International Recovery Day 2026: Celebrating Recovery
To mark International Recovery Day on 30 September, ISSUP Global, in collaboration with the Recovered Users Network (RUN), presents a webinar dedicated to celebrating recovery from substance use disorders and amplifying recovery voices.
Date: Wednesday, 30th September, 2026
Time: 2 PM London | 9 AM ET
At the heart of the webinar will be people and their experiences. Through a series of short personal testimonies, speakers from different backgrounds will share what recovery means to them, what supported their journey, the challenges they have overcome, and what they would like professionals and wider society to understand about recovery.
Rather than focusing primarily on formal presentations, the webinar will create space for authentic recovery voices and human stories. The testimonies will demonstrate that there is no single experience or pathway to recovery and will highlight the importance of hope, relationships, peer support, community, identity, purpose and belonging.
Several contributors will also bring both lived experience of recovery and professional experience in the substance use and recovery field. Their reflections will illustrate how lived experience can become a source of knowledge, leadership and professional expertise and how recovery voices can strengthen services, programmes, research and policy.
The webinar will celebrate the achievements and contributions of people in recovery while reinforcing a simple but important message: recovery is possible. It will also encourage professionals and organisations to recognise people with lived experience not simply as recipients of services, but as partners whose knowledge and perspectives can contribute to the development of recovery-oriented systems.
Intended audience:
- Treatment and recovery professionals
- Peer workers and recovery coaches
- People with lived experience and recovery advocates
- Civil society and recovery organisations
- Researchers and academics
- Policymakers and service planners
- Students and early-career professionals
- Family and community representatives interested in recovery
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the webinar, participants will:
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Recognise recovery as a diverse and individual process that may involve multiple pathways and forms of support.
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Identify the importance of hope, human connection, peer and community support, identity, belonging and purpose in supporting recovery.
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Describe how first-person recovery narratives can contribute to greater understanding of recovery and help challenge stigma and negative assumptions about people affected by substance use disorders.
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Recognise lived experience as a valuable form of knowledge that can contribute to recovery-oriented practice, services, research and policy.
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Reflect on ways professionals and organisations can create meaningful opportunities for people with lived experience to contribute to the design and delivery of recovery-related initiatives.
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Develop a greater understanding of the human experience behind treatment and recovery systems and the importance of seeing the person beyond their substance use history.
Presenter:
Joanna Travis Roberts
Chief Executive, International Society of Substance Use Professionals (ISSUP).
Boro Goic
Chairperson, Recovered Users Network (RUN),
Tracey Ford
Tracey Ford is a writer, author, recovery advocate, and Operations and Development Manager based in Sheffield. Combining professional expertise with her own lived experience of recovery, she leads and supports initiatives focused on homelessness, substance misuse, community safety, and social inclusion. Tracey chairs the Sheffield Recovery Forum, advises the national CLERO Board, and serves as a Director of Recovery Games. She is a passionate champion of recovery, co-production, and the power of lived experience to inspire change www.haveawordwithyourself.co.uk
Ann Mathu
Recovery Coach, Dove Mental Hospital. Representative, Global Recovery Network (GRN).
Boomer Rose
Co-Founder and Head of Federal Health and Human Services Division, The PRR Group.
Samuel Bettiol
Director of Institutional Relations at Freemind Brasil, having participated in more than 40 events related to the theme. Operational responsible for 8 international congresses and various activities related to prevention. Specialist in drug use prevention, certified by the INEP+ program and by the Drug Prevention Course in Schools and Communities given by the UTRIP Institute. Being one of the seven chosen to compose the ISSUP Advisory Committee and appointed its chair. Certificate in Online Training of the UPC 10 and Claremont Graduate University Advanced Certificate of Media Based Prevention Science. Participation in training for trainers on the Youth Engagement in Prevention curriculum developed by Colombo Plan together with OEACICAD.
Moderator:
Dr. Mulka Nisic
Dr Mulka Nisic holds a PhD in Business, Law and Social Sciences specialising in Criminology and Social Justice, and an MSc in Desistance from Crime. Her work focuses on the intersection of substance use and drug related offending, with particular attention to the social and structural factors shaping vulnerability to substance use, crime involvement, as well as pathways toward resilience, recovery, and desistance.
She currently serves as Faith and Youth Project Coordinator at the International Society of Substance Use Professionals (ISSUP), where she leads global activities under the Faith and Youth Workplan aimed at strengthening the workforce in delivering community and faith-based responses to substance use as well as supporting youth engagement, professional capacity building of early career professionals, and cross-regional and global knowledge exchange.
References
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Eddie, D., Hoffman, L., Vilsaint, C., Abry, A., Bergman, B., Hoeppner, B., Weinstein, C., & Kelly, J. F. (2019). Lived experience in new models of care for substance use disorder: A systematic review of peer recovery support services and recovery coaching. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, Article 1052. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01052
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Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2012). SAMHSA’s working definition of recovery: 10 guiding principles of recovery (PEP12-RECDEF). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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World Health Organization & United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (2020). International standards for the treatment of drug use disorders: Revised edition incorporating results of field-testing. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/international-standards-for-the-treatment-of-drug-use-disorders
Webinars and online events delivered and hosted by the International Society of Substance Use Professionals (ISSUP) are provided for informational purposes only. They are educational in nature and do not constitute medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.