James emphasises that addiction takes up everything in a person’s life, so when you remove that ‘there’s this massive void left behind…. You have to fill that.’ Residents are told they must engage in 20-30 hours of organised activities a week, ensuring that they are mingling with other recovering people and forming strong positive, ’sober’ connections. As James emphasises, ‘Addiction is disconnection. Recovery is connection. The sooner you feel part of the group, the safer you become.’
NWRC pushes a lot of social and fitness activities. The latter include gym work, boxercise, 5-a-side football, weekly 5km Park Runs, and regular hillwalking. Most people are unfit when they arrive at Penrhyn. They are told that ‘emotional resilience begins with physical fitness’, and are encouraged to eat healthily, avoid energy drinks, and ensure that they get a good night’s sleep. They are told that recovery is holistic. James stresses: ‘It’s not about the length of time you’re here, it’s about the amount of work you put in while you are here.’
A core feature of NWRC has been that their residential element was porous to the outside world, in that people from the local community could attend recovery meetings in Penrhyn House, and residents of the latter were encouraged after an initial period to engage in activities in the local community.
To facilitate the interaction between their members and people in the local community, NWRC started to organise various social events outside of Penrhyn House. This started with pop-up dinners at Hendra Hall, then sober evenings at their Organic Market Garden at Moelyci Farm, and finally a variety of social events at Bwyd Da Bangor (Good Food Bangor), NWRC’s ethically and environmentally sustainable not-for-profit café/restaurant on the High Street in Bangor [1]. These gatherings also provided a chance to showcase the high-quality organic produce provided by NWRC’s inspiring initiative Growing for Change.
NWRC has also held music and art therapy sessions at Penrhyn House, as well as a creative writing course. It works closely with Eternal Media, the recovery community based in Wrexham. Community members have joined Eternal Media’s Recovery in Focus, a therapeutic photography course, as well as their Film Academy.
James recognises the social costs of addiction and feels strongly that people recovering from addiction need to give back to society. If NWRC members help others, they will help themselves by enhancing their self-esteem, self-worth and self-efficacy. They will also help tackle the societal stigma that exists towards people with substance use problems.
Over time, NWRC members have acted as volunteers in a wide range of community activities, including cleaning up rivers with members of the River Trust, picking up litter on local beaches, and marshalling for events (e.g. half-marathons, trail runs) organised by Always Aim High.
When NWRC Trustee Sarah Flynn visited Kenya in 2016, she discovered that young girls who had started to menstruate could not attend school because of the lack of sanitary towels. NWRC organised for the wider community to donate various fabrics, which Penrhyn residents cut up into various shapes so that they could be taken to Kenya by Sarah and Lynda Owen, and then made into sanitary towels.
NWRC support a widowed mother and her children in Kenya, and raised enough money for the family to have a house built for them. This residence is known as Penrhyn House. Sarah has been raising money for other Kenyan families.
[1] Bwyd Da Bangor is now run by Bangor BID (Business Improvement District), also known as Bangor First, a non-profit organisation established in November 2015. You can read more about what led to this change here.