'Connection is the opposite of addiction'

A new group has been set up to help people living with addiction.

Chase Recovery, which has set up the group in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Staffordshire, is run by people with experience of addiction and recovery. It meets twice a week at the Unitarian Meeting House.

Project lead Debs Bolton said it was a service the area needed.

"I've come back to my roots and want to give the people of this area what I got," she said. Bolton has had her own struggles with addiction. She has been in recovery for 20 years.

"It's about having a community, and that's what I lacked when I came out of treatment," Bolton added.

"I didn't cope with life like other people did, my brain is wired differently."

She felt her own experience gave her a unique insight into the support people need.

"I do believe that connection is the opposite of addiction not sobriety," she said.

Chase Recovery is part of the wider organisation, the Staffordshire Treatment and Recovery System. This is led by Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, in partnership with the county council and other groups.

Lauren Gallimore came to the organisation after being in recovery housing and struggling with an addiction to ketamine.

"For me in my recovery I need somewhere that I can connect with people because addiction thrives in isolation," she said.

She described her life during substance abuse as "completely stripped of joy".

Since then, over the past 11 months, Gallimore has worked with various services and had come to Chase Recovery's Newcastle group to help find the community she did not have before.

"It gives me meaning, purpose and most importantly friendly faces," she said.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics published this month show 100 alcohol-specific deaths were recorded in North Staffordshire in 2024, up from 94 the previous year, highlighting a rise in alcohol-related mortality.

Another set of data by the organisation shows 56 drug-poisoning deaths were registered in North Staffordshire in 2024, up from 32 the previous year.

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