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


21st July 2026

David’s New Book

The impressive success of NWRC rests on the foundation of people in recovery helping others overcome their addiction. The book highlights the importance of a variety of factors in facilitating recovery, in particular the role of connection and relationships. It shows how NWRC members have impacted positively on their local...
20th July 2026

Something Had To Change: James Deakin

I decided to rehabilitate myself and become a good father and husband, which involved stopping drinking and drugging. I did not access any treatment service. I worked as a chef for a period, rising up the ranks quickly. The thought of being a chef for 30 years...
16th July 2026

Three New Story Posts: Rob Havelock and Lianne Jones

I just wanted to let you know that I have just added three posts to the Stories section of the website that relate to the conversation that my colleague Wulf Livingston had with Rob Havelock and Lianne Jones in March last year. Rob is Founder of Sober Snowdonia...

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.
12th February 2024

Rhoda Emlyn-Jones OBE

What is so remarkable about this interview, and in a sense what I continue to learn from Rhoda, is how the best of practice is built on the most obvious, but often neglected, cornerstones of honesty, respect and understanding.... Rhoda provides us with a clear message about the value of hope and strengths over negative...
18th September 2023

Wulf Livingston

Wulf Livingston talks about his early hedonistic drug and alcohol use, life as a successful chef, and qualification as a social worker. He then worked with the drug and alcohol charity Lifeline in England, CAIS and later the Probation Service in North Wales. Wulf later joined academia, eventually becoming Professor of Alcohol...

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

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

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...

Stories


21st September 2023

Drug Addict to Filmmaker: Marcus Fair

On arriving at the prison, Marcus was put in a hospital bed. He was so relieved to be there. One of the prison officers had heard about some of Marcus’s work at TAPE and got him a job doing the prison radio. Marcus loved it. He then did some filming and editing for the prison officer. He was now having the time of his life in prison.
19th February 2024

Option 2: Rhoda Emlyn-Jones

They developed their approach, looking at Home Builders—a home- and community-based, intensive family preservation services treatment programme in America—and various psychological therapies that worked. The service name Option 2 was decided upon, since it said to colleagues ‘at the point that you are about to remove...
9th September 2023

Inspired & Disillusioned: James Deakin

James is totally inspired by attending the Recovery Academy in Glasgow in 2010. He listens to David Best talking about addiction recovery, and Mark Gilman describing Asset-Based Community Development approach (ABCD). The latter approach is a primary foundation of the North Wales Recovery Communities...

Themes


19th September 2023

Treatment & Recovery

Wulf Livingston has always paraphrased the role of treatment in the recovery journey as: 'if you listen to the experts [people who have found recovery], the staying off is harder than the getting off.' However, he points out that 90% of money is spent on helping people get off, while 10% is spent on helping people stay off.
9th July 2026

What Makes NWRC Work?: Rob Havelock & Lianne Jones

In her early days at Penrhyn, people there loved Lianne when she didn’t love herself. They gave her encouragement that she had never previously received. All the good things she experienced added up over time and helped her get more and more involved in the...
28th November 2023

Recovery Advocacy, Part 3

After seeing one person deciding to take the journey to recovery (successfully) after visiting the Towards Recovery cafe and talking with half a dozen people, Huseyin Djemil wondered what would the impact be of having a recovery conference in Henley. The first Towards Recovery conference took place in 2013.

Extras


15th September 2023

Ian and Irene’s Story, ‘Living Through Our Son’s Addiction and Death: Our Journey to Recovery’

Sometimes, it’s the little things that are significant recovery moments. Like the many comments from family members who we’ve supported, confirming to us that their contacting CPSG has been of genuine benefit...
20th September 2023

Cocaine: The Experience of Using and Quitting

The researchers were ‘pleasantly surprised’ by the relative ease with which so many cocaine users managed to quit. Their strategies were in general fairly commonsensical social avoidance strategies designed simply to put distance between themselves and the drug.
21st September 2023

Safety and Reciprocity in Mental Health: Bessel van der Kolk

'Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to to calm down, heal and...'

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)