About the community
Search AA, NA and other UK recovery meetings by postcode, town, or fellowship, in person or online. No sign-up. No tracking of who you are. Just the door, the time, and how to get there.
Refuge Recovery is a Buddhist-inspired approach to recovery from addiction of every kind. Instead of the twelve steps it uses the four truths and the eightfold path, with meditation at the centre of every meeting. You do not need to be a Buddhist, and no belief in a higher power is asked of you.
Meetings are free, open to anyone, and treat addiction as something the mind can be trained out of with practice and community.
Refuge Recovery suits people who want a structured, secular-friendly programme built on meditation and mindfulness rather than the step language of AA and NA. Members recover from alcohol, drugs, gambling, food, and other compulsions in the same rooms. Plenty attend alongside a twelve-step fellowship and find the two complement each other.
The UK listings also include Recovery Dharma, a separate peer-led community that grew from the same Buddhist recovery roots in 2019. The practices are similar: meditation, inquiry, and mutual support. Some meetings identify with one, some with the other; if a time suits you, it is worth sitting in on either.
A typical meeting opens with a guided meditation of twenty minutes or so, followed by a reading and sharing. Nobody is made to speak or meditate perfectly; beginners are expected and welcomed. Meetings you can join from the UK run online through the week across time zones.