Congratulations to Margaret Walker, joint winner of Adfam's Family Voices Competition 2025, with her brilliant entry "Friends. Just Walking Each Other Home".
Family Voices is Adfam's annual poetry and creative writing competition for anyone with lived experience of a family member’s substance use or gambling. The competition provides an opportunity for family members to share their story ...
Congratulations to Kathleen Bryson, joint winner of Adfam's Family Voices Competition 2025, with her moving entry "Not a Piece of Cake".
Family Voices is Adfam's annual poetry and creative writing competition for anyone with lived experience of a family member’s substance use or gambling. The competition provides an opportunity for family members to share their story and creatively ...
Congratulations to Anna Harforth, joint winner of Adfam's Family Voices Competition 2025, with her amazing entry "Yes, I'm here".
Family Voices is Adfam's annual poetry and creative writing competition for anyone with lived experience of a family member’s substance use or gambling. The competition provides an opportunity for family members to share their story and creatively express their ...
Rachel Pattinson, one of our Adfam Family Voices writers, is the author of award-winning children’s book, Seven: Distracted Detective. Published independently by Aralyn Press, this contemporary novel for children aged 9 – 12 combines an entertaining mystery with a moving storyline about having a parent who drinks.
Dedicated to her Dad, Rachel explains how writing for Adfam led to her win ...
Adfam is thrilled to launch a collection of zines created by individuals whose lives have been touched by addiction within their family.
This follows a series of online storytelling workshops held by Adfam in 2025 for families affected by substance use, led by artist Jolie Goodman. Participants were encouraged to create their own zines as a creative means of sharing their stories. Each ...
Adfam is delighted to support the launch of a new white paper with Clean State Clinic and the University of Sussex, Impact and barriers: a national survey of UK adults on alcohol dependence.
The report presents key new empirical evidence on alcohol harm patterns in the UK and barriers to accessing support, with a strong focus on the harm experienced by families and need for ...
Christmas can be a difficult time for many families affected by substance use. It's important family members take steps to protect and look after themselves and their wellbeing, for more information take a look at Adfam's Tips for Coping at Christmas: https://adfam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Tips-For-Coping-At-Christmas.pdf.
If you need help or support during the Christmas period, ...
The first ever UK clinical guidelines for the treatment of dependence on alcohol have been published by the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC): https://www.gov.uk/guidance/clinical-guidelines-for-alcohol-treatment
These evidence-based guidelines have been developed by DHSC in collaboration with the devolved governments, while groups of both senior clinical experts and ...
On 25th November, Adfam's Chief Executive, Viv Evans, appeared as a panellist at the Nexus LGBTQ+ breakfast meeting at GSK offices in central London, on normalising conversations about addiction, tackling stigma and supporting colleagues at work. Viv along with the other panellists shared their perspectives on what we can all do normalise conversations on addiction, both at work and ...
The Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS) has published new report, A Healthier Future: a long-term vision to tackle alcohol harm in the UK, developed collaboratively with more than 40 leading experts in alcohol policy, research, and treatment.
The alcohol control community has long lacked a shared long-term vision for change. This report fills that gap - setting out clear national targets to ...
Figures released today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveal that 5,565 people died from causes related to drug poisoning in England and Wales in 2024. The number of deaths recorded is a 2.1% increase from 2023, twice as high as it was in 2012, and the highest since records began in 1993.
Every life lost to drugs or alcohol is a tragedy and with every life lost there will be ...
Adfam is delighted to be working with the charity Kinship, to provide a number of free in-person and online workshops for kinship carers, on understanding the effects of drug and alcohol misuse on kinship families.
Kinship carers are family or friends who step up, often during an unexpected crisis, to care for a child when their parents aren’t able to. Many children are in kinship care as ...
Every year at about this time the Government publishes the number of drug related deaths registered in England and Wales in the previous year. The 2024 figures will soon be released and will no doubt be accompanied by a call for more to be done. There will be news items, interviews and editorials and for a few days these deaths will be in the spotlight. Then, inevitably, the news cycle will ...
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has launched a new report, Taking Stock: Counting the Economic Costs of Alcohol Harm, funded by Alcohol Change UK.
The report argues that tackling alcohol harm must be not just a public health priority but an economic one too. Alcohol consumption has large and measurable effects on workforce productivity, increasing both absenteeism and ...
This week (6-12 October) is #KinshipCareWeek, a campaign to celebrate the incredible role that kinship carers play in children's lives and raise awareness of what life is like for kinship families.
Kinship care is when a child lives in the care of a family member, because their parents are not able to care for them. In the UK, there are more than 180,000 children living in kinship ...
Entries for Adfam's Family Voices 2025 competition are now open! Family Voices is an annual poetry and creative writing competition for anyone with lived experience of a family member's substance misuse or gambling. The competition provides an opportunity for family members to share their story and creatively express their thoughts and feelings. Entries can capture both the rawness and ...
Adfam is thrilled to announce that tickets for our Christmas Carol Concert 2025 are now on sale!
When? Wednesday 17th December 2025, 6.45pm
Where? St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London
Tickets: £25 per person - purchase via Adfam's Eventbrite page
Adfam held its first Christmas Carol Concert at St Bride’s Church in 1997, and since then the event has become a key part of our ...
Adfam's Chief Executive Vivienne Evans, is a member of the Women’s Treatment Working Group, a group of women in leadership roles, working together to improve support for women affected by drug and alcohol use. Today the Women's Treatment Working Group launched its Womanifesto, outlining why women in treatment need a distinct approach, with recommendations for the Office for Health ...
Adfam and Collective Voice are excited to announce the launch of a brand-new group, bringing together organisations supporting families affected by substance use and individuals with lived experience, to work together to improve support for affected others.
Substance use has a devastating impact on families and affected others. Organisations supporting these groups play a critical role in ...
Adfam has responded to the Department of Health and Social Care's Men's Health Strategy for England call for evidence. This call for evidence will inform the development of a Men’s Health Strategy for England. It sought the views of the public as well as health and social care professionals, academics, employers and stakeholder organisations. It requested ideas and evidence that the ...