About the Project

Recovery Voices, developed by David Clark and Wulf Livingston, captures conversations about what works in supporting recovery from addiction, and in the development of peer-led recovery communities, from a range of individuals with lived experience, as well as friends of recovery.

We highlight common messages and learnings that come from these conversations, providing a resource for people working with, and supporting, recovery and recovery communities.

We celebrate the lives and successes of recovering people and recovery communities, and in doing so enhance the visibility of recovery and highlight what can be achieved.

We encourage the development of new peer-led recovery communities and their interaction with other initiatives.

Blogs


15th October 2024

From Drug Addict to Talented Filmmaker: Marcus Fair

The first film clip below involve rehab, busking, writing a play, and touring as a director of the play. But then Marcus was back to drugs and the streets… and HMP. He describes this prison visit, which involved running the prison radio and doing some filming, as saving his life. 
14th October 2024

Helping People Overcome Substance Use Problems: The Essential

'... if we are to support those that experience problems we need to understand them as people first and foremost: what drives the inner experience of use of drugs and alcohol, what drives change and how people not only identify a different kind of of life, but also how...
10th October 2024

It’s Not Just About the Drug

The most dramatic illustration of the role of ‘social context’ centres around heroin addiction and the widespread use by American soldiers of heroin and opium during the Vietnam War. It involved one of the most ambitious and interesting research studies ever undertaken on use of psychoactive drugs.

People


20th September 2023

Wulf Livingston, Part 2

Wulf Livingston initially describes the national addiction recovery movement which grew up in the UK between 2008-12, and then how this initiative faded at a national level over later years. What we see today in terms of recovery is very different to what occurred at this earlier time. Wulf goes on to talk about North Wales Recovery...
12th September 2023

Huseyin Djemil

Huseyin Djemil describes Towards Recovery, the recovery community that he developed in Henley-on-Thames in 2012. He also talks about some of his work as a freelance consultant, and reflects on various themes relating to addiction, recovery and treatment. Huseyin is in long-term recovery from an addiction to Class A drugs.
15th September 2023

Dr. David McCartney

Dr. David McCartney, Founder of Lothians and Edinburgh Abstinence Programme (LEAP), talks about the development of his drinking problem whilst working as a GP in an inner-city practice in Scotland. He describes an unsuccessful attempt at sobriety, which involved a medical approach focused on prescribing. In crisis, he...

A RECOVERY COMMUNITY PROVIDES:

Hope
Understanding
A sense of belonging
Acceptance and support
Engagement in meaningful activities
Opportunity to give back to others

A RECOVERING PERSON:

Gains a stronger motivation to change
Possesses an enhanced self-esteem
Becomes an empowered citizen
Overcomes stigma (shame)
Finds a sense of purpose
Acquires a new identity

Communities


10th August 2023

Towards Recovery

Towards Recovery offers a Recovery Cafe in Henley-on-Thames, as well as an online Recovery Cafe, where people recovering from addiction, can get support and encouragement. It aims to help people connect with others, re-connect with themselves and the world around them, and make sustainable changes to create a life of...
10th August 2023

North Wales Recovery Communities

North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) comprises a number of communities, including a residential rehab at Penrhyn House, Growing for Change, with its gardens and allotments, and Bwyd Da Bangor (Good Food Bangor), a community cafe/restaurant that provides the best food on the High Street. Penrhyn House offers space for various...
10th August 2023

Eternal Media

Eternal Media is a media production social enterprise and charity, located in Wrexham, that makes high impact documentary films. Their professional, award-winning producers empower and mentor volunteer film crews, which comprise people who are rebuilding their lives and are recovering from addiction and/or an involvement in...

Stories


22nd November 2023

Working in the Treatment System: James Deakin

James Deakin spent a number of years working in the mental health and addiction field before deciding that he had become disillusioned by the organisations and the commissioning process. At the same time, he loved working with 'clients' and was inspired by people like...
19th February 2024

Integrated Family Support Services (IFSS): Rhoda Emlyn-Jones

The idea was that Community Psychiatric Nurses (CPNs), drug and alcohol specialists, social workers, occupational therapists and health visitors would form one team. The team would look at new referrals and only one person would visit the family, since they were all doing the...
31st October 2023

Feeling Anxious: Dr. David McCartney

We now know that our early life experiences can have a profound effect on what happens to us in later life, in relation to our physical, psychological and relational wellbeing as an adult. These adverse childhood experiences needn't be major, like serious physical violence. They can be more subtle,  but be repeated...

Themes


26th October 2023

Descent Into Heroin Addiction

Marcus Fair describes having a disease of obsession—an obsession for certain things, be it food, chocolate or computer games—from the time of his youth. ’Whatever I enjoyed, I kicked the arse out of, until it kicked the arse out of me.’ Marcus went through a progression of substances from alcohol, to gas and solvents, cannabis...
15th September 2023

Stigma

Our interviewees talk about various aspects relating to the stigmatisation of people who have had a past drug or alcohol problem.  David McCartney describes the negative reactions of a doctor who was assessing him as part of the process of determining whether he was eligible to receive benefits after he had come out of a treatment...
12th September 2023

Nature of Recovery, Part 1

Huseyin Djemil says, in relation to something written in Andy Partington's book Hope in Addiction: ‘The real deal in recovery is being bitten by the spider, is having that internal transformation somehow, that makes you look at everything differently. And it changes you.’ Can you can guess who provides the tools, metaphorically speaking?

Extras


21st September 2023

Untangling the Elements Involved in Addiction Treatment

We concluded that treatment needs to involve a socially engaging environment with multifaceted activities in which clients can learn, implement new skills, and receive feedback from a variety of sources (practitioners, peers, others in recovery, and family members), in order to...
20th September 2023

Aboriginal healing practices for loss and trauma: Bruce Perry

These Aboriginal healing practices are repetitive, rhythmic, relevant, relational, respectful, and rewarding; they are experiences known to be effective in altering neural systems involved in the stress response in both animals models and humans. The remarkable resonance of these practices with the neurobiology of trauma is not unexpected.
13th September 2023

Sapphire’s Recovery Story: ‘It Should All Be About the Person’

They believed that I didn’t need the same dose of methadone as I wasn’t now using illicit or unprescribed drugs, ignoring the fact that it was because of this dose of methadone that I was able to abstain from other drugs and alcohol. Their logic seemed to be...

About us


Testimonials


  • David’s work across many decades has laid the groundwork for words and practices that today trip off the tongue, such as ‘recovery movement’ and ‘cultural trauma’. The Recovery Voices website brings his insights from the field into one home. It also invites us to the meal table within that house. He and his collaborator Wulf Livingston rightly reserve a special seat for the people and communities whose stories we must hear into full expression to move towards genuine reconciliation. Thank you, David, for your continued groundbreaking work and the wholehearted way you convene us into the heartland of an alternative future. Cormac Russell, Author of Rekindling Democracy and Co-author of The Connected Community.

  • I’m glad that this new website has been launched—it’ll help people share their experience of what it means to be human and help remind them of the simplicity of the recovery journey to wholeness. Congratulations to my friends David, Wulf, and colleagues—their dedication to helping others navigate their humanness is something I’ve long admired. Wynford Ellis Owen, Former CEO at Living Room Cardiff, Wales
  • Congratulations on the new website! Bill White (Addiction Recovery Advocate, Historian and Researcher)
  • The new resource Recovery Voices digs into the lives and experiences of people who, in recovery themselves, spend time with others seeking, or in, recovery from addictions. In identifying themes, it draws out the rich diversity of experiences, showing how there is no single 'grand narrative' of recovery, no single 'recipe', just lots of people living out their own authentic lives in ways that they greatly prefer. The site represents a tonne of voluntary work from David Clark in Australia and Wulf Livingston in Wales. Their collaboration in itself shows how recovery seeds in, and spreads from, the spaces between people in relationships. Professor Wendy Dossett, University of Chester, England
  • I’ve been learning from David’s websites for over 20 years now, and his new Recovery Voices initiative with Wulf Livingston has added a new dimension to my experiences. I love the films and through them I am ‘meeting’ new people, discovering exciting recovery community initiatives, and learning even more about recovery and related matters. It’s a little university… and it’s only just begun! Michael Scott, Australia (45 years in recovery from alcohol addiction, 40 years as a drug and alcohol treatment practitioner)