Rowdy is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Social Sciences at University of Stirling. He has worked in the substance misuse field for over forty years and, prior to his university work, he was the director and co-founder of the Lifeline Project; an organisation he helped to establish in the early 1970s as a recovered heroin addict. He has published widely on addiction issues; including an edited book (with Barbara Rawlings) on drug-free therapeutic communities; a member’s manual on therapeutic community theory and practice; and an edited collection (with Margaret Malloch) on recovery and ways out of addiction. In 1994 he was awarded the MBE for services to the prevention of drug addiction.
He is the current Executive Director of EWODOR (the European Working Group on Drugs Oriented Research) and Honorary Vice President of the EFTC (European Federation of Therapeutic Communities).