Darlington Rehab Graduation
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16th May 2025
Led by the people we support
Looking for help right now? Since 2008, our team of lived experience recovery coaches have supported people struggling with drug or alcohol addiction in the North East of England. We're happy to hear from anyone looking to take the first step to finding recovery, speak to people seeking support for a loved one or family member, and welcome people from all cultures and backgrounds into our growing recovery community. Complete the form, here, to find the right support for you or a loved one, or scroll down to find out more about what we do.
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About Recovery Connections
Want to learn more about our work across the North East, and beyond? We work closely with partner organisations in several areas of the region, co-create unforgettable events and projects with our recovery communities, and deliver on our mission, vision and values in a range of innovative ways. Click below to find out more about our Lived Experience Recovery Organisation, or scroll down to explore our broad range of support services, and other work designed to support and promote recovery from addiction.
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.
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