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Celebrating Abbeycare’ s 20th birthday is the moment to reflect that it’ s the people who make the organisation, says CEO Paul Bowley
In recovery, milestones matter. A day, a week, 30 days, a year. Each one is marked sincerely and with hope, because each one is proof that another way of living your life is possible. This month I’ m proud to say that Abbeycare is marking a milestone of our own, as we celebrate our 20th anniversary. I’ ll be honest: we’ ve never been particularly good at talking about ourselves. We’ d much rather quietly get on with the job of improving our services, supporting our staff, working alongside other organisations who share our philosophy, and helping people rebuild their lives. Ultimately, our success isn’ t measured by what we say, it’ s measured by the lives that are changed for the better. But 20 years feels like a moment worth pausing on, if only because of how far we’ ve come, growing into one of the UK’ s leading providers of residential rehabilitation for people with substance use issues.
In 2006, Abbeycare was formed in Scotland as a sixbed service at Brownhill House in North Ayrshire, with the aim of helping people recover from alcohol addictions. Liam Mehigan, our operations director, has been with the organisation since those early days.
‘ When I first joined Abbeycare, it only had one manager and a few support workers,’ he recalls.‘ As well as their caring responsibilities, the staff were also expected to take out the bins and do the dishes. Starting from these very small, humble origins, it has grown into a much more professional organisation. Now we’ ve got so many different departments, covering admissions to outreach, and teams of recovery practitioners and therapists and clinicians.
It’ s become a much more multidisciplinary service. But what it has never lost is that sense of being part of the community and giving something back.’
Building on the success of that first six-bed house, Abbeycare opened a second premises at nearby Monkredding House in 2013, the same year that it took its first steps into England by opening another rehab facility at Newmarket in Suffolk. In 2015 we relocated to the grand Murdostoun Castle in North Lanarkshire, which was originally built in the 15th century. It was a remarkable building in a tranquil location, and gave us the space to expand and start treating people with drug issues and other substance use problems, not just alcohol.
A few years later, Liam was out walking his dog when he spotted a‘ for sale’ sign outside Erskine Mains House, a purpose-built care facility which was previously used as a home for veterans. In 2021, Abbeycare Scotland moved there and that is where we’ ve stayed.
Our English service, meanwhile, became Abbeycare Gloucester in 2019 and continues to be based at Hygrove House in Minsterworth, a country retreat in a peaceful setting. Between our sites on both sides of the border, we now employ more than 130 staff.
It’ s wonderful to reflect that over the past 20 years, thousands of people have come through our doors, thousands of lives have been changed, and thousands of families have been given more time with someone they love.
Around half of our staff are in longterm recovery themselves, often deciding that they would like to pursue careers in the sector after taking part in our volunteering or mentoring initiatives. One example is Emma Harrison, who joined our peer support programme in Erskine six months after completing a 12-week stay at Abbeycare. She was assigned as a contact for people who were about to leave, using her own experience to guide them through this tricky period. She then moved onto our volunteering programme, where
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24 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • OCTOBER 2026 WWW. DRINKANDDRUGSNEWS. COM