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


13th April 2026

A Busy Time Book Writing

The main part of my writing has been a book entitled 'Transforming Pain Into Power: The Story of North Wales Recovery Communities'. The project has been quite a journey, not only involving the writing but also multiple interviews over Zoom with various people at NWRC...

People


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...
22nd September 2023

Marcus Fair

Marcus Fair, Founder of Eternal Media, describes his descent into an addiction to heroin and crack cocaine that lasted 25 years. His last visit to prison saved his life and helped him conceive the idea of Eternal Media, based on the 'Now What?, which makes high impact documentary films and is an inspiring recovery...

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


8th September 2023

Dealing, Addiction & Torture: James Deakin

James can’t sell his supply of the drug, for which he has not paid. Realising he is in serious trouble, he does a bunk to Bangor in North Wales. However, the dealers track him down and bundle him into the boot of a car. He is shipped back to Manchester and tortured over a period of days.
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...
3rd October 2023

Seeding Recovery in North Wales: Wulf Livingston

Wulf points out that all this activity reached a threshold of community that has led to the positive things that exist in North Wales today. He says there are about 20-30 like-minded people spread across North Wales, many of whom have been around a long time. They all know...

Themes


21st September 2023

Shame

Shame often plays an important role when a person is developing and/or has developed a drinking problem. In the first clip here, David McCartney describes how shame was part of a major epiphany in his life. He was asked by a woman if he would see her brother and talk about his drinking problem. On the way home after seeing her...
9th October 2023

Giving Back, Part 2

James Deakin emphasises that people with addiction problems cause a large cost to society, so it’s important that when they’re getting well they give something back. As he started to help others, he realised that there was so much value to giving back, and to be recognised as a positive, upstanding member of the community.
23rd March 2024

Government Strategies & Failures: Tim Leighton

The UK’s first drug strategy, Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain, was based on an attack on drug-related crime. Drug problems were treated as a criminal justice, rather than a health, issue. Huge numbers of people were put on opioid substitution (mainly methadone) treatment.

Extras


19th September 2023

What is distinctive about an ABCD Process – Four Essential Elements: Cormac Russell and John McKnight

‘The primary goal of an Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) process is to enhance collective citizen visioning and production. This paper discusses each of four essential elements in detail in an effort to...
17th September 2023

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), 12-Step Movement, and Minnesota Model

The Twelve-Step Movement developed from Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), a self-help organisation founded in 1935 when one alcoholic, Bill Wilson (‘Bill W.’), talked to another alcoholic, Bob Smith (‘Dr. Bob’), about the nature of alcoholism and a possible solution for people suffering...
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...'

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)