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


26th August 2026

A Healing Environment: Bruce Perry

It’s like having this big, beautiful, incredible extended family with people that are good at horseplay, people that are good at telling stories, people that are good at jokes, people that are good at teaching you how to do a fire, and you use them in your life at the time you need them...
25th August 2026

A Key Therapeutic Element: Feeling Safe

The environment and people at Penrhyn are geared up to help new residents feel safe and have the belief that they are in the right place. New residents enter a place with others like themselves, who understand them and the world from which they have come. A place where they are accepted and find hope, and where magic happens. And magic certainly happened to Lee Daly when he met Saffron Roberts and heard her story during his first visit...
24th August 2026

Going Beyond Trauma

Traumatic, or long-term, unpredictable stressful experiences, lead to a sensitisation of the body’s stress response systems such that they become hyper-vigilant or hyper-reactive in the future. The latter states may lead to further problems for the person, including being...

People


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...
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...
14th September 2023

James Deakin

James Deakin describes his drug-dealing days in Manchester and cocaine addiction. He begins his recovery journey after moving to Bangor, and spends ten years as a chef before becoming a mental health worker and then a Drug Interventions Programme (DIP) worker. He becomes disillusioned with the treatment system...

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


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...
10th September 2023

Filling a Void & Sewing for Kenya: James Deakin

James could feel the buzz and vibe in the room where Linda was working away with ‘a load of hardened former heroin users who had spent half their life in prison.’ One of the lads said, ‘For the first time in my life I actually feel like I’m contributing to someone else who is worse...’
7th December 2023

My Life as a Chef: Wulf Livingston

Wulf’s first serious ‘career’ was as a chef. He reached the stage where he was asked to manage a whole hotel and kitchen. People have often asked him how he got from working as a chef to being a social worker. There were two main paths to this journey. Firstly, catering colleges asked Wulf if he would take on lads who would find...

Themes


22nd September 2023

Stigma & Kintsugi

Huseyin Djemil describes working in a rehab where staff used to put a cover story together for residents so that when they left they didn’t have to reveal their past. He found that difficult and later said to residents, when he became temporary CEO of the rehab, ‘Do you really want to start your new your new life with a cover story...
17th September 2023

Now What?

Marcus sums up his addiction to drugs by saying that every single moment was about getting money to get drugs... and find somewhere to do it. And then having heroin help him escape from the reality of his lifestyle. When you've been living like that for years and you try to stop using... now what?!
31st March 2024

The Magic at ARC Fitness: Gary Rutherford

Gary says that the team of people at ARC have contributed to the magic and success of the organisation. All but one person have been there from the start of the journey. Team members work in areas where their strength shines through. They get the fact that ARC is...

Extras


21st September 2023

Senior Australian of the Year 2021: Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann

‘Miriam Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann (AO) is an Aboriginal Elder from Nauiyu (Daly River), where she served for many years as the principal of the local Catholic primary school. She is a renowned artist, writer, activist and public speaker, a remarkable spirit-filled woman known for her reflections on Dadirri (inner deep listening and...
18th September 2023

‘Ruby’s Story’: Marion Kickett

It’s hard to believe that it is ten years since my good friend Michael Liu and I went out with Professor Marion Kickett to her home country in York to film her describing her life, country, culture, spirituality, family, education and resilience. Marion is a Noongar leader from the Balardong language group and is the former Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University in Perth. From our filming of Marion, Michael and I...
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)