David Clark

The Connected Community is about places, and about the combined efforts of the people who make them vibrant and made vibrant by them. It is about neighbours taking responsibility for their local communities so that they and those they love can have a decent life, and so that future generations can expect to do the same.

David emphasises that recovery comes from the person. Recovery is self-healing. Practitioners don’t fix people; they catalyse and support the natural resources of the person. Too many practitioners think they are the one to have done the work. David refers back to his Wired In days, particularly the time when he and his colleagues...

Resource was quickly outstripped by demand at LEAP. Research showed that outcomes were very good—people were finding recovery and their lives were improving. Residents were being connected to people with lived experience, and to supportive communities of...

To move forward, people need to have a sense of their own capability and their own power. Their hope needs to be focused on things they can do for themselves rather than on new cures or fixes that someone else will discover or give them. To be empowered, they need...

Tim emphasises that Phil Valentine’s statement ‘You are in recovery if you say you are’ seems to him profound. The statement has been criticised by many people—can someone who is absolutely pissed out of their head and shooting up smack say ‘I’m in recovery’? That’s surely not what Phil means, thinks Tim. Recovery is very personal...

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...

Rhoda’s view on personal responsibility is that you start with the most meaningful things for people—help them understand and articulate their own hopes for the future. Together, unpick the things that are going to help get them to a positive outcome. The personal responsibility...

Gary had various issues when he was younger, namely a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem, and he experienced a great deal of anxiety. He was bullied at school. He used various substances to manage these problems and his social landscape, and to feel accepted.

James Deakin and Wulf agree that treatment services should focus on what they do best, which is helping people get off drugs and/or alcohol, but they should then pass their clients on to people in recovery who help them stay off. James emphasises that people who work in the medical model still don’t understand that.

I got a really good feeling meeting all the [ARC Fitness] team members—they were incredibly passionate about what they do. They say that recovery is contagious, and I have no doubts that there is a massive recovery contagion in the ARC gym and offices. You could feel the healing ‘atmosphere’. It was really good chatting with...

I really felt the power of community during the walk. Not just the making of friendships, and the conversation and sharing of past experiences, but the sharing of the stunning views in Snowdonia.... I recorded my new friends talking about how they felt about being on the walk and how it it impacted on their recovery and life...

'I think if you were to try and understand 12-step culture just by looking at what was written in the 1930s, you’re not going to really understand what 12-step culture is. You need contemporary ethnographic data to understand how people take up ideas, reject ideas...'

My visits to North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) in Bangor, Eternal Media in Wrexham, BAC O'Connor in Burton-on-Trent, and ARC Fitness in Derry/Londonderry were each very special. The work going on in each of these peer-led recovery communities is amazing and so inspirational! The people I met were fantastic.

It was so good to see Angie and Becky. We reminisced about old friends such as Keith Morgan, Dave Watkins, Lawrence Mylan (RIP), Fred Touhy (RIP), Esther Mead, and WGCADA's CEO at the time, Norman Preddy.  I learnt so much about addiction and recovery whilst interacting with the WGCADA team and the people who accessed...

On the morning of Wednesday, 8 May, I presented two talks to an audience of around 30 people, which included the ARC Fitness team and some of the people attending their organisation's activities, as well as invited guests from the North-West of Ireland who were working in...