A National Recovery Month video series from GHAI’s Overdose Prevention Initiative featuring conversations with women whose lives intersect with substance use, recovery, overdose prevention and policy change.
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Women carry a disproportionate share of this crisis. They face higher rates of domestic violence and untreated trauma, both of which raise the risk of substance use disorder. Mothers often the first responders; navigating the emotional and physical challenges of helping their child who needs treatment and can’t help themselves. A woman in long-term recovery may struggle to find work because of gaps in her employment history or following incarceration. The women in this series are advocates, caregivers, clinicians, policy experts and people in recovery. Many are several of those at once.
Throughout National Recovery Month, GHAI's Overdose Prevention Initiative is giving their stories a platform.
drug overdose deaths in the U.S. are among women CDC, 2025
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Up to 80%
of women in treatment for drug use report a lifetime history of sexual or physical trauma NIDA, 2023
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20.7 million
women aged 12 and older (14.3%) in the United States had a past-year substance use disorder NSDUH, 2023
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3 in 4
adults who have ever had a substance use problem report being in recovery SAMHSA, 2025
Why Brave Recovery
Women live this crisis. They rarely lead public conversations about it.
Addiction research, policy debates and public recovery stories have long centered on the male experience or treated women's experiences as secondary. That choice leave too much out of view: caregiving responsibilities, trauma histories, pregnancy and parenting, custody risk, stigma and the long work of rebuilding a life after treatment.
Women often see the policy gaps and failures first. They see the insurance denial before it becomes a hearing topic. They sit on the waitlist before it becomes a workforce statistic. They know when treatment, housing, childcare, transportation and recovery supports do not line up in real life.
Storytelling does not replace research, budgets or legislation. It gives them a human anchor. When a policymaker hears from a mother who lost her daughter to a counterfeit pill, or from a woman in long-term recovery who still hits barriers at work, the numbers stop feeling hypothetical and that is where better policy conversations begin.
The conversation is missing half the people in it
Why people use, why they seek help, what stands between them and treatment. When women's experiences stay hidden, their needs stay underfunded and their care stays underdeveloped.
Caregivers see the gaps before anyone else
A woman trying to help a loved one reach treatment may face insurance denials, waitlists, transportation barriers and recovery deserts long before those failures show up at a policy hearing.
Stigma hits women harder, especially mothers
A mother who asks for help may fear losing her children, facing legal consequences or being judged instead of treated. That fear keeps women isolated and can keep families from effective care.
Recovery takes more than willpower
Long-term recovery depends on treatment access, stable housing, employment, peer support, child care and a community that does not punish people for needing help.
Women have solutions, but we need to ask them
People who have moved through treatment, recovery, caregiving and loss know exactly where systems break. Brave Recovery puts those voices closer to the people who write the rules.
The Series
One month. 12 conversations. Every angle of the crisis.
Across National Recovery Month, Libby Jones, Associate Vice President of the Overdose Prevention Initiative, sits down with women whose lives run through the overdose crisis.
Each conversation looks past the policy debate to the reality behind it: what recovery requires, what families face, what clinicians witness and what better policy could make possible. These are not scare tactics or cautionary tales. They are honest conversations with women who know what is broken and what needs to change.
Each video features unscripted dialogue about substance use, recovery, loss, caregiving, treatment and policy change. New conversations will be added each week throughout National Recovery Month.
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Policy Matters
Recovery does not succeed or fail on willpower alone. It depends on whether a person can get a treatment appointment this month, not six weeks from now.
Whether insurance covers care. Whether there is housing after treatment and a job after recovery. Whether communities still have naloxone, peer support and local services after grant funding ends. Those are policy choices, made through budgets, legislation, agency action and local implementation. They also need advocates to defend them every year.
That is the work of GHAI's Overdose Prevention Initiative. We work with advocates, civil society groups and lawmakers to advance evidence-based policies that expand access to treatment, reduce overdose deaths and remove barriers that make recovery harder than it should be.
Brave Recovery connects personal stories to those policy choices. The women in this series have already shown what the system misses, what it gets right and how much better it could work.
The women featured in Brave Recovery speak about experiences that are too often left out of policy conversations. Sharing their stories helps bring those realities into view.
Use the campaign materials to share Brave Recovery with your community, organization or network.
Resources
For women, families, advocates and communities
Recovery is not something people should have to navigate alone. Families, caregivers and advocates need clear starting points too.
