Harness, support, strengthen, develop

As the largest global social movement for development through alcohol prevention, we are uniting, strengthening and empowering civil society to tackle alcohol and other drugs as serious obstacles to development on personal, community, societal and global level.

We work heart-driven for transformative change. We are passionate about daily action to create communities where everyone can thrive. We are driven by the goal to achieve development for all, everywhere.

  • We harness the potential of every human being by developing life skills, critical thinking, a sense of self-esteem and the capacity to engage in the community and society at large.
  • We support families by providing help to treat and overcome alcohol and other drug use disorders affecting the user as well as other family members.
  • We strengthen communities by providing safe and enabling environments where people of all ages, and especially children and youth can live up to their full potential.
  • We develop societies by advocating population-level policy solutions to prevent and reduce harm caused by alcohol and other drugs.

We inspire, unite, and lead the global movement to tackle harmful substances as obstacles to sustainable development, comprising all aspects and a diverse range of stakeholders

  • We create and promote a common narrative for the movement to tackle harmful substances as obstacle to development and elevate voices of affected people and communities.
  • We convene a diverse range of stakeholders and we foster coalition-building across the fields of prevention, recovery and sobriety as well as policy advocacy.
  • Continue to grow its membership on all continents

Advocacy

We lead global advocacy to hold UN agencies and governments accountable to fulfill their political commitments especially those enshrined in the Agenda 2030, in the WHO Global NCDs action plan and in the WHO Global Alcohol Strategy.

We work towards a legally binding international treaty on alcohol.

We build capacity for and guide regional, national and local advocacy for Human Rights-based and evidence-based policy solutions.

We partner with decision-makers to enable implementation and enforcement of the alcohol policy best buy solutions.

We catalyze dialogue about and elevate the visibility of alcohol policy solutions within high-level global and regional political processes across policy areas.

We support the delivery of WHO and other UN agency commitments to prevent and reduce harm from alcohol and other drugs.

Community support

Our community support has two dimensions:

  1. We foster citizenship and community engagement at the grass-roots level.
  2. We provide support, counseling and recovery services to people affected by alcohol and other drugs.

We foster citizenship and community engagement at the grass-roots level

We strengthen and utilize the capacity of community experts and grass-roots activists and their civil society partner organizations and alliances at local, national and regional levels.

We empower joint action, facilitate capacity development, stimulate global exchange and serve as a training ground for workshops and sharing of good practices.

We provide a comprehensive portfolio of capacity development services including tools and guidance documents, technical assistance, training workshops, seed grant programs, networking and twinning initiatives;

We design tools and trainings and implement events to galvanize best practice implementation.

We provide support, counseling and recovery services to people affected by alcohol and other drugs.

We work to enable comprehensive screening, early identification and brief interventions as well as treatment availability for all to foster recovery for everyone affected by substance use problems.

We advocate for greater investment in community-based services such as mental health care and others.

We protect and promote the right of people suffering from substance use disorder to access treatment, fully recover and inte- grate in the society.

We protect and promote the right of children from families with parental substance use problems to receive help and support and to grow up in healthy and safe environments.

We work to establish a global coalition for early screening and brief interventions.

We enhance our members’ ability to support people in overcoming substance use problems by fostering best practice exchange and support for scaling up of best practices for our membership to reach and help more vulnerable children, adolescents and youth.

We mobilize and empower communities for mutual help work, including self-help groups and family clubs.

Discourse analysis

We work to increase public awareness and recognition of the real effects of alcohol.

We support research on alcohol and other drugs and effective prevention, treatment and recovery interventions and programs as well as policy solutions and foster its translation into action.

We develop influential papers, reports and publications with strategic civil society and academic partners exploring different aspects of and solutions for harm caused by alcohol and other drugs.

We flip the script on alcohol!

  • We question illogical and unfair advantages attached to alcohol use, counter-act out the alcoholization of all social events and challenge the glamorization of alcohol.
  • We question the cultural construct of alcohol and its promoted effects and foster immunization against alcohol myths.

Way of life

We stand for the way of life of the 21st century. We promote Human Rights and social justice with our daily lifestyle choices to help build a world of peace and democracy where human dignity is enjoyed by all.

We promote the attractiveness and the benefits of alcohol-free choices.

We work to end the stigma attached to alcohol-free choices by flipping the script and communicating the positive effects of these choices.

We tell the stories of people from around the world living free from alcohol and other drugs.

We promote the right of children, adolescents and youth to grow up in alcohol-free environments.

We work to increase the availability of alcohol-free environments in communities around the world.

We run World Alcohol-Free Day on October 3 and the World Sober Summit.

Big alcohol exposed campaign

We work to monitor, expose and counter-act the economic forces that promote alcohol use and that profit from related harm.

We safeguard democratic institutions and public policy processes against undue influence of the alcohol industry and expose potential conflicts of interest.

We expose harmful tactics by collecting, curating, presenting and spreading examples and case stories of unethical alcohol industry practices.

We debunk myths, increase corporate literacy, and create public discourse about alcohol industry tactics and practices.