As some of you know, I travelled over to the UK earlier this year and visited four recovery communities. My first visit was to Eternal Media, which is located on the outskirts of Wrexham, North Wales. I travelled with my Recovery Voices colleague Wulf Livingston from Tregarth to The Bunker, a Cold War nuclear bunker built in 1962 which houses Eternal Media. There, I met Marcus Fair, Founder of Eternal Media, and Lucke Gabriel, Head of Post Production and Producer, for the first time.
After being shown around The Bunker, we settled into the old stores before being joined by Alexandra Magson, a member of the North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) team who I had previously met in Perth. Marcus and Lucke had set up cameras and microphones ready for a conversation between Marcus, Wulf, Alex and I which, we were told, would become an Eternal Media Hub podcast sometime in the future.
I smiled when Marcus initiated the discussion by saying, ‘Now I get to ask the questions!’ Both Wulf and I had previously interviewed Marcus for Recovery Voices. We covered a good deal of ground in the discussion including: how the four of us have come to be in the room together; our individual connections with recovery; a far-reaching discussion on the nature of recovery and how it works, in particular with reference to Eternal Media and NWRC; and how recovery communities survive in the wider system of treatment and support.
Oh, and then there was the part of the discussion that Marcus emphasised on Eternal’s Facebook page: ‘This is an extremely candid and fascinating conversation which among other eye-openers, blows the lid off pharma treating addiction, as a very modest expert Neuroscientist David explains from his decades of research….. well have a listen/watch, it’s gripping!!’ PS.’ Former neuroscientist’, Marcus!
Tony Ormond, Regional Manager at Kaleidoscope/Dechra Newydd and a close friend of the others, joined us in the later stages of the discussion. It was the first time I had met Tony. After our Usual Suspects photograph was taken, we headed for a pub lunch. We all really enjoyed how the podcast discussion went.
Yesterday, I got a real surprise to hear that the podcast was up on Eternal’s Vimeo and Facebook pages. I was really excited to watch the one hour and 53 minute production and was really pleased with the result. Well done Lucke and Marcus.
So, here goes, just click the Play button, go the full screen and enjoy! It’s a long podcast, but well worth the watch. Yes, you get to see us in action! We’ve had some great early feedback from friends who have viewed the podcast.