The UKās leading addiction campaign, Taking Action On Addiction, begins its 2025 week of action on 23 November. Created by the Forward Trust and launched by their Royal Patron, The Princess of Wales, the campaign is focused on getting the nation to talk about addiction. It highlights that addiction affects millions of people in families, workplaces, and communities, yet stigma and silence still stop many from asking for help.
This dedicated week is the start of a renewed year round effort to show that open conversations can replace stigma with understanding, judgement with empathy, and silence with support. Throughout the week, the campaign will share new research on public understanding of addiction, run events celebrating the resilience of people in recovery, host employer forums on best practice, and bring community activities to life across the Forward Trust network. Spotlight stories will further show why open dialogue is so important and how it can change attitudes.
Forward Trust chair Tony Adams MBE opened this yearās campaign by emphasising his hope that Addiction Awareness Week 2025 will help the country talk about addiction so that more people can access the help they need. He underlined the importance of creating a culture where anyone can speak openly, whether they are seeking support themselves, standing by a loved one, or helping shape better workplaces and communities. He also reflected on his own experience of deciding to talk openly about alcohol addiction, calling it the best decision he ever made.
At the heart of this yearās message is a simple idea. Addiction thrives in silence. Recovery begins with conversation. The campaign invites people to share their own stories under the theme The Conversation That Changed Everything, reminding us that even one moment of honesty can help someone else begin their recovery journey. The call is clear. Share your story, start a conversation, and help change a life.
Find more from https://takingactiononaddiction.org.uk/ (UK; November 2025)
Alcohol Awareness 
People should not be ashamed of their substance addiction, but they also should not give in to it by completely giving up on any potential for eventual sobriety or perhaps a reduction in their consumption of the health-hazardous substance.
Still, the unfortunate fact about self-medicating is: the greater the induced euphoria or escape one attains from it, the more one wants to repeat the experience; and the more intolerable one finds their non-self-medicating reality, the more pleasurable that escape will likely be perceived. In other words: the greater oneās mental pain or trauma while not self-medicating, the greater the need for escape from one’s reality ā all the more addictive the euphoric escape-form will likely be.
Typically, societally overlooked is that intense addiction usually doesnāt originate from a bout of boredom, where a person consumed recreationally but became heavily hooked on a (self)medicating substance that eventually destroyed their life and even those of loved-ones. Especially when the substance abuse is due to past formidable mental trauma, the lasting solitarily-suffered turmoil can readily make each day an ordeal unless the traumatized mind is medicated.
Too often the worth(lessness) of the substance abuser is measured basically by their āproductivityā or lack thereof. They may then begin perceiving themselves as worthless and accordingly live and self-medicate their daily lives more haphazardly.
Addictions and addicts are still largely perceived by sober society as being products of weak willpower and/or moral crime. At the same time, pharmaceutical corporations have intentionally pushed their own very addictive and profitable opiate resulting in immense suffering and overdose death numbers ā indeed, the real moral crime! ā and got off relatively lightly and only through civil litigation!
A very long time ago, I, while sympathetic, would look down on those who had āallowedā themselves to become addicted to hard drugs or alcohol. Although Iāve not been personally or familially affected by the opioid overdose crisis, I suffer enough unrelenting PTSD symptoms (etcetera) to know, enjoy and appreciate the great release by consuming alcohol or THC.
In the book (WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing) he co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Bruce D. Perry (M.D., Ph.D.) writes in regards to self-medicating trauma, substance abuse and addiction:
āFor people who are pretty well-regulated, whose basic needs have been met, who have other healthy forms of reward, taking a drug will have some impact, but the pull to come back and use again and again is not as powerful. It may be a pleasurable feeling, but youāre not necessarily going to become addicted. Addiction is complex. But I believe that many people who struggle with drug and alcohol abuse are actually trying to self-medicate due to their developmental histories of adversity and trauma.ā
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