Mark is the North West Regional Manager of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse in England. Mark has a first degree in Organisation Theory and a MA in the study of Drugs, Crime and Social Deviance. Mark has been working with problem drug users since the 1970s. In 1984 Mark was a Research Associate investigating Heroin Use and Young People in the North of England. In 1985 Mark joined The Lifeline Project Drugs Advice and Treatment Charity. He stayed at Lifeline for 14 years. He joined the Home Office as a Drugs Advisor in 1999. During the Lifeline years Mark was the manager of one of the first Community Drug Teams in Trafford, Greater Manchester, worked as the North West Regional Drug Prevention Manager and Director of Research. In his work with the Home Office, Mark worked closely with Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council, UK on a matrix approach to social problems including drugs and alcohol. The matrix approach showed clearly how personal and social problems cluster together in particular families in particular neighbourhoods. This experience was to prove invaluable when Mark joined the NTA at its inception, working with Drug and Alcohol Action Teams (DAATs) in Local Authorities to place the drug treatment effort firmly alongside regeneration. Mark believes that we need to regenerate people as well as places. Regeneration and Rehabilitation suggests that there was something there that was lost to addiction. Sadly, for the most socially excluded, addiction often rolled in not that long after puberty. For these people, Recovery from addiction includes learning to be an adult citizen. Recovery means going to work and earning a living, paying bills and doing the right thing by children, family and friends. In short, recovery is a bridge to normal living. Mark returned home to Manchester and the North West in May 2004 to take up his current role as North West Regional Manager for the NTA. Mark established a North West Recovery Forum and is a committed friend, and student of, recovery. Mark’s particular interest in recovery relates to the optimism and hope that recovery offers to those trapped in addiction within a criminal lifestyle. Mark has established Recovery Oriented Integrated Systems (ROIS) of care for drugs and alcohol across the North West region. This work has been heavily influenced by William White.