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‘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.... ' Gabor Maté

This awesome six-minute film from 2017 brings a tear or two to my eyes when I watch it. David Higham had been in and out of prison since the age of 16 and was a drug user for more than 25 years. He went on to create (in 2012) and develop The Well Communities, an inspiring recovery community located in Cumbria and North Lancashire.

Here are the ten most viewed posts on our Recovery Voices website—excluding the main section pages, e.g. Home, Blog—since we first launched the website on 25 September 2023. [NB. Posts loaded onto the website before our launch are dated as 25 September below.]

Like many recovery groups and activities, DARE required the coming together of a group of motivated individuals. In this instance, it began with the desire of some in recovery to do the massive Welsh 15 peaks challenge, and their connection to three ‘friends of recovery’ with a depth of mountaineering experience and skills who wanted to...

So, Kevan invited people he knew with alcohol problems to join a support group which met in his living room. 'Word of mouth ensured that my home was soon packed with people I had met throughout my years of spinning through the revolving door of treatment.'

In his interview with Wulf, Marcus Fair says that the ideas for Eternal Media were generated in 2012, from his prison bunk bed during his last term inside. And Eternal Media really kicked off when Marcus and his colleagues made the film Flipped It!! Here's the story about the making of the film, taken from Marcus's words on Eternal Media's...

An example of NWRC as a whole giving back to the local community was the feeding of vulnerable people in the community, using food from the community allotment and that provided by supermarkets. The food was gathered, cooked, frozen and delivered by community...

In my  interview with Huseyin Djemil of Towards Recovery, Huseyin talks about how Andy Partington, in his new book Hope in Addiction, emphasises the distinction in the way that Spider-Man and Batman accomplish their feats. The real deal in recovery is being bitten by the spider and having that internal transformation (like Spider-Man)...

The source and exact nature of this magnetic energy [of Recovery Carriers] is unclear; it is not something one can acquire in school or a professional training program. It is not so much what one knows or does—knowledge or actions that could be imparted by education or training—as much as who one is and how one relates to others. In listening to people describing how they “caught recovery,” there are consistent themes in how recovery carriers...

A very important part of James’s initial vision concerned the permeability of Penryhn House—activities would seep in and out of the place. This permeability increased over time and NWRC moved from being a singular community to an initiative with multiple communities.

Wendy describes herself as having a general positive attitude to life and enjoying the natural world. Her relationships with people have helped her recovery journey. Thinking about how to help other people and contributing to knowledge about addiction and recovery...

Like a stained glass window, with its different elements that make the total picture, John was known to all of us through many different contexts. Yet, he had a life richer and fuller than the parts we each knew. He was known to us, this diverse and disparate community, by a variety of names; JC, John Dogs, John Quack, John Vietnam and...

'The results of that first meeting, and the effect on my life, were immense. I’m certain that there is a small element of hope—or faith or some kind of spiritual flame—that burns inside us all. I believe it’s never completely extinguished, but can become so dim that it’s almost invisible to us. It was rather like that flame was fanned by my...'