As I write this blog post, I’m sitting in a beautiful cottage deep in the North Wales countryside … on a holiday from Perth, Western Australia. Well, it’s actually the work part of my holiday. A time of writing and strategising with Rich Price, Founder of Atebion. Those of you who don’t know me, may well be wondering why a guy from the other side of the world is involved in this new recovery initiative. So here’s a brief explanation …
I’ve been working as a recovery advocate and developing grassroots-based initiatives for just over 25 years. I started working in the field when I was a Professor of Psychology at the University of Wales Swansea (now called Swansea University). I had two friends who worked in a local treatment agency and they introduced me to some of the people who they were helping overcome their addiction to drugs and/or alcohol. It was a new world for me, so different to the neuroscience field I had been involved in for over twenty years—studying the effects of drugs in the brain, in relation to addiction and mental health problems.
I soon realised that this was the field in which I wanted to be working. Around the time of the new millennium, I closed down the university neuroscience research laboratory I had been running, and set up a community-based initiative called WIRED (later known as Wired In) and a charity called Wired International Ltd. Wired In was a grassroots initiative that focused on empowering (providing hope, understanding, and a sense of belonging) and connecting people suffering from serious substance use problems. My team comprised my ‘star’ students and ex-students and, at a later stage, people in recovery from addiction. Our work over the next eight years involved storytelling (written and film stories), research, evaluation, community development (including the online community Wired In To Recovery), and recovery advocacy work.
For personal reasons, I moved to Perth in late 2008 and continued running Wired In To Recovery until 2012, when I had to close it down due to lack of funding. I continued working in the addiction and mental health fields and developed a trauma healing initiative. Most of my work involved running educational websites, although I also wrote two eBooks. The years rolled on.
A few years ago an old friend from North Wales, Wulf Livingston, and I started talking ‘long-distance’ about recovery. He told me about North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) and I eventually visited Bangor. Wulf and I decided to set up a new initiative called Recovery Voices which ‘captures conversations about what works in supporting recovery from addiction, and in the development of peer-led recovery communities, from a range of individuals with lived experience, as well as friends of recovery.’
In 2024, I was invited to give two talks at Bwyd Da Bangor—an ‘Evening With David Clark’—and a talk on trauma, resilience and healing at NWRC. I was deeply affected by my visits to NWRC and Eternal Media, and greatly inspired by meeting so many people in long-term recovery. I eventually decided to write a book about NWRC and Eternal Media, which later turned out to be two books as I had collected so much fascinating information. An awful lot of long Zoom calls were involved! The NWRC book—Transforming Pain Into Power—is almost finished, and I am over halfway through writing the Eternal Media book.
Earlier this year, my partner Linda and I decided that we would take a long holiday in the UK. About four months ago, Rich PRICE asked if I would become involved in Atebion, the new initiative he was developing in North Wales. After explaining what he wanted to do, I agreed to become a Director of the initiative. What followed were a large number of long (often 2-3 hours) Zoom calls between us, as we discussed a wide variety of recovery-related matters and developed a strategy for Atebion.
During those meetings, Rich often expressed his gratitude to me for ‘teaching’ him so much about issues relating to addiction, recovery, trauma, Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), and a wide variety of other matters. I had to point out to him that I was the one who should be thanking him, not him thanking me. I was fascinated by the story of his addiction and recovery, and by his later recovery-related work at NWRC. Most importantly, I had found someone I had been trying to find for a number of years.
I love interacting with people in recovery from addiction, and many have become my close friends. I have a lot of respect for people in recovery, and at times have been in awe. I am amazed at some of the adversities that many people face—not just in their addiction, but also the trauma they had experienced prior to their substance use problems—and how they find long-term recovery. I have been so inspired over the years and have learnt a great deal from people in recovery.
One of my regrets has been that I have never been able to pass on to someone the great deal of knowledge I have accumulated during my career. I think of past times when I was naive and knew so little, but wanted to contribute to the field and help people find recovery. There were times when I could have saved myself an awful lot of wasted time if I had known more than I did.
I now know people who are so enthusiastic about the field and wanting to help people, but are relatively naive and lacking in background knowledge, like I once was. I’ve wanted to create educational courses on recovery and related matters, but have not gone further because I knew that at 71 years of age I would not be delivering them for long. What I needed was people to whom I could pass on my knowledge.
And now I have found someone. Not only that, but Rich is planning to create an army of Recovery Advocates—some people have already signed up—who could also learn from what I had learnt over the years. I had found what I had been looking for! I am so excited about working with Rich and his colleagues!!
‘Often towards the end of our careers we give thought to what positive imprint we would like to leave – some final contribution to the future of our organization, our community, or the larger professional field.’ William L. White