We are a community based recovery centre that has an “all addictions” approach (e.g. gambling, alcohol, sex, drugs, eating disorder), and welcomes anyone who needs support taking that first step towards recovery or wanting to maintain their ongoing recovery. We also welcome and provide advice and support for family members, partners and friends who have been affected by these addictions. All information that you disclose to us will be treated in the strictest confidence.
What is peer based support?
Peer based support is a form of social support from individuals who have similar characteristics and experiential knowledge. Peer based support is based on an informal language principle, with greater focus on wellness, social support and personal strength. The unique aspect of peer based recovery programs is the mutual helping, which has beneficial effects on recovery process for both peer helper as well as the client. All our recovery coaches have previous personal experiences of life with addiction and have been in successful recovery for at least 2 years.
Become a volunteer. There are a number of ways in which you can get involved with the work of Living Room Cardiff:
Help us with our offices
Help us with the day-to-day running of the centre, which can include a range of activities from administration to organising fundraising events.
Offer your professional expertise
We always need skilled individuals, or those with professional expertise to offer their services to help us keep the Centre effective and efficiently run:
IT
Accountancy
Health and Safety
Legal
Human Resources
Offer your skills
If you are a skilled artist, musician and would like to volunteer–please do not hesitate to get involved:
Volunteers with craftsperson skills such as carpentry, painting and decorating, sign writing etc.
Artists and musicians that can work with clients on creative projects.
Holistic therapies
Donate gifts and materials
In order to run workshops, courses and organize outings we are also in need of variety of materials, spare furniture or gifts that can help to make the Living Room running. Please, get in touch if you are someone who is willing to contribute through donating:
Gift of housekeeping items and refreshments.
Office equipment including desks, filing cabinets, tables, chairs and PC’s,
Office Plants.
Materials for painting and decorating
Books, cd’s etc.
Days out for clients and clients’ children attending crèche (local attractions, transport costs, etc).
For more information on how to get involved please contact us by email [email protected] or telephone 029 2030 2101.
Drugs: Consider seeking help if you answer “yes” to any of the following questions…
Do you use drugs to escape when problems seem too much to bear?
Do you find that your using is interfering with your eating and sleeping?
Do you find it difficult to stop/control your drug use?
Do you find that your drug use is causing, or has caused upset in your family or place of work?
Do other non-drug using people say your drug taking is out of control?
Do you, or have you ever substituted one drug for another?
Do you take increasingly larger amounts of a drug to get the desired effect?
Do you, or have you ever taken one drug to overcome the effects of another?
Do you steal drugs, or have you ever stolen to obtain drugs?
Do you get into trouble with the police, or have you ever been arrested as a result of using drugs?
Call today
Call today for a confidential chat and professional assessment if you feel you may have a problem with drugs 02920 407 407
Alternatively, you may prefer to ring the NA National Helpline number: 0300 999 1212 (calls charged at local rate)
We have a team of addiction specialists, including addictions counsellors, recovery coaches and a team of peer mentors who run group support sessions, as well as offering individual support. All our recovery coaches and peer mentors are well trained and qualified and have a minimum of 2 years in recovery. Please telephone to make an appointment and out team specialist will see you within a week of you contacting us – sometimes sooner.
12 Steps group programme
Our goal is to create an all inclusive, affirming, non judgmental community at these workshops – a community where all are welcome to explore recovery, faith, hope, healing, doubts and fears in order to better understanding unconditional love and to have a spiritual experience as a result of working and practicing the 12 steps of recovery. These sessions include also an introductory set of workshops intended for beginners who are new to 12 steps programmes.
Understanding the nature and psychological impacts of addiction on PIRs and other family members
One to One Counselling
We also assist you with developing effective coping strategies that enable you to confront the burden of being human and have a meaningful and productive life.
All recovery group approach (eg. Sex, alcohol, gambling, drugs, eating disorder, self-harm and family members)
We welcome individuals with various addiction problems. It is an open group, where experiences are shared. The “all-recovery group” concept is both effective and fills a gap, we believe, in service provision. All-recovery groups” welcome 12-Step, Christian-based, methadone, medically assisted, co-occurring, family members, and community members or, if you prefer, all non-denominational groups! But their main purpose is to provide an opportunity for people to come in and talk about recovery.
Peer recovery group
Initially, we were hesitant about offering peer recovery support groups as a means of supporting long-term recovery because we believed people should use existing available resources, such as AA and NA membership. However, we have found a need for an “all-recovery group”. We have been using this all-recovery group approach in Wales for the past 2 years and we’ve found that it works. Including family members and all other addictions and harmful behaviours in the “all-recovery group” approach completes the picture, we feel, as we help each other identify and explore distorted beliefs that have been developed to irrationally justify our instincts.
Family members support group
Family members are often affected by the individual’s addiction issues and it is important for them to know that they are not alone in this situation. This group provides a space for mutual support and encouragement, and offers an opportunity to learn useful strategies to cope with the problems and difficulties addiction causes.
Love & Sex: Consider seeking help if you answer “yes” to any of the following questions…
Do you neglect responsibilities and commitments such as work, family or health in order to engage in sexual or romantic activity?
Do you often think or obsess about sex or romance even if you don’t want to?
Do you engage in one-night stands and/or had affairs outside of your primary relationship?
Do you have more than one relationship on the go at the same time, or feel you need to continuously be in a relationship?
Do you use saunas, massage parlours or pay for sex?
Do you masturbate to the point of physical injury or exhaustion and/or in public places including your car?
Do you spent hours viewing or obtaining pornography whether the material be in magazines, on the internet, on the television or DVDs?
Do you have a stash of pornographic material (whether this takes the form of magazines, DVDs or files on your hard drive)?
Do you loose or damage your relationships because of your sexual behaviour?
Do you find, or could find yourself in trouble with the police because of your behaviour?
Call today
Call today for a confidential chat and professional assessment if you feel you may have a problem with love & sex 02920 407 407
Alternatively, you may prefer to ring the Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous (UK) Helpline number: 07951 815 087 (calls charged at local rate)
The Living Room Cardiff provides various substance misuse services across Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, including:
1. Admitting we have a problem (the evidence is all around us)
Recognition of addiction as a problem
Gain insight into and confront denial
2. Recognising our need of help (that we can’t do it on our own)
Recognition of need and ability to change
Asking for help
Identifying and managing feelings appropriately
Identification of negative and self-defeating attitudes and behaviours
Choosing to develop new attitudes and behaviours
Establish hope
Begin self-worth building
Development of spirituality
3. Get to know ourselves – warts and all (fully comprehending our true condition)
Rigorous self-examination – life story (individual work, e.g. anger, shame, guilt, grief, control, transference of addiction)
Preparation for ‘cleaning house’ and letting go of ‘baggage’ (mini-groups: areas of change, how to change behaviours, options, family, social services)
4. Become risk takers – by becoming vulnerable and accepting our humanness (changing our behaviour patterns)
Deepen awareness of current stage of personal development – wellness plan
Identify personal blocks, self-defeating behaviours / beliefs / feelings
Prioritise changes to be made
Commit to specific changes
Implement changes
Monitor changes
5. Toughening up – and realising that we’re survivors and not victims (imposing positivity on ourselves and setting goals)
Monitor personal progress
Own mistakes and implement change
Continue to deepen awareness of personal assets
Set goals for personal development
Implement plan of action to fulfil personal potential
Relapse prevention assignments
Confirmation of aftercare plans and dates
6. Becoming “givers” instead of “takers” and carrying the message of hope to others (becoming recovery advocates)
Become role model for recovery within peer group
Become active member of chosen Fellowship/s if appropriate
Make positive contribution to wider community activities
Seek employment which makes social and financial contribution to wider society
Ability to manage independent living.
Living Room Cardiff also challenges the following assumptions: People with Addictions don’t recover
Those seeking treatment have too many problems to expect long term recovery
Recovery is distinct from treatment
Those with Mental illness and Addiction can only be addressed in acute care settings
That prevention only needs to happen before treatment
That treatment can only get better if you throw more money at it otherwise you can change very little.
All the services anyone would need meet a diagnostic code and can be billed for
The role of the professional is to direct the care and the client
Recovery is somehow going to undermine professionally driven Treatment
Recovery comes after treatment or one does not need treatment.
Treatment relationships are helping relationships
Treatment programmes exist apart from the community and can’t afford to do outreach
The only requirement for membership of Living Room Cardiff is that you say you’re in recovery or have an interest in recovery
On a biological level – certain brain functions are compromised by the pleasurable and motivational effects of the drug of choice, leading to altered thought processes and dependency.
The dependent person suppresses feelings of love, trust and compassion…
At the level of thought – rationalisations for the behaviour develop as the individual learns that the behaviour temporarily takes away the original pain and shame of using. Strong associations between using and the environment form. These thought processes reinforce physical dependency. However, his rationalisations end up giving him a highly distorted picture of reality, and none more so than the painful feelings which he has suppressed to protect himself from criticism, for in doing so he has suppressed the positive feelings of love, trust and compassion, etc – feelings integral to the formation of healthy relationships.
On a spiritual level, therefore – addictive behaviours break the connections an individual has with his fellow man and the world; closing down his ability to engage in a meaningful way in one’s own development and in relationships. The unbearable feeling of aloneness and self-loathing act as a fuel for the addiction.
Now none of the above would be possible without certain ground rules being adopted by the family as a whole which facilitates the drinking and/or drug taking/or other dependency. They are “Don’t talk”, “Don’t feel”, “Don’t think” – and the reason they are adopted is because it is “not safe” to practice any one of them – to do so would be to threaten the very precarious foundation on which the invidious facade of addiction is built. Interestingly, nobody addresses the problem itself: the using addict or alcoholic, etc.
(We have referred to the alcohol and/or drug dependent person in the masculine form for convenience only and for no other reason.)
Addiction must be viewed as a process that is progressive. Addiction must be seen as an illness – in AA it is described as a three-fold illness: physical, mental/emotional and spiritual; and unless there is adjustment of personality on all three levels, there will be no permanent sobriety; additionally, it is an illness that undergoes continuous development from a definite, though often unclear, beginning towards an end point.
Simply stated, recovery in AA and its relatives (Narcotics Anonymous (NA), The Minnesota Model, Overeaters Anonymous (OA), etc) involves reaching a personal ‘rock bottom’ whereby the alcoholic or addict become motivated enough to stop.
Recovery, AA believes, is made possible through a realisation that only a spiritual experience can conquer alcoholism and involves moving from an external locus of control to an internal one – an experience which is actuated through practise of the 12 Step “suggested” programme of recovery, and which involves:
1. Self examination – alcoholics have to admit defeat,
2. Acknowledgment of faults – they also need to take stock of themselves and confess any defects to another person in confidence,
3. Restitution of wrongs done – they need to make amends for harm done to others and, above all,
4. Constant work with others – they need to practice the kind of giving that has no price tag on it, the giving of themselves to somebody.
AA advocates abstinence and believes, from collective experience, that the illness is characterised by a loss of control. It is the first drink that does the damage by setting off a compulsive need for more. Alcoholics (and addicts in NA) do not say they’ll never drink (or use) again. They stay sober or clean ‘One day at a time’. The 12 Step AA/NA approach is structured, specific, solution-focused, goal-oriented and manual-driven, and is based on behavioural, spiritual, and cognitive principles. It is, as AA itself admits, ‘a programme for living’ – and, as such, is a ‘way of life’ for the lifetime of the recovered alcoholic or addict.
Family members are often deeply affected by the individual’s addiction. Some people even say that addiction is a family illness, as it requires not only the recovery of the addict, but also of the whole family.
This is based on the theory that the family operates as a system, and that any changes in any component part of the system (any family member) affects the whole, and that their attributes (characteristics) can only be understood in the context of that whole. Thus every family member (including the PIR) has to start communicating and reviewing who carries responsibility for what within the “system” and change their behaviour accordingly.
Do you feel like you are walking on eggshells?
We know that caring for someone with addiction requires a lot of strength, as it can make you feel lonely, helpless and frustrated. If you feel like you are walking on eggshells, running out of resources, questioning whether your action is right and need some advice, please do not hesitate to contact us. Here are some helpful suggestions that have been provided by Stafell Fyw Caerdydd/Living Room Cardiff’s family members. It will be a great comfort to you to know that you are not alone and that there are others who are experiencing similar problems and can share their experience, strength and hope with you.
Meetings on Thursday at 7pm – 8.30pm and Sunday at 6pm -7.30pm.