Mobilize Recovery is a nationwide recovery initiative, supported by Facebook and spearheaded by The Voices Project. The initiative’s goal is simple: to create a network of people who are passionate about recovery and motivated to get involved in grassroots efforts to end the drug epidemic. Although our national public health crisis surrounding addiction started decades ago,...Read More

Addiction is a mental health disorder. Substance use disorder (SUD) is classified as a chronic mental condition, yet the stigma of addiction is so severe that people with SUD are often excluded from the national conversation on mental health. All mental health conditions, including addiction, must be a priority for policymakers. We need real action...Read More

I pulled my car over to the side of the road off of Cicero Avenue right before the on ramp to highway 270 in Chicago. The West side of Chicago and this stretch of Highway was one of the first roads in America to earn the name Heroin Highway and rightly so, since before my...Read More

I am Amanda. I am 29 years old. I work full-time as an Employment Counselor to adults and adolescents. I have an awesome family and friends, an amazing boyfriend, and an adorable English Bulldog. Between the ages of 15-20, I had a severe opioid use disorder. September 2017 will mark 10 years of sustained remission...Read More

I struggled with a severe poly-substance use disorder for over ten years. In my years trying to get clean, I was taught that I wouldn’t find sobriety unless I went to 12 Step Groups, got on medication assistance, and went to rehab. Those were the solutions I was given from professionals, from my family, and...Read More

My name is Randy Anderson and I’m a person in long term recovery. What that means to me is I haven’t had to use drugs or alcohol or any mind or mood altering substance since January 9, 2005. Because of my recovery I’m able to be a husband, a son, an uncle, a brother. I’m able...Read More

I had a privileged upbringing and was blessed to have access to plentiful resources and opportunities as a child and young adult. I have always been an overachiever—achievement and validation were my first addictions, and my entire sense of self was built on my accomplishments. Although addiction runs in my family, I drank alcohol, smoked...Read More

I still remember the first time I ever felt truly free. I was 16, going to the South Florida Fair in my friend Chris’ busted down broham. We were listening to OutKast’s Aquemini and he handed me a blunt. As I smoked, all the worry and concern I had experienced my entire life washed away....Read More

Nearly ten years ago, I stood in a doorway with nothing but a couple trash bags of clothes, a Jeep on a car title loan, and a decision to make. Behind me were fourteen years of obsession and insanity surrounding drugs and whatever I had to do to get them. Fourteen years of putting those...Read More

At the end, there were only two things I cared about: the bag of heroin on my glass topped coffee table, and the cell phone next to it. They were my two life lines. After a decade of abusing opiates, I couldn’t stop using heroin. I was psychologically, physically, and emotionally dependent on it. My...Read More