Taking Action On Addiction | A campaign website to bring more understanding and help reduce the stigma surrounding addiction

The UK's leading addiction awareness and recovery campaign

Taking Action on Addiction's history

Launched by our Patron, The Princess of Wales in 2021, the Taking Action On Addiction (TAOA) campaign aims to reframe the perceptions of addiction.

Since then, we’ve campaigned tirelessly to help make sure addiction is understood more compassionately and more accurately.

Through our polling, national and regional events and media work, we share our knowledge and expertise to give a voice to all those we support.

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Our aims

Our year-round national campaign focuses on...

Raising awareness about addiction and hose commonplace it is.
Drug and alcohol addictions primarily, but it also explores gambling and phone and sex addictions.
Promoting the support available - remembering recovery IS possible.
Developing a better understanding of the nature of addiction to everyone.
Championing our recovery community through events and online action.
Campaigning and lobbying to influence change in policy.

Our partners

Taking Action on Addiction is a national campaign. It's brought together by the combined work of nine charities with a shared ambition to raise awareness about addiction and recovery.

Led by The Forward Trust, the eight partner charities are...

Amy Winehouse Foundation
Faces and Voices of Recovery (FAVOR)
Kaleidoscope
Music Support
Nacao
Phoenix Futures
Steps2Recovery
Visible Recovery

Visit Partners page

Our values

We believe that addiction is a serious mental health condition and there is a clear need for increased access to treatment so that recovery can be possible for everyone.

Led by The Forward Trust in collaboration with eight partner charities, our mission is to change the perception of addiction in society. Once seen as a condition of moral weakness, our campaign emphasises the need to consider addiction as a serious but treatable mental health condition.

Anyone can be affected by addiction – as you can see through our ambassadors' stories, case studies and news articles - and everyone deserves the help they need to overcome it.

The scale of addiction

Based on our last Ipsos Mori poll in 2023, we sampled 2,000 people aged between 18-75 in the UK and found that:

1,062 adults (53%) have experienced addiction or dependency or know someone who has.
813 adults (41%) know someone close to them who has experienced addiction or dependency.
468 adults (23%) know a family member who experienced an addiction or dependency.

Our new poll in 2024 will provide an even more in-depth look into how addiction is affecting individuals, their families and loved ones in ways that are not always openly discussed in society owing to the unrelenting stigma associated with addiction.

Through our polling data, we are able to supercharge our campaigns using real data about real people’s lives.

Get involved

By sharing our social media content, by donating and signing up to our mailing list, by reading (and sharing) our case studies, you will support the great ambitions that drive Taking Action on Addiction (TAOA).

About Us