Darlington Summer Events
Darlington's Summer Events
13th June 2025 - 31st July 2025
Welcome to Recovery Connections
We’re here for anyone in the North East of England who has experienced drug or alcohol problems, and who wants things to be better. So whether you’re thinking about making a change in your life, just getting started, or have been in recovery for years, we’re here to help.
Looking for support right now?
About Recovery Connections
Recovery isn’t just about stopping your use of drugs or alcohol. It’s about rebuilding your life — finding new meaning, reconnecting with people, and being part of your community again.
We don’t charge. We’re not funded by any other organisation. We’re led by people who’ve been through addiction themselves.
It’s what makes the support we can give you real and valuable. Because we know how hard things can get – but we also know how things can change.
You’ll find plenty of info on this website. But, if you’d rather just pick up a phone and call us, you can.
600 years of Recovery across our Lived Experience Recovery Organisation
Started by just three members of the Middlesbrough Recovery Community, our LERO now embodies more than six centuries of recovery from addiction. Check out the highlights of our more recent annual awards day, in January.
Recovery starts with Connection
Tracy
Regional Service Manager
I struggled with being a mum because of the way my addiction took hold, and it just escalated. During that point that I felt I had nothing left. I couldn’t see my children at this point, so I had absolutely given up. Then I just felt this really soft, gentle voice, and I don’t know what it was or who it was, saying, ‘get up and fight!’ We get into recovery and we start to live. I think the beauty of our organisation is that it’s okay not to know, because we all come from that same place. You’re empowered to make good choices, take leaps of faith, and we’re encouraged to become who we’re supposed to be.
Peter
Hartlepool Community Manager
At the end of my using, I was a vulnerable addict running around the streets. Suicide felt attractive. Then I met someone who I used to use with, who I’d seen in the depths of despair. She suddenly had a glow, and looked alive. She told me about the rehab. Because I knew her, I trusted her, and I knew what she was saying was possible. On the 13th of March, 2018, I got in the rehab, and that’s when the recovery journey began. I’d not been clean since I was eleven. I started to learn about addiction and recovery. I learned how to be a good Dad and partner and brother. Rehab was the first thing I ever finished, apart from a prison sentence!
Michelle
Darlington Service Manager
I was actively using heroin for about 8 years, but I’d probably been addicted to substances in some form since I was 14. Right up until I was 34. I didn’t want to be like that, I just didn’t know how to get help. It took me a while to get recovery. I went to rehab twice, ended up homeless, and my life was 10 times worse than it had been. Nobody wanted anything to do with me, and I realised I had to put some work in myself. Doing this job, I see people come through the door who are exactly where I was, 10 years ago. I love seeing people put their lives back together, and I’ve seen people do some wonderful things with their life.
Shawn
Harm Reduction Worker
After 19-20 years of being a heroin addict I didn’t see a way out. Friends were dying around me. I knew my time was coming. My family were told I wasn’t coming off a life support machine. But thankfully I did, and the first thing to hit me was the guilt. All my family were around my bed, mam, dad, sisters, nieces, all crying their eyes out. I got a chance at rehab, and I will always be grateful to Recovery Connections for that. Within weeks, my kids came to see my and I got to build those relationships again. It’s by far the best thing I’ve done. If I can turn my life around, anyone can.
Want to read more Lived Experience stories?
Check out New Central Media, right here on our website, for the latest collections of Lived Experience stories of Recovery. New Central Media exists to challenge the deliberate and historical exclusion of these unique voices, building a platform where lived experience is not only recognised but celebrated as vital and transformative. The first two titles in the Recovery Pathways series are available to order in eBook and Paperback format, now, with profits on the books contributing towards the authors’ work. Click the button to find out more about publications by New Central Media.
Community Events
Hosting regular recovery events throughout the year, keep in touch with the latest social, educational, and support-based activities throughout the year, and join us whenever you can.
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Funders, Awards and Accreditations
