Today my guest is passionate about many of the same things I am. His specific quest is to help make communities places of recovery, or “recovery-ready” to support folks who have been in treatment for addiction and are returning to their communities, but also, for all the members of a community, because you will see that what he is advocating for, and helping communities do, is to create cohesive, responsive, caring, collaborative places for all of us to get what we need to thrive.
Mark Lefebvre is someone who is definitely working for the greater good. He knows what he needed when he came through his recovery programs and he wants others to have those resources and supports, available.
Mark is in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and he is the author of the book, "Healing a Village:A Practical Guide to Building Recovery Ready Communities". Mark has served on several boards, such as the Seacoast Youth Services, and Step-U Parents, is an advisor at the Pinetree Institute, and he is the co-founder of the Safe Harbour Recovery Centre. He is also a speaker, a music lover and a longtime radio DJ, and a podcaster and podcast producer.
You will love this episode with Mark, whether you are a parent, someone who is interested in how we can work together to improve our neighbourhoods and communities, or if you know someone who is in recovery. Mark is a wealth of information and a gem of a person and storyteller.
Mark and I talk about his book, how he came to write it and why, and who it is written for. We talk about what he defines as a “recovery ready community”, and how a community can work toward this. We talk about prevention and what parents and families can do to help better support their kids, how he has dealt with NIMBYism, what folks get wrong about addiction, how to avoid the troubling issues of silos in community work, the importance for all of us to find what we love to do and gives us joy, and to try and do that as much as we can, and so much more.
You will love this conversation with Mark.
Link for the podcast: It Takes A Village Podcast Series
Link for a signed copy of my book: Signed Book Order Site