Wulf Livingston has been close friends with, and an advisor to, James Deakin since NWRC was developed by the latter in 2014. In the first five films below, taken from a May 2023 interview, Wulf describes the development of various elements of NWRC over the years. In the last two films below, James summarises the early development of NWRC and its state of development at the time of a March 2023 interview with Wulf.
1. Beginnings of North Wales Communities, Part 1 [7’52”]
Wulf describes that when James Deakin was working as a Drug Interventions Programme (DIP) worker for a drug and alcohol treatment agency in North Wales, he decided that he had to report to management the inappropriate behaviour of a member of staff. He contacted Wulf, who he already knew, and the pair met privately for about a year so that Wulf could offer personal friendship and clinical guidance to help James work his way through the whistleblowing process. James continued the process, knowing he would lose his job (!), but he had already decided that he did not want to be part of a dysfunctional treatment system.
James became involved in community activities organised by AGRO (Anglesey and Gwynedd Recovery Organisation) and was inspired by recovery-related events in North Wales and further afield. He invited Wulf to come along and see Penryhn House, the former youth hostel in Bangor, and meet the person who was subletting the property and filling it with people who had just been released from prison. They paid for their room with their housing benefit. The whole situation was chaotic, to put it mildly.
James told Wulf that he had a vision for the place and asked him what he thought. He wanted to use the place for a recovery community and call it North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC). He considered it very important that NWRC was not like a traditional rehab, ‘sealed off’ from the community in which it is embedded. James wanted the residential part of NWRC to be integrated with the surrounding community.
During their meetings, Wulf and James decided that you couldn’t do what James proposed with standard drug and alcohol commissioning money. Too many restrictions and regulations would be imposed on the organisation. They would be subservient and have to deliver the type of service the commissioners wanted.
James agreed with the guy leasing Penrhyn House that he would sub-lease the place and NWRC would take over its ‘inherent group of chaotic residents’. NWRC tried to have recovery conversations with the residents over the next year, but this was very difficult. You can’t build a recovery conversation unless you have enough clean time in the room. Initially, the only income coming in was from the guys’ housing benefits—that covered their room rent and food, but little else.
2. Beginnings of North Wales Communities, Part 2 [7’59”]
Wulf describes how James had a conversation with someone in the Department of Work & Pensions, a government department which had been under strong pressure to deliver services to the so-called ‘hardest to reach’. The Department decided to fund North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) for two years, with the simple aim of getting people on benefits who hadn’t ever attended a job interview to just get over this hurdle. The funding allowed NWRC to employ two workers.
Two guys who had come from Penryhn from prison had stayed on in the community, and along with new people coming in from the local community, a momentum built. Eventually, mutual aid groups such as AA started to visit Penrhyn House to deliver sessions. NWRC started to organise external activities, such as walks and football games, and a boxing ring was set up in Penrhyn House. Growing food in the huge garden commenced.
Since NWRC was not taking money from the drug and alcohol field, nor the criminal justice system, they were able to choose what sort of person came to Penrhyn House. They weren’t taking people who other agencies didn’t want to work with—they worked with people who wanted recovery. Staff members were in recovery.
Even though James was the man behind the development of NWRC, the community reached a stage where it wasn’t just James who was moving things forward. The organisation was not driven by one person’s ego, and was not subject to the ups-and-downs of one person’s mental health.
Eventually, a stage was reached where James would say to Wulf, ‘I think of the 16 or 17 people living in Penryhn today, I actually think eight or nine of them are now active in recovery.’ The balance had tipped and NWRC was on its way.
3. Community to Communities [6’11”]
Wulf points out that although the organisation was astutely called North Wales Recovery Communities. Initially, it was a singular community—residential rehabilitation recovery community—for the first 18-24 months. Once there was enough recovery in the house, it was time to invite ‘the recovery that was around the house into the house.’ The second community that got involved was parts of the external community, such as AGRO (Anglesey and Gwynedd Recovery Organisation).
This change set up the Stage 3 questions of ‘how we really encourage the house to go out to the community, and the wider community to come into the house.’ Initially, individuals from the house went out into the local community and did acts of giving, and later the whole house engaged in activities that helped the community.
Wulf emphasises that a recovery community can’t survive and thrive on its own. It must not only have its own internal community, but also a group of people who are friends of recovery. This latter group are not necessarily in recovery themselves. However, they must believe in the process of change, and the value of peer-support and the particular recovery community. A number of people in the local community started to get involved with NWRC.
A very important part of James’s initial vision concerned the permeability of Penryhn House—activities would seep in and out of the place. The house got actively involved with its neighbour, Maesgeirchen, a large housing estate located on the outskirts of Bangor. The Covid lockdowns helped explode the profile of NWRC and the size of its footprint, in that Penrhyn House delivered many hot meals and food parcels to people in Maesgeirchen. Ultimately, the lockdowns led to a meeting with someone in the Health Board who asked whether this activity could happen on a larger scale, and then to the setting up of Bwyd Da Bangor, NWRC’s cafe/restaurant.
4. Visions Happening [8’49”]
Wulf describes how some of James’s other visions started to happen. James wanted to make recovery visible and challenge the stigma which is so common in the field. He started to set up challenges for community members, such as a 100-mile in a week challenge. One year, he got 12 people into a mini-bus and they walked Hadrian’s Wall in a week.
Early on, James had two very robust Trustees, both highly sought after professionals. The number of Trustees has expanded over time, and included expertise in law and finance, essential given the complexity of the organisation today. A latest change has been the recognition that NWRC is now the umbrella for three different legal community interest companies—the residential, the cafe, and the Growing for Change initiative.
Wulf points out that James, the Trustees, and NWRC as a whole, keep reminding themselves that they must not become the organisation that they were set up in antithesis to. They do not want to be a standard service operating in the system. It is difficult to be true to what they want, because so much of the funding they require to stay alive, and do the stuff that makes a difference, is compromised, or comes with caveats or clauses. They have this expression they use a lot: which of The King’s Shillings can we take?
Wulf and James keep saying to each other, ‘Let’s just keep doing what we know to be right, and if we do it right, people will come and hopefully give us money to do what we want to do, rather than we have to get their money to do their bidding.’
In a latest development, NWRC has several big local businesses—nothing to do with the drug and alcohol feudal or the health sector—who have said, “We really like what you are doing for the individuals in the community. How can we support you with our financial muscle?” These companies have no interest in wanting to influence the direction of NWRC’s journey.
Wulf points out that it’s been an eight year journey and there may well be problems ahead. But today, there are over 200 people in North Wales who are connected with NWRC and are sustaining a long-term recovery!
5. Looking to the Future [3’56”]
Wulf describes a difficult episode that occurred when North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) wanted to move from one building (Penrhyn House) to another residential area in Bangor more involved in student accommodation. It became an immense NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) conversation. During the planning application process, there was a suggestion that ‘non-taking drug and alcohol users were going to be responsible for exposing students to drug use, as if university students aren’t more than capable of doing their own drink and drug use without any help from ex-addicts.’
As far as Wulf is concerned, the future for NWRC looks very good. He expresses his excitement, as does his interviewer David Clark. However, Wulf points that things can get challenging and wearisome at times for recovery communities like NWRC and people like James. For example, ‘perpetually having to defend what it is that we don’t do, rather than being applauded for what we do. When you become a very different organisation, it’s always about things like, “Well, why are you not following what we consider to be standard risk assessment processes?”’
6. North Wales Recovery Communities: Early Days [6’13”]
James becomes frustrated with the local recovery community—Anglesey and Gwynedd Recovery Organisation (AGRO)—as there are too many people from the treatment system involved who are just talkers, not doers. After setting up a charity, he successfully applies for funding to help people with ‘barriers to employment’. He spends the next two years working with a group of people with substance use problems. The recovery programme he develops is successful, but the housing situation—the council houses community members—is chaos. He decides that he has to take control of the housing situation for the community. Several people, including Wulf Livingston and Sarah Flynn, offer to help in any way they can.
7. The North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) [7’11”]
James describes activities of the NWRC, eight years on from its initial development. It has a residence that houses 18 people, and provides a space for a larger group of people to engage in mutual aid groups daily. It organises outside activities, such as hill walking for recovering people. The Growing for Change project, with its gardens and allotments, engages community members in beneficial activities and provides food for local restaurants, including the community cafe Bwyd Da Bangor.
The latter not only provides the best food on High Street, Bangor, but operates a surplus food club and organises special events, such as a dinner for families with autistic children. James says, ‘We get well, we gain strength by giving our time and efforts away to other people.’ NWRC tries to be of service to all marginalised groups in the local community.