This year's Rally for Recovery will be on September 20, 2008. There will be over 80 events across the country this year.

We are coming together to put a face and a voice on recovery, celebrate recovery and to demonstrate the reality of long-term recovery from addiction as people in recovery, families, friends and allies. We are coming together to promote policies that will end discrimination facing people in or seeking recovery and to build an organized constituency of consequence.

Our 2008 advocacy activity is Recovery Voices Count! a nonpartisan civic engagement campaign. Here are some ideas for ways that you can use Recovery Voices Count! And, it's not too late to invite elected officials and candidates for public office to your event!

We encourage you to set up an Advocacy Action Area - to have a specific place where you can encourage and engage people to take action for recovery. At last year's "hub event" at Liberty State Park in New Jersey, participants registered to vote and emailed their elected officials calling for an end to insurance discrimination. These advocacy activities motivate people to get involved in recovery advocacy activities all year long.

Thanks to recovery advocates in Missouri and Illinois for hosting this year's "hub event" at Hands Across the Bridge at Chain of Rocks Bridge in St. Louis. A broad-based coalition of advocates has been meeting and planning this event for months and we're pleased that Louis Gossett, Jr. will be the guest speaker. (If you live around New York City, mark your calendar for a Recovery Rally at the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday, September 27.) 

We will release The Recovery Bill of Rights in St. Louis and encourage you to use it at your event and other Recovery Month activities.

Help us raise the national profile of the recovery community and publicize our growing recovery movement by sending us photos of your Rally for Recovery. Email your pictures with a caption identifying each person in your picture and where it was.

Email Faces & Voices National Field Director Tom Coderre to join other advocates on monthly organizing calls to share tips for holding a successful Rally.

See the website for Organizing Tips, the Recovery Advocacy Toolkit, and more resources.