David Clark

Maintenance is the stage where the new behaviour pattern becomes automatic, requiring little thought or effort to sustain it. The new behaviour becomes integrated into the lifestyle of the person. However, there is still an ever-present danger of reverting back to the old pattern—lapses or relapses may occur.

‘So, if you willingly engage in something that's difficult and you do it enough times and you do it regularly, then you become resilient…. And that translates to recovery, because for me, recovery is just resilience in motion. That's literally what it is. It's every day, it's getting stronger and stronger and stronger.’

The huge promise of Dame Carol Black’s two recent reports on drug treatment, prevention and recovery has been squandered by government. Much funding is being wasted, or put towards traditional services who have a tendency to provide what is often called ‘spray-on...'

Claire and Ian, and their team, have done a remarkable job with DDN over the years. Today, it still remains a magazine of the highest quality. It helped realise my (and Simon Shepherd’s) dream of seeing a field that is much better informed than it was all those years ago when...

On 18 March 2009, Tim and I both spoke at a conference in London organised by Action on Addiction and my grassroots initiative Wired In, with the main speaker being leading US recovery advocate Bill White. Recovery advocates from around the UK attended the conference...

... Bill White pointed out that there was a paradigm shift occurring in the addiction world, from a pathology and intervention paradigm to a recovery management paradigm, where the role of professionals is to introduce people to recovery and connect them to recovery resources which can help them create a meaningful life...

I just wanted to remind you about our five sections of Extras that you can find on our website. They contain a wide range of content (66 pieces) that I have written over the years for our sister website Recovery Stories. Sections include one with 15 articles about addiction, recovery and treatment, some focused on Wired In research...

In such a short space of time, the charity, set up by Aidan Martin and Mark Deans, has seen more than 1,100 attendees at its various workshops, including creative writing, lego, film making and art. An incredible 200 people turned up to the film group's premiere video. The charity also carries out work in Addiewell Prison...

'It means that we must actively heal the community and its institutions at the same time an individual works on his or her own healing from alcohol or drugs or other unwell behaviours. The individual affects the community and the community affects the individual. They are inseparable from the point of view of addiction recovery.'

I am inspired and deeply moved by the 'No Shame' Campaign that ARC Fitness organised in 2021. Gary Rutherford ran five marathons in five days, all while wearing a 22lb weight vest to symbolise the heavy burden of shame that often acts as a barrier to recovery. He fractured his leg on the second day, but continued...

'Barring any last minute relapses, tomorrow will be the 37th anniversary of my getting clean. No drugs, no alcohol. I call that a result. I had no idea what I was doing really when the 30-year-old me walked through the entrance of the rehab centre on the morning of 9 March 1987. I had even brought a cassette player...' 8 March

I spent an interesting early evening last Friday here in Perth, Western Australia, when I joined members of North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) at their Community Meeting & Breakfast (I didn't get any) at Penrhyn House in Bangor... via Zoom. I was able to see and hear guest...