For Dora Dantzler Wright, recovery is about keeping people alive long enough for them to understand that healing is possible.
Wright, founder and executive director of the Chicago Recovery Communities Coalition, joined the Shatterproof Walk during National Recovery Month with a message grounded in urgency, compassion and hope.
“We’re walking for recovery to help end stigma for addiction and help to save lives,” Wright said.
Her message goes directly to one of the biggest barriers surrounding addiction: stigma.
For generations, people struggling with substance use disorder have often been judged as if addiction were simply a failure of willpower. Wright believes changing that perception is essential to saving lives.
“Addiction is a disease and it affects one in 10 in every family,” she said.
Why is ending addiction stigma important?
Stigma can cause people to hide what they are experiencing. It can keep someone from reaching out to a family member, entering treatment or acknowledging that they need help.
For Wright, talking openly about addiction creates room for recovery.
Her work also reflects a larger movement toward treating addiction as a health issue while expanding access to treatment, recovery services and lifesaving resources such as naloxone.
Wright pointed to increased naloxone availability as one indication that communities are becoming better equipped to respond to overdose.
“Lives are being lost every day, though the fight is still being fought,” Wright said. “Overdose is reducing. We have more naloxone on the street because we’re saving lives, and that is a good thing.”
But medicine alone cannot provide everything a person needs.
Wright says community matters.
How does community support addiction recovery?
Recovery can be intensely personal, but Wright believes people are stronger when they do not have to walk through it alone.
“Healing is possible and we get strength from others. We get strength from the community,” Wright said. “Community is important and we need to get together, collaborate together and be together to solve this deadly disease.”
That community can take many forms.
It may be a family member who refuses to walk away.
It may be a recovery coach, treatment provider, support group, neighbor or organization that continues showing up when someone is struggling.
It can also be hundreds of people walking together at an event such as the Shatterproof Walk, demonstrating publicly that addiction should not be hidden in shame.
For some participants, the walk represents their own recovery. Others may be walking for a parent, sibling, child or friend. Some carry the memory of someone they lost.
Together, their presence sends a message that recovery deserves to be seen, supported and celebrated.
Is recovery from addiction possible?
Wright’s answer is direct.
“What it means is recovery is possible, and as long as recovery is possible that means we can save lives,” she said.
That belief becomes especially important for people who have experienced relapse or repeated attempts at recovery.
Wright does not believe falling means someone has failed.
Her message to anyone currently struggling is one of the strongest she shared during the conversation.
“Don’t give up. Keep trying. No matter how many times you fall, no matter how many times it happens, continue. Hope is available. We are out here. We’re continuing to fight for you.”
Those words challenge another misconception surrounding recovery — that the process always happens in a straight line.
For many people, it does not.
There can be difficult days, setbacks and moments when progress feels distant. Wright’s message is that a difficult chapter does not have to become the final chapter.
What gives people hope during recovery?
During a rapid-fire portion of the conversation, Wright was asked to name one word that represented hope.
Her answer was simple.
“Life.”
When asked what gives her strength during difficult days, she answered, “Faith.”
Then came one final question.
“Today I’m walking for …”
“Recovery,” Wright said.
One word, but behind it sits an entire world of possibilities: another morning, another conversation, another opportunity to seek treatment and another chance for someone to rebuild their life.
That is ultimately what the Shatterproof Walk represents.
Every conversation about addiction can chip away at stigma. Every person carrying naloxone has the potential to save a life. Every family willing to keep showing up can become part of someone’s support system.
And every person struggling with addiction deserves the opportunity to discover what Wright already knows:
Healing is possible.
Community matters.
And where there is life, there is still hope.