Raising Awareness

What can we do to raise awareness about addiction recovery?

First and foremost, if you're a recovering addict, you can lead by example. Show the world what quality recovery looks like. Show the world you aren't ashamed to be in recovery, and that no one should be ashamed to fight this disease and win! This is a battle worth rallying for.

Wear your turquoise! The turquoise ribbon represents addiction recovery and advocacy. Buy a cheap spool of ribbon and wear your colors with pride. Get your family and friends to wear turquoise ribbons too. Get everyone involved in the fight. More people really need to get out there and raise awareness and advocate. If you survived addiction, if your loved one survived addiction, or if your loved one lost the battle, get out there and fight for him or her. We especially have to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.

Join a walk or an organization. A Pennsylvania organization called PRO-ACT holds an annual recovery walk in Philadelphia to raise funds and awareness for addiction recovery. NAMI (the National Alliance for Mental Illness) holds walks every year in almost every state, and addiction is a mental illness. Join NAMA Recovery (the National Advocates for Medication-Assisted Recovery). NAMA-R actually has a training program you can complete to become a certified Methadone Advocate. Joining an advocacy group gives you a link to other resources and a network of other people fighting for the same cause.

Donate time or money. If you're as broke as I am, then you probably don't have money to donate, but your time is just as important, maybe more so. Volunteering your time to help suffering addicts or to advocate for recovery is essential. If you have the time, volunteer for your local outreach program. Go to your local treatment facility and ask what they need. Rally to collect toiletries for your local detox center or inpatient facility. Help raise funds for your local treatment clinics, or make a donation, and remember that every bit is helpful, and genorosity is contagious.

Keep up on current issues and research. Make sure you know what's going on in the world of addiction recovery. Is your state trying to put limits on assisted treatment? Is there a new evidence-based treatment you'd like to see in local treatment centers? You need to know these things so you can advocate and fight discrimination against addiction recovery. Write to your legislatures and create petitions when addicts are treated unfairly. Fight for parity for addiction treatment. Fight against unlawful zoning ordinances that target treatment clinics. If no one fights, no one wins. We know recovery benefits everyone, not just the addict, but does your community know that? Does your community know it costs taxpayers ten times more to incarcertate an addict than it does to treat them?

Advocacy is so important to addiction recovery. Support really matters, and awareness does make a difference. We can give hope to a suffering addict or help a loved one understand that addiction is a disease. Our voices can stop communities from discriminating against new treatment clinics and help get the funding needed to help addicts recover. Addiction is a serious, chronic disease. It's time we start taking treatment seriously and fight for the quality treatment suffering addicts deserve.