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


6th November 2024

Connection to Culture Reduces Suicide

These arguments are strongly supported by seminal research by Michael Chandler and Christopher Lalonde with over 200 Indigenous communities in British Columbia, Canada. They observed that whilst some Indigenous communities had suicide rates nearly 800 times the national average, others had no suicides at all.
5th November 2024

The ARC Fitness Recovery Programme: Gary Rutherford

There is a strong Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) component, to help people understand their thoughts, behaviours, cravings, and the role of environmental cues. They have a good deal of education around mental health, as addiction and mental health go very much...
4th November 2024

My Addiction and Recovery: Professor Wendy Dossett

When Wendy reached what she considered was her rock bottom, a time of absolute agony, she reached out for help. She didn’t go to treatment, and attributes her recovery to mutual aid. As her sobriety continued, her mental health improved incrementally.

People


17th September 2023

Professor Wendy Dossett

As reflected in our conversation, it becomes rapidly clear that Wendy has so much to offer to, and insight on, the process of recovery. She is honest and thoughtful in reflections on her own recovery journey. Rich and insightful in her understanding of the 12-Step Fellowship and particularly the role that spirituality plays in recovery.
16th September 2023

Huseyin Djemil, Part 3

In a third interview, Huseyin Djemil talks about the traumatising events he experienced as a young child. His father and mother were arrested after the former killed someone in their house. Huseyin and his sisters lived with relatives until their mother was released from prison. Their father served time for manslaughter. Huseyin talks about the impact that these events had on his later life...
22nd June 2024

Marcus Fair, Part 2

I was fascinated by Marcus's transition from heroin addict to filmmaker. I loved his film Flipped It!, which was about addiction and how people turn it around and find recovery. He used both the police and people who had been in trouble with the police in making the film. I am so impressed by what has been achieved by Eternal Media...

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

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...
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...

Stories


6th October 2024

My Drinking Problem: Gary Rutherford

Gary didn't suffer any major trauma growing up. He just came from Northern Ireland: ‘… we have a lot of anxiety and trauma in our society. I was afraid of everything, and I just found something that worked for me at that age. But the problem for me is that it was that immediate connection with alcohol was so destructive…'
11th September 2023

Descent Into Addiction: David McCartney

His personal honesty eroded as he lied as to why he could not go into work. A mountain of shame grew, and his self-esteem diminished greatly, as he was living against all his personal values. He was a man who desperately needed to ask for, and access, help. Instead, he hid behind the...
6th October 2024

Enjoying Life in NA: Tim Leighton

Tim fell into drug use in his teens and drugs progressively became more central to his life. However, he led a double life, as even up to the end of his using he was still functioning to some extent—for example, he was attending university. He suspects that his using was was about him feeling very lost in the world.

Themes


1st December 2023

Identity: Dr. David McCartney

Dr. David McCartney describes that as his drinking problem was becoming worse he developed the ability to split what he was drinking from what his patients with alcohol problems were drinking. The amounts weren't that different. However, David rationalised that he couldn't have a problem, as he was in a suit and seeing...
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 November 2023

The Power of Hope

David McCartney describes how a doctor on the British Doctors and Dentists Group helpline told him about his recovery. That story connected with David in a way that the tablets he had previously been prescribed for his addiction had not. The story gave him hope. When asked what he felt was the essence of recovery...

Extras


8th September 2023

Addiction and Psychological Pain: Gabor Maté

'It is critical to understand that although addiction is a problem it is also an attempt to solve a graver problem that is, unbearable psychic pain. To understand addiction we need to understand human pain and that takes us to focus on childhood experiences. One of the outcomes...'
17th September 2023

Community Building

Mental health is not a product of pharmacology or a service that can be singularly provided by an institution: it is a condition that is more determined by our community assets than our medication or access to professional interventions more generally. There are functions that only people living in families and communities can perform to promote mental health and wellbeing... there simply is no substitute for genuine citizen-led...
20th September 2023

Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), Part 1

'Everyone has a gift (they are born with), a skill (they have learned and practiced, and could potentially share/teach), and a passion (that they act on) that they can contribute to the wellbeing of their community. Social movements grow stronger...'

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)