Lottery funding supports addiction recovery group

A charity that works with adults suffering with addiction has received nearly £20,000 in National Lottery funding .

Support Through Addiction Recovery (STAR Housing), based in Bristol, provides residential and day care.

The funding will go towards providing therapy, life skills and relapse prevention workshops, among other activities.

"We only started in May of this year and it's just been amazing, our motto is that the secret to living is giving and this funding covers us for the next two years," said Chloe Hollingworth, Co-CEO of STAR Housing.

Ms Hollingworth set up STAR along with her friend Zena Browne after they noticed a lack of abstinence-based support in the area.

"We both have lived experience of going through recovery in Bristol and we'd been discussing how we might be able to give back for a couple of years," she said.

"Eventually we just decided to give this a go and the response has been amazing.

"We recently opened our second residence and one day we hope to have four or five of these in Bristol as well as secondary recovery centres where people can stay more temporarily."

STAR currently supports nine live-in residents at their two homes.

The majority of the lottery funding will go towards running their day programme which is open to non-residents who can self-refer as long as they are currently abstaining from both drugs and alcohol.

The National Lottery raises over £30m every week for charitable causes across the UK.

Follow BBC Bristol on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630.