Anchoring Hope: Standing Together for National Addictions Awareness Week 2025

Each November, communities across Canada come together to mark National Addictions Awareness Week (NAAW), a time to learn, reflect, and take action toward greater understanding and compassion for people experiencing substance use challenges. Led nationally by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA), the week highlights the importance of prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery, while encouraging open dialogue and reducing stigma.

This year’s theme, “Anchoring Hope,” reminds us that hope is what steadies us through uncertainty and connects us. Hope inspires action, strengthens relationships, and fuels the ongoing effort to create healthier, more inclusive communities. Across the country and here at home, organizations and individuals are working together to develop solutions rooted in evidence, compassion, and care.

In British Columbia, the public health emergency declared in 2016 continues to take a devastating toll, with more than 16,000 lives lost to drug overdoses since then. Yet amid this loss, we also see hope reflected in countless stories of resilience, recovery, and community.

At Day One Society, we see hope every day in the courage of people who reach out for help, in families who stand by their loved ones, and in the professionals and peers who offer steady support. Through detox services, counselling, outreach, and recovery programs, we continue to build connections that anchor individuals in dignity, belonging, and healing.

As Siân Lewis, Executive Director of Day One Society, shares,

“National Addictions Awareness Week and the theme Anchoring Hope recalls the importance of staying the course even when the challenge seems insurmountable. Since the public health emergency was declared in April 2016, more than 16,000 people have died from drug overdoses across British Columbia, and still, we continue to see success at Day One Society with people accessing the life-saving services they need, and creating positive change in their lives with the support of family, friends, and professionals in the community. Together, we can make a difference by enhancing services and supports, reducing stigma, increasing awareness about addictions, and creating safer spaces and practices. National Addiction Awareness Week is a call to action for the future, as well as a reminder of the exceptional work that has already been achieved. Let’s stay hopeful and continue to improve people’s health and wellbeing.”

National Addictions Awareness Week is a call to both reflection and action, a reminder that the work of recovery is ongoing and that change is possible when we meet people with compassion and understanding.

Together, through evidence-informed care and genuine human connection, we can continue to anchor hope in our community and create a future where healing and recovery are within everyone’s reach.