Drug & Alcohol Anti Stigma Charter
Promoting understanding, reducing discrimination, fostering inclusivity and supporting recovery
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Anti Stigma Charter
“Everyone knows someone who has been affected by addiction”
Through its Anti-Stigma Initiative, The Warrior Down LERO CIC aims to challenge harmful misconceptions and promote a more compassionate, knowledgeable, and supportive environment for individuals and families affected by addiction.
This initiative, created by individuals with lived experience of stigma, urges organisations, businesses, communities, and individuals to recognise the profound impact of stigma on people facing drug or alcohol-related challenges and the services that support them. It highlights stigma as one of the most significant barriers preventing individuals from accessing the support and treatment they need.
By signing up to the charter, organisations will agree to six key commitments:
Approach individuals who use drugs or alcohol with empathy and without judgment.
Recognise people as unique individuals rather than defining them by their substance use.
Use language that is respectful and free from stigmatising labels or stereotypes.
Highlight positive recovery stories and actively challenge harmful or unfair assumptions about substance use.
This campaign is essential as stigma often prevents individuals from seeking help, exacerbating addiction and its societal costs. By addressing misconceptions and fostering empathy, the campaign can encourage earlier interventions, reduce discrimination, and support recovery. Partnering with a broad spectrum of organisations ensures the message reaches and influences every part of the community.
Educate people and promote the premise that addiction is a health condition not a moral failing. It a condition widely recognised to be physical, mental and social in nature that requires a solution that addresses all these areas.
What can we do together?
Together, we will champion the anti-stigma initiative by collaborating with a wide range of organizations to launch a powerful campaign addressing the stigma surrounding drug use in Westmorland and Furness, and North Lancashire. By providing resources and creating platforms, we aim to amplify this message and inspire meaningful change.
Our journey begins with schools, colleges, and universities, where we will work to dispel misconceptions early and nurture understanding among younger generations. In addition, we’ll partner with healthcare providers, including GPs, mental health services, and treatment centers, to reduce stigma within the medical community, ensuring compassion and support for those affected.
We are committed to connecting with VCFSE community organizations, charities, and faith groups, whose grassroots work directly touches the lives of individuals facing addiction. This approach ensures our campaign has deep, local resonance. Employers and business groups will also play a vital role, helping to challenge workplace stigma and foster inclusive environments for individuals in recovery. Through storytelling and awareness, media outlets—both traditional and digital—will be key allies in humanizing this issue and spreading our message far and wide.
Together, we can build a community of understanding, compassion, and change.
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Chiming directly with the Government’s recent early day motion, our Westmorland and Furness and Lancashire Anti-Stigma Initiative has launched interventions and resources aimed at reducing stigma surrounding addiction. This initiative is designed to:
Decrease addiction-related stigma, including stereotypes, prejudice, and discriminatory attitudes.
Enhance public understanding of addiction as a medical condition.
Encourage supportive behaviours toward individuals with substance use disorders.
Assess community stigma levels to establish a baseline for improvement.
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Addiction remains one of the most highly stigmatised health conditions globally. Stigma prevents people struggling with substance misuse disorders from seeking help and isolates families impacted by addiction, who often fear judgment from their communities.
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Addiction affects over 3 million people in the United Kingdom, (ONS data in the year ending March 2023, indicates approximately 9.5% of people aged 16 to 59 years (around 3.1 million individuals) reported using drugs in the last year (Office for National Statistics). Among young adults aged 16 to 24 years, 17.6% reported drug use in the same period (Office for National Statistics) yet many citizens do not view it as a medical condition. This misconception fuels harmful stereotypes and contributes to stigma, which creates barriers to treatment and support.
Research highlights that many citizens are unwilling to interact closely with individuals experiencing substance use disorders—whether as friends, co-workers, or neighbours. Stigma also drives discrimination across multiple areas, including:
Healthcare: Reducing access to quality treatment.
Criminal Justice: Influencing punitive rather than rehabilitative approaches.
Employment: Limiting job opportunities.
Child Custody: Affecting parental rights.
Housing: Creating obstacles to stable living conditions.
The continuation of these attitudes sustains the misconception of addiction as a moral weakness rather than a manageable medical condition. These perspectives promote discrimination and deepen the isolation of individuals seeking support.
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Through this Anti-Stigma Initiative, we aim to challenge harmful misconceptions and promote a more compassionate, knowledgeable, and supportive environment for individuals and families affected by addiction.
This initiative, created by individuals with lived experience of stigma, urges organisations, businesses, communities, and people to recognise the profound impact of stigma on people facing drug or alcohol-related challenges and the services that support them. It highlights stigma as one of the most significant barriers preventing individuals from accessing the support and treatment they need.
By signing up to the charter, organisations will agree to four key commitments:
Approach individuals who use drugs or alcohol with empathy and without judgment.
Recognise people as unique individuals rather than defining them by their substance use.
Use language that is respectful and free from stigmatising labels or stereotypes.
Highlight positive recovery stories and actively challenge harmful or unfair assumptions about substance use.
This campaign is essential as stigma often prevents individuals from seeking help, exacerbating addiction and its societal costs. By addressing misconceptions and fostering empathy, the campaign can encourage earlier interventions, reduce discrimination, and support recovery. Partnering with a broad spectrum of organisations ensures the message reaches and influences every part of the community.
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Stigma is one of the biggest barriers to recovery for people struggling with drug addiction. It isolates individuals, prevents them from seeking help, and reinforces a cycle of shame, exclusion, and relapse. While addiction is widely recognised as a complex health issue, societal attitudes remain punitive, rooted in outdated notions of moral failure and personal weakness. Changing these perceptions is not just a matter of fairness—it is a necessity for creating a culture of recovery that supports healing, transformation, and reintegration.
This blog explores why tackling stigma is crucial for addiction recovery and how Warrior Down and New Central Media is helping to shift the narrative by amplifying the voices of those with lived experience.
Read the full blog here
Cat Smith - Lancaster MP
Members of Warrior Down LERO met with Cat Smith, MP for Lancaster to discuss the anti-stigma early day motion of which she is a signatory. We talked about how the Warrior Down anti-stigma charter will encourage organisations to sign-up to a number of pledges aimed at reducing stigma and getting more people into treatment.
She raised concerns around the number of alcohol related deaths in the area and is committed to reducing this number; Warrior Down fully supports this initiative, and we look forward to helping her in her efforts. We discussed the key role lived experience could play in both reducing stigma and reducing deaths caused by alcohol and drug use.
Michelle Scrogham - WAF MP
At a recent meeting between Michelle Scrogham MP and Warrior Down managers, we discussed the importance of the anti-stigma early day motion going through parliament and how the Warrior Down LERO Anti Stigma Charter can help in reducing stigma and increasing the number of people seeking help for their addiction.
We laid out our key role in tackling stigma, promoting inclusion, and supporting recovery within the community in Barrow in Furness and its surrounding areas.
We look forward to helping Michelle in community events and have agreed to volunteer for this year's Dickensian Festival.
