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CDARS at 40
CDARS at 40
You Are Not Alone - Celebrating Recovery Month & Four Decades of Community
You Are Not Alone - Celebrating Recovery Month & Four Decades of Community
An event hosted by CDARS celebrating four decades of support in the community for those facing the challenging journey of recovery from substance abuse and mental health issues.
When: 14:00-17:00 Wednesday 10th September, 2025
Where: Everyday Church, 30 Queen's Road, Wimbledon, SW19 8LR
Join us at Everyday Church Wimbledon for a special in-person celebration marking Recovery Month and 40 years of CDARS. This milestone event is a chance to reconnect, reflect, and celebrate the journey we’ve walked together—from our roots to the vibrant community we are today.
Whether you’ve been part of CDARS from the beginning or have only just joined us, you are warmly invited. This is a day for everyone touched by the power of recovery and community. You are not alone—we’re in this together.
What to Expect:
What to Expect:
Presentation by Franco Toma, CDARS' CEO, "40 Years of Recovery Stories: The Power of Lived Experience"
Keynote Presentation by Dorothy Smith, CEO of Recovery Connections—a powerful voice for lived experience in recovery
Special Guest Speaker - Ian Bickerton re-counts the story of CDARS founder, his mother, Dorothea Bickerton
Client Photography Exhibition showcasing powerful personal perspectives
Live Choir Performance led by Sally Martin-Brown, Music Director, to lift our spirits and celebrate unity
Client Graduation Ceremony honoring resilience, growth, and new beginnings
Food & Refreshments served throughout the event
Let’s celebrate the past, embrace the present, and look forward to the future—together.
Forty years ago, organisations to support families facing the devastation of drug or alcohol addiction did not exist. Families were simply left to fend for themselves, figuring out as best they could how to deal with seemingly irresolvable issues of addiction and the irreparable damage they caused. For Dorothea Bickerton that hopeless, helpless predicament proved the catalyst for change.
In 1985 she founded what was then one of the UK’s first support groups, and which is today CDARS, a leading resource for those suffering drug and alcohol addiction. You Are Not Alone tells her story. It pulls no punches in recounting in harrowing detail her journey from the depths of despair as her eldest son David battled alcohol and drug dependency, to her trailblazing work in establishing a support network that would provide tangible real-time help to hundreds of families in similar tragic circumstances. It is a story of hope and courage; of how one mother turned helplessness into action to aid others battling one of society’s biggest and least understood crises. Twenty years after Dorothea first published her story, this revised and updated edition of her book recognises that her work is far from finished and that the support offered by the agency that she founded almost 40 years ago to help families battling drug, alcohol, and mental health issues is as relevant and as crucial as ever.
"Many other books on the subject, and many clinical centres, treat the addict as a statistic rather than as an individual who is suffering deeply. By contrast, Dorothea brought a sincere and heartfelt authenticity to rehabilitation and substance abuse recovery, believing that each addict should be treated with dignity, empathy, compassion, kindness, and respect. It is an ethos that lives on in CDARS.”
Franco Toma, CEO, CDARS
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