The idea of a Blog page is that we will regularly be posting a wide variety of different content. The page will not only contain posts related to our Recovery Voices interviews, but also include key information about addiction, recovery and treatment, latest happenings within the recovery communities with which we are collaborating, and relevant news and information from the wider world. We also hope to have contributions from guest bloggers from time-to-time.
3rd September 2026
North Wales Recovery Communities have been ‘feeding’ the community ‘petri dish’ with charismatic Recovery Carriers. Each one of these individuals is helping change the lives of other people in the wider community, both in terms of the present, but also the future.
26th August 2026
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
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
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...
19th August 2026
In trying to understand the nature of trauma, we need to look at three different components. Firstly, the Event (or events) itself. Secondly, the Experience of the event—whether it is physically or emotionally harmful, or life-threatening. Thirdly, the adverse Effects on functioning...
18th August 2026
I remember hearing the phrase, ‘When the penny drops’, but I never really understood what it meant, until ‘the penny dropped’. And I think until you reach that moment when you properly understand that you have changed...
17th August 2026
‘You've got to approach this from a humble point of view, that you don't know everything. That you’ve just got this idea for how it should be, but you've got to be prepared to adapt and switch with the demands of what the community wants, and everything that comes with that.'
8th August 2026
’All the fear, all the anxiety, all the pain left me. The emotions were still there, I was still raw, I was still crying. I was still coming to terms with the person I was, the person I was becoming, but all the pain had gone.'
7th August 2026
Nick explains that ‘through his life, one pain-in-the-backside officer, Alec Owen,’ an inspector with Merseyside police, never gave up on him. Whenever he was arrested, Alec turned up to see him, just wanting to help him.
6th August 2026
... people were standing and cheering when someone was being interviewed. Every now and again there was a standing ovation. People were laughing and crying throughout. At the end of the film, the place erupted.
5th August 2026
So, I had to find as actors, the worst of the worst who had turned their lives around. Luckily, I had friends in low places. I also had to deal with my film crew of three police officers, who were not happy being seconded to...
4th August 2026
That was part of the beauty of Flipped It. Absolutely nobody knew what they were doing, whether it be on the police side or on the people in recovery side of things. It totally levelled the playing field that everybody, bar me...
3rd August 2026
I discovered then the power of storytelling. If you want to change people's opinions, then you’ve got to get them to listen to a story. You can show them charts and graphs and make a solid business case, but it’s not going to have the same impact as creating an emotional buy-in...
30th July 2026
That was the first time that I saw what I now know is the transformation of pain into power. Her power, in this instance, was to show me that recovery was possible! So, I thought, ‘Maybe I can do this recovery?’ However, I was still filled with fear.
29th July 2026
James Deakin set about developing the NWRC Recovery Programme within Penrhyn House, attended by both residents and outside community members, with the aim of creating as many elements as possible that facilitate...