This September during National Recovery Month, L.A. CADA reminds you that “Recovery is for Everyone”. It’s for your neighborhood, your family, and it’s for you, too.

Every September, National Recovery Month increases awareness and understanding of mental health and substance use disorders and encourages people in need of treatment and recovery services to seek help. Recovery Month also celebrates individuals living lives in recovery and recognizes the dedicated workers who provide the prevention, treatment, and recovery support services that help make recovery possible.

Why is recovery for everyone? Because it benefits everyone. In recovery, we build new connections to ourselves, our families, and our communities. The 2021 National Recovery Month theme, “Recovery is for Everyone: Every Person, Every Family, Every Community” reminds people in recovery – and those who support them – that recovery belongs to all of us. We are called to welcome everyone to recovery by lowering barriers to recovery support, creating inclusive spaces and programs, and broadening our understanding of what recovery means for people with different experiences.

There are as many pathways to recovery as there are people. Diversity is our strength and because of that, the recovery community has unique opportunities to learn, challenge, grow, and dream. By expanding traditional, limited conceptions of recovery (which have centered on white, heterosexual, cisgender, religious, wealthy perspectives), we enrich everyone’s experience. Mental health and substance use disorders are not one-size-fit all. And they don’t affect everyone equally. Culturally responsive, multilingual resources, and gender-expansive treatment programs are now including LGBTQ+, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), and other historically marginalized community members and designing services to meet their needs.

Looking beyond our individual experiences strengthens and supports recovery in all its forms. The recovery community has a powerful foundation of mutual aid, peer support, and adaptability. As we grow in empathy and understanding, we save lives by adding protective factors and building resiliency. When we connect with open minds and hearts, we learn from one another and create life-saving opportunities.

Check out: The National Recovery Month website