improving Clinical Responses to Drug Related Deaths Best Practice Guidelines (April 2017)”. The NHS APA also aims to provide a NHS treatment service voice to the benefit of the sector and as part of this runs annual conferences. The NHS APA currently works in over 50 prisons and 35 community services across England. NHS APA is currently establishing an initiative across 12 NHS trusts in England to eliminate Hepatitis C. Danny is the current chair of the NHS APA.
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