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.
4th July 2026
In this inspirational book, a series of personal stories are interwoven into chapters focusing on how the exciting initiative North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC), which is based in Bangor, is helping people recover from serious substance use problems and related issues.
1st July 2026
Tasty canapés were provided prior to my first talk, which was focused on addiction recovery and 'My Journey From Brain Chemicals to Human Connection', to an audience of around 30 people. We then had a gorgeous dinner...
30th June 2026
Us residents were surrounded by people in recovery who had what we wanted and from whom we could learn so many different things. One could cherry pick what one wanted to know and use, and without even knowing it...
29th June 2026
I joined and was soon inspired to write a play, which members really liked. I ended up directing the 40-minute play, which was about how drug and alcohol misuse can destroy people’s lives. I was offered a job with TAPE...
24th June 2026
What was my rock bottom? It was every morning! I would lie there when I came around in ‘bed’, wherever that might be, on a mate’s sofa or in a car park, and experience a heart-sinking feeling, an overwhelming...
23rd June 2026
I hadn't felt like this before; it felt like a bad dose of flu. A friend came around and I had a line of heroin from him. All of a sudden I felt fine. My heart just sank as the penny dropped. ‘Oh my god, I'm addicted!’ I carried on using...
23rd June 2026
'She had done exactly what I was doing, and she had gotten through it. It was a Light Bulb Moment. From that moment on, I didn’t feel so alone. For the first time, I was with a group of people who understood me and my addiction, and I understood and related to them...’
22nd June 2026
Rob emphasises that he was the sort of person who would say, ‘Sod that, I’m off!’, if he was asked to do something he didn’t like. But now he loves it when they try to push each other into trying new things. And if there...
17th June 2026
In the third year of my psychology degree at university in the mid-1970s, I did not know whether I wanted to go on to study clinical psychology, or conduct research in laboratory rats focused on gaining insights into how our brain functions, in order to help people overcome...
16th June 2026
During her early days at Penrhyn House, Lianne was so negative towards herself. She'd never been around a group of people who cared about her and wanted her to get well. The people at Penrhyn loved her when she...
15th June 2026
You will learn how Rob developed a love of the mountains, became a mountain guide, and set up Sober Snowdonia. Lianne describes her love of the outdoors and becoming an ultra-marathon participant. In the film...
11th June 2026
She went into communities in Central Queensland and she sat down. She listened. For 5 years - from 1993 to 1998 - she gathered the lived stories of families and communities who had endured not just one generation of trauma, but layers of it. Dispossession. Violence. Removal.
7th June 2026
I have now finished the book I have been writing since last year, Transforming Pain Into Power: The Story of North Wales Recovery Communities. The book will be published by New Generation Publishing in the near future. Writing the book, which is over 500 pages long, has been quite a...
13th April 2026
The story of the growth of Cocaine Anonymous in Scotland illustrates a recurring historical pattern...
13th April 2026
The main part of my writing has been a book entitled 'Transforming Pain Into Power: The Story of North Wales Recovery Communities'. The project has been quite a journey, not only involving the writing but also multiple interviews over Zoom with various people at NWRC...